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PLAN Combined-Arms, Intra-Fleet, and Joint Training

Combined-Arms Training

Combined-arms training involves two or more of the PLAN's five branches-submarine, surface, aviation, coastal defense, and Marine Corps. However, not all of the branches conduct combined-arms training with other branches. For the most part, the five PLAN branches conduct intra-branch training. Under the new OMTE, intra-branch training has been gradually expanding to dissimilar aircraft training and training with multiple classes of vessels in the same task force.

The figure below provides a general idea of the level of combined-arms training between branches as being high, medium, or low. Note that the only two branches that train with any regularity together are the surface and subsurface forces, but even this training is at a medium to low level. The Marine Corps trains a lot with the South Sea Fleet's amphibious forces, but training with the Marine Corps for the surface branch as a whole is still quite low.

One issue inhibiting combined-arms training is a lack of understanding by personnel in one branch about the operations of another branch. Therefore, under the new OMTE, the PLAN has begun sending officers from one branch to another branch for six months to a year to gain some practical experience. For example, surface officers and aviation pilots are now spending time with the submarine forces, and submarine officers are spending time on surface vessels.

Intra-Fleet Training

Historically, Naval Aviation aircraft have deployed to airfields in other fleets and crossed fleet boundaries at sea to conduct training, but naval vessels have rarely conducted intra-fleet training. One of the reasons vessels have not conducted intra-fleet training is administrative in nature. Until recently, each fleet managed its funding in cash, including paying its personnel, so it was difficult to coordinate funding for intra-fleet training. Now, however, the PLAN is working toward funding the fleets and personnel through centralized and individual bank accounts.

As a result, changes in intra-fleet training have now begun to take place under the new OMTE. For example, during early 2003, five aircraft from the North Sea Fleet, consisting of patrol aircraft, warning aircraft, and reconnaissance aircraft, flew to the South China Sea, where they conducted a mission to recover an "enemy- held island" that included reconnaissance of their target, guiding fighters during intercepts, and providing jamming.

During 2005, destroyers and frigates from the North Sea Fleet and South Sea Fleet deployed to the East Sea Fleet for training with the ESF's destroyer zhidui. The PLAN described this as "a new training model that explores crossing organizational systems for joint mobile taskforce fire power."

Joint Training

In the mid-1990s, the PLA began to focus on joint training, which usually means training by two or more services. According to China's National Defense in 2004,

"To step up preparations for military struggle, the PLA takes as its objective to win local wars under the conditions of informationalization and gives priority to developing weaponry and equipment, to building joint operational capabilities, and to making full preparations in the battlefields."

Although the PLA has publicly cited high interest in joint training, the actual amount of joint training has not been high. In some instances, opposition-force training between different services has been cited as joint training. For example, PLAAF aircraft attacking PLAN surface vessels is actually opposition-force, not joint, training. Furthermore, when this type of training occurs, Naval Aviation aircraft are not involved in providing protection for the surface vessels.

The PLAN and PLAAF have identified specific practical and administrative problems with joint training, to include the following issues:

• Lack of a Joint Training Department in the General Staff Department and the seven military region headquarters
• Lack of a joint training structure and program at the fleet and military region air force headquarters levels
• Lack of understanding of each other's systems and tactics
• Problems with poor weather conditions that preclude aircraft from departing after ships have already been at sea for some time
• The short duration of time (measured in seconds) the ships really get to practice when an aircraft flies over and returns home after a single pass
• Lack of real combat tactics practiced by the aircraft
• When a joint training day is missed for weather or other reasons, it is difficult to make up given the other requirements of each unit

The three services have begun to address some of these problems by sending a handful of officers on temporary duty to another service for six months to a year to learn about their operations.