I was inspired by the other China thread on the same page to ask this question but I felt it required a different thread because the other one is quite a varied and rambling one.

What is China's basic military strategy? We know that the U.S. places it's faith in air power while the Soviets believed in the power of armor and mechanized infantry. So what kind of doctrine would China use in a war? I was really surprised to learn about its lack of aircraft carriers of a strategic bomber. Surely their generals don't still believe in WW1/Korean War style human waves attacks.

This is definetily a FAQ.

Check on: www.sinodefence.com for more information.

there are a few periods of different fundemental strategy

1eople's war,
this is in Mao's era, it is basically fighting a war against a better-armed enemy, luring the enemy into deep where a lot of ppl and attack the rear of enemy or supply line of enemy with superior number in some points...(human wave?)

2:People's war under modern conditon
probably started by Lin Biao, once the minister of defence, probably because they saw the tech in U.s and soveits armies are so good and numbers are useless anymore, they start to think they should fight with people's war but with better tech, this period is around 1970s

3.Limited war
this theory rose after the first sino-vietnam war, when PLA didn't perform as expected, also during that time Soviets are declining and relationship with U.S is getting better,
therefore, a total war with either Soviet or U.S is not possible, but more and more small wars like Sino-vietnam, or Sino-india, or CHina-taiwan are possible, so this theory led a large scale of cutting useless personels and ready to fight a small war or regional war rather than a total war

4.Limited war under modern condition
started in 1990s after seeing how U.s army used high tech to beat up Iraqis. PLA starts to reduce more troops and upgrade C4ISR, invent new tech, equip new weapons and also train troops for fighting a high tech war
this strategy i think is primairly aiming at Taiwan, PLA is ready to invade taiwan in a style like U.S invades Iraq, that is why PLA arms 600 missiles at taiwan and equiping 3rd generation jet fighters.

today PLA is still a relatively large army and capable of fighting a total war and defeating any invading enemies in a total war BUT not under high tech, PLA is not there yet, maybe 10-20 more years

china certainly realises it will never win a conventional war at this stage, and thus focuses alot on unconventional weaponry aswell... e.g. computer viruses, playing with the economy etc...

The Vietnam War was a definetly a prime example that Technological Superiority does not necessarily achieve it's full purpose when it is not intended to fight against an relatively unconventional enemy. The Chinese however are putting their studies towards assymetrical warfare.

well, china learns its lesson from first sino-vietnam war where PLA fought a bit bad

but in second sino-vietnam war, when PLA starts to reform, situation is much better, vietnam army used 5 years to try to capture Lao mountain from PLA, and they failed despite heavy losses

i think PLA was shocked to see how good U.S army was in Iraq, and Afgan....those information stuff,
and they know it is not the time to fight Peopel's war again, there will be no total war but a bunch of dirty small wars..like the possible one in taiwan...so they got to change and still changing

No one has really addressed the question yet. How do they fight? Do they place their money into a large infantry for mass attakcs? Or are they transforming into US-style high-tech warfare?

http://<br /> tanks above are 99G, ...n 1970s or 80s

The thing about China is that yes they are getting better tech but so far its in very small numbers. Most of their army is still old and outdated.

But even with that they have a excellent defensive force, no one is conquering China anytime soon. But their offensive capability is somewhat lacking. All their fighters/bombers have limited range except the few squadrons of newer Russian stuff. Same with the navy. Their landforce however has a couple fundamental obstacles to overcome.

Bullets and Beans - They have a big military, if it were to fully mobilize and start moving long distances in division, corps, or field army size units they would have to choose either speed or support, they would easiliy outrun their logistic support vehicles and having little to no air support would be sitting ducks for even the smallest 3rd world air force. On the other hand if they went slow it would give the enemy more time to react and mobilize counter-forces of its own.

CCC - Communication, Coordination, and Command. Coordinating Divisions is hard enough, but when you have a large military like china and they have another set of choices to make. Moving in either Division, Corps, or field Army units. The easiest to manage would be a field army, but still a challenge. Moving in divisions would give you more flexibility but would be extremely hard to handle. Corps is a compromise between both. But still very hard to manage.

faith in artillery?