Just A Reminder
Please Don't Forget
To Donate To FR
This Quarter
Sponsoring FReepers are contributing
$10 Each time a New Monthly Donor signs up!
Get more bang for your FR buck!
Click Here To Sign Up Now!
Posted on 11/20/2011 5:14:40 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
China now rehearses capture of Tibet passes
A year after conducting its first live military exercise in Tibet, China has for the first time rehearsed capture of mountain passes at heights beyond 5,000 metres with the help of armoured vehicles and airborne troops.
The Chinese Defence Ministry makes this claim in a short official report that describes the exercise as the “first joint actual-troop drill of the PLA air and ground troops under information-based conditions in frigid area with a high altitude”. The joint drill involved the Chinese Air Force, ground troops, armoured columns and a range of support entities.
Unusually for China, the report carried a detailed description of the exercise. “At the very beginning... the new type warplanes of the PLA Air Force conducted accurate strikes at the targets.... Shortly after seizing the commanding point,
the long-range guns launched full-scale shooting at the command post and the artillery position of the enemy.”
This was followed by the armoured vehicle group and infantry combat vehicles branching out into columns and launching a “sudden and violent attack on the mountain passes occupied by the enemy. The special operation detachment outflanked the enemy and raided the enemy’s command post”. Army aviation troops and anti-aircraft missiles, the report stated, provided cover.
Subsequently, the PLA report claims, after reaching a mountain pass at a height over 5,000 metres, the armoured vehicle group and the infantry combat vehicles “broke through the interdiction barrage of the enemy in succession”.
In a simultaneous effort, another mountain pass at a height of more than 5,000 metres but located “hundreds of kilometres away” was taken over.
“Conducting military operations on plateau with an elevation of more than 4,500 meters is an extreme challenge,” the report said.
Some folks are inclined to ignore or dismiss such reports outright.
Others consider them laughable, inconsequential, etc.
Such attitudes are, imho, grossly ignorant of current realities.
Tibet is not the only nation with high mountain objectives, of interest to China.
“Under information-based systems” - “Don’t look now, Mao, but there’s an information-based system over the top of us.”
It’s about the water. If China can control the entire highlands, it can divert the Tibetan watershed at will. This is not to mention the advantage that holding the high mountain ground would give it strategically against India.
Thanks for the ping!
All Tibet needs to do is elect Democrat county commissioners. They stop everything because of water.
First I ever heard that China has airborne troops. Remember the SKS paratrooper model made expressly for the US market? It was also reported at the time that China had no paratroopers - or at least no chutes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.