PLA’s Orient Express - Iron Silk Road
High-speed rail is a powerful "Traffic Warfare" delivery capability, and can rapidly and massively transport ground troops to designated locations for the anticipated purpose of military operations. Utilizing high-speed rail to transport troops is not only keeping pace with the railway development but also making full use of the latest means of transport. It also marks a new increase in the PLA's mobility capability.
Transport has always been a strategic resource, and ancient Rome was as powerful as the well-developed road network, and the British empire was strong because of the construction of the most advanced ships in the world. Historically, the development of important modes of transportation has also changed the basic pattern of international political economy.
China had over 20,000 kilometers of high-speed rail lines in 2015, more than the sum of high-speed rail lines in other parts of the world. China plans to build 38,000 kilometers of high-speed rail lines by 2025. The use of high-speed rail to transport troops is not only keeping up with the railway development situation and making full use of the latest means of transport, but also marks a new increase in the PLA's rapid mobility.
The use of "stuffy tanker" [boxcar] delivery of personnel was the product of a certain historical condition, which was produced when the number of railway passenger cars can not meet the requirements of large-scale personnel transportation. The use of "stuffy tankers" in China started in the battle of the Liao-Shen in 1945 and played an irreplaceable role in safeguarding the railway transport of all previous major military operations by the Chinese military.
The People's Liberation Army has long used railways for long-distance transport of troops. A railway stretching across the desert is the only military railway in China. Before the highway was open to traffic, it was the only way connecting the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center with the outside world. Now, besides transporting daily necessities, the railway's main mission is to transport rockets and satellites to the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The railway is approximately 300 kilometers long, with a total of 36 stops. Troops stationed along the rail mainly undertake the mission of maintaining the rail tracks and guarding the special trains transporting experimental equipment.
The use of high-speed rail to transport troops is not only keeping up with the railway development situation and making full use of the latest means of transport, but also marks a new increase in the PLA's rapid mobility. The high-speed train carriages in sections of 16 cars will carry about 1,100 troops with light weapons, and the transfer of thousands of troops in the future will not exceed half a day.
A high-speed rail car can transport 60 tons of military supplies, a trip through the high-speed rail can directly bring 3,000 tons of military supplies for the front. This mode of transport is easy to disassemble, the speed is not much lower than the aircraft, but also does not require building a specialized airport.
In the future, as China's high-speed railway continues to develop more areas in China, the huge railway network of high-speed railways and its quick and direct accessibility will have a very positive effect on the movement of PLA military forces at long distances. Using high-speed rail to transport troops is a form that follows the railway development and is a new breakthrough in military transport efficiency. This operation also represents that the People's Liberation Army will have a quicker and more mobile emergency response capability.
Experts analyzed that China had a total of seven major military regions [later reduced to five], but not enough troops can be used for strategic maneuvers. The construction of high-speed railways can allow more flexibility for military forces. In the future, China's high-speed railway system will form the so-called "four horizontal and four vertical" railway network, it is also very difficult for the opponents completely destroyed.
The United States Jamestown Foundation website published an article entitled "PLA Orient Express", the author of the British IHS Jane's Information Group researcher, former US Defense Office of China Affairs Christina Lin, in March 2011. After completion of Shanghai World Expo security tasks, on 21 July 2011 the PLA took the Shanghai-Nanjing high-speed rail trains and returned barracks things. She used the phrase "Iron Silk Road of the military" for this sentence review of Chinese high-speed rail to enhance the PLA strategic delivery capabilities Great effect. Some military analysts believe this is the ideal way for the PLA to deliver troops and light equipment in military operations other than war.
In the event of a war, China can use high-speed rail to replenish the front of the army with large quantities of food and military weapons and so on. Compared with air transport and maritime transport, the high-speed rail has a larger space carrying capacity, does not appear as an airport because of insufficient capacity, it can send large quantities of military supplies and weapons fuel, etc., are also rarely affected by the climate, And the lower transport costs is a unique high-speed rail performance advantage.
An armored brigades of the 1st Army of the Eastern Theater, strengthened by the 1th Regiment land-flight brigade more than 20 helicopters, artillery, reconnaissance and security forces of the 2 Army Corps of Land and Stewards of the 1st Corps of Engineers had formed a composite brigade of more than 5,000 people and were divided into 6 motorized Column, 11 railway formation and an air formation. It took 11 days for all the long-range heavy equipment to be delivered to more than 2000 km outside the Zhu Rongji base in Inner Mongolia.
On 16 July 2011, a white G224 high-speed train departs from Qingdao Station steadily and quickly and enters the Beijing-Shanghai High Speed Rail Line at Jinan Railway Station, heading for Shanghai Hongqiao Station. In the carriage, instead of ordinary passengers, hundreds of officers and men sat in the carriage and became the first lightly-built military units to be transported by high-speed railways. Under the auspices of the military agency of South Railway in Jinan City, the transportation was divided into two batches, transporting nearly 1,000 people and covering 1308 kilometers. The transport was divided into two echelons, a train about 500 troops to transport about one battalion.
In early May 2012, Nanjing South Railway Station completed the first shipment of light equipment units into a system of transportation. Nearly a thousand officers and men of a certain group took the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway to the southern Anhui training ground.
By 2017 there was a new focus on developing plans to promote closer military-railway integration, formulating support schemes for transportation and delivery, deepening military-civilian integration. In the new era, at the starting point of a new journey, on the railway lines extending tens of thousands of miles, the military and the railway were jointly opening up a new chapter of safeguarding military transportation.
But high-speed rail is dependent on open-air grid operation. If there is a failure in the power grid, or the tracks are attacked and destroyed, then the consequences will be disastrous. The high-speed rail is suitable for a large area of ??domestic troop transport, but cross-border transport is very difficult to achieve. Moreover, most high-speed trains now are passenger-type vehicles, which can not transport large-scale and heavy-duty equipment and only transport light weapons. This greatly affects the deployment of troops.
The United States and Russia use the Air Force to quickly deliver troops. One Chinese commentator suggestd that only by co-operating high-speed rail and transport planes can the PLA cross the rivers and lakes and sea and organically link China's southeast, northwest and north. In particular, trans-boundary transportation requires the use of large strategic transport aircraft for efficient transport.
From openly reported data, it can be estimated that by 2017 China was capable of carrying a single lighly armed unit to any prefecture-level city within 24 hours by means of high-speed rail and other means of transport. In about 10 days, a strengthened heavy armored brigade could be deployed thousands of kilometers away on the battlefield.
The Army of the United States requires that one brigade be deployed within five days and five brigade combat troops be deployed to any location in the world within a month. Obviously there is still a big gap between China and the United States, but the gap is shrinking. By 2025, China will be able to guarantee that it will transport troops from the eastern and southern coasts of China within 15 hours to the west within the mainland. Even with the preparation time, it will be completely reachable within 24 hours
Xiao Yu-sheng, Vice Minister of the World Military Research Institute of the Academy of Military Sciences, affirmed that "high-speed rail is not only a 'new engine for economic development' but also a 'fast lane' for military transport. Its important economic and military strategic value is obvious." This is the important conclusion he made at the "China Summit of High-Speed ??Rail going out".
Although using modern high-speed means of transport such as high-speed rail and civil aviation to transport troops has made breakthroughs and developments in the history of the People's Liberation Army, it can not be compared with the "global reach" of developed countries in the world, especially the United States, in terms of scale and experience. Compared to this strength, there is a gap of several decades.
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