An infantry battalion has carried out extensive drills with tanks and armed airborne personnel at heights over 15000 feet in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) announced Monday.
The rare announcement by PLA did not specify when the drill was held but said it was the armed forces’ Xizang (Tibet) Military Command that organised the exercise at heights over 4700 metres.
The Xizang Military Command falls under the Chengdu Military region.
The PLA’s announcement comes in the backdrop of the unprecedented escalation of India-China border conflict on Monday when three Indian soldiers were killed soon after a talk to deescalate the ongoing tension at the border descended into violence.
Until late evening Tuesday, China was yet to confirm or deny reports that said the PLA had suffered casualties as well.
It’s rare for the PLA to announce drills; it’s the state media, which do it from PLA’s handouts and visuals.
Published in PLA’s online mouthpiece, the Lhasa-datelined report said the exercise focused on “…infantry and tank offensive formation, enemy firepower strike, initiation of attack, defensive counter-impact, in-depth attack, etc.”
{{/usCountry}}Published in PLA’s online mouthpiece, the Lhasa-datelined report said the exercise focused on “…infantry and tank offensive formation, enemy firepower strike, initiation of attack, defensive counter-impact, in-depth attack, etc.”
{{/usCountry}}The exercise focussed on “…long-distance strike by tanks at enemy’s forward firepower points, infantry-guided maneuver of tank, tank-guided marching of infantry, fast maneuver of infantry facilitated by tanks”.
The drill was a test check for coordination between infantry and tanks.
“The participating troops included ground forces, battlefield service and airborne penetration forces. They have been brought to a completely unfamiliar high-altitude area, which set a severe test for the coordination between the commanders and different arms,” the report written by Ren Feng and He Penglei from PLA-sponsored China Military Online said.
It was a stock-taking exercise too.
After the drill was over, the battalion went through the problems and deficiencies exposed by it, the report said.
China’s state-controlled media has in the past weeks carried out reports of PLA’s high-altitude drills, often connecting it with the ongoing border tension with India, which started in early May.
On June 7, state media said the PLA had carried out a large-scale drill involving thousands of paratroopers to check its preparedness in transporting soldiers and armoured vehicles from the central Chinese province of Hubei to border areas to the northwest of the country.
The largescale “maneuver operation” was done in the backdrop of the ongoing border friction with India, the nationalistic tabloid, Global Times and national broadcaster CCTV said in reports.
The news on Chinese state media came out on a day when New Delhi said India and China will continue military and diplomatic engagements to resolve a weeks-old stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
This was after talks were held between delegations led by Lt Gen Harinder Singh, commander of Leh-based 14 Corps and egation led by Maj Gen Liu Lin, commander of the South Xinjiang military region, at Moldo on the Chinese side of the LAC on Saturday.