No, not every wargame needs to be against US forces, but Russia has an advanced army, so does Japan and South Korea, Pakistan and India have nearly the same equipment as China (For the most part) and then there is Mongolia, who still use horses and bows.

When America has wargames we put our up incoming guys against the best of the best old school guys who play the enemy. It is not uncommon for the new guys to get their asses handed to them. Its better to lose in war games then out in a real battle.

damien, the chinese dont have stocks of M1A2 tanks leying around...So they use what they have. Not every country has massive aounts of OPFOR equippment at its disposal. Infact, Israel and the USA are the only ones.

Originally Posted by SHERMAN

damien, the chinese dont have stocks of M1A2 tanks leying around...So they use what they have. Not every country has massive aounts of OPFOR equippment at its disposal. Infact, Israel and the USA are the only ones.

They don't need to do a OPFOR (Opposing Forces) style of wargame, they just need to take two regular army units who have the same equip and pit them against each other, not give one side the most modern equip in their arsenal and the other side the most recently decomissioned equipment.

The United States had no problem setting up our OPFOR when we were fighting the Soviets, all we had to do was buy their equipment and they sent over the equipment, operation manuals, and then sent experts to train the people the soviet battle tactics. Then once we had soldiers trained they became the enemy, almost literally, they would use the same equip, where the same uniforms, eat the same, essentially becoming the enemy, quite interesting.

i think how many fearless soldiers an army has is more important than how many good weapons it has,a fearless army is invincible. that's why PLA didn't lost a war or conflict since it founded, and all it's enemies have better equipments(UN army in Korea, USSR, Vietnamese and Hindu).

Originally Posted by rzhugang

i think how many fearless soldiers an army has is more important than how many good weapons it has,a fearless army is invincible. that's why PLA didn't lost a war or conflict since it founded, and all it's enemies have better equipments(UN army in Korea, USSR, Vietnamese and Hindu).

Yeah but it has got to suck charging into battle knowing that you probably wont do anything other than stop bullets for the next human wave. How could the Chinese soldiers at Chosin Resevoir (Korean War) feel a sense of accomplishment? It was a slaughter … just look at the heavily stacked Chinese casualties.

I would rather die holding the line and take a bunch of them with me in an Alamo esque battle.

I love the women there, woo.

Yeah but it has got to suck charging into battle knowing that you probably wont do anything other than stop bullets for the next human wave. How could the Chinese soldiers at Chosin Resevoir (Korean War) feel a sense of accomplishment? It was a slaughter … just look at the heavily stacked Chinese casualties.

Yeah u see thats the porblem with traditional chinese tactics. Massed infantry charges worked in the past but only when u had an EXTREME advantage in numbers. Indeed chinese losses were huge in the korean war even though the eventual outcome was was indecisive. In fact things could have turned out much worse for the chinese if C-47 gunships were available at the time. It was down to pure luck that this project - even though feasible - was never pursued during the immediate postwar years.

I feel that the PLA should feel lucky that it gained experiance during the Korean War and never repeat such tactics in the 21st Century. Unfortuantely it seems that the PLA is stubborn as the same kind of tactics were used against the Indians in the short 1963 clashes.

The PLA needs to get rid of its illusions.

The United States had no problem setting up our OPFOR when we were fighting the Soviets, all we had to do was buy their equipment and they sent over the equipment, operation manuals, and then sent experts to train the people the soviet battle tactics. Then once we had soldiers trained they became the enemy, almost literally, they would use the same equip, where the same uniforms, eat the same, essentially becoming the enemy, quite interesting.

Ahh, this is getting off-toppic, but let me comment shortly, and If you wish to react please open a new topic.

You are mistaken. The soviets did not send over anything. The USA used captured soviet made weapons. And sice the US was engaged with second rate soviet allies, they could not get large ammoiunts of first line Soviet weaponry. Only after the USSR collapsed, the USA bought what ever it needed. The only country to have massive ammounts of captured front-line Soviet equippement, in an ammount allowing force on force training in large sized forces was Israel. The IDF reached the situation where we had literally a few Brigades armed with Soviet weapons.

I believe those Military Observers have better to say about Chinese Militry Exercises.

Foreign observers attend Chinese war games for first time

On August 25, 27 military observers from 15 countries including the U.S, Russia, the U.K, France, Germany, Israel, South Africa, Canada, Thailand and Pakistan came to a combined tactical exercise base in Zhurihe in north China's Inner Mongolia to watch a confrontation exercise with real troops by a unit of armored brigade from the Beijing Military Area Command. The exercise was the first of its kind to be open to foreign military observers. The performance of Chinese troops won their loud applauses.

　　Though coming from different countries and speaking different tongues, the observers are all experts in the area of military exercises. They warmly clapped their hands when they reached the modern 1 000 km2 exercise base. It is a large modern combined tactical drill base with mountains, hills and plains designed to provide a base for military exercise with troops at division and corps level.

　　A senior officer of the　U.S. Army told reporters that he was very pleased to be invited to watch the exercise and that a U.S. training center held large scale exercises for territorial forces every 7 months and that was the place where solders learn how to fight. He added that your training center in Zhurihe was great and it was an ideal place for exercises. A brigade commander from a Singaporean armored unit said that as one of the first foreign observers to come to the exercise base he felt very happy and was shocked by the first large exercise he saw in China. He continued that Singapore was very small in size and could only rent foreign base for exercises.

　　On the way to the base were neatly aligned military vehicles and equipment including helicopter gunship, tanks, armored vehicles, infantry vehicles, artilleries and nearly 5 000 soldiers wearing camouflage uniforms belonging to different arms of the army. The foreign observers showed great interests in the exercise.

　　The foreign visitors arrived at their destination at 10:00am to watch the exercise in which the "Blue Army" and "Red army" launched fierce "attacks" against each other using various kinds of vehicles and equipment in a large area. Foreign observers recorded the exercises using their cameras or video cameras.

　　After the six-hour practice, organized by China's Beijing Military Command, Steven Krstic from Britain said it was the first time for him to see so much Chinese military equipment as well as so many different kinds of Chinese armaments.

　　These war games were very successful, and it was good for China to invite foreigners to observe them, said Ahmet Celik from Turkey.

　　A brigade commander from a U.S. infantry unit commented that the exercise was organized in a scientific way, neither side knew the other's situations and it was like a real battle. A Tanzanian defense official praised the modernization of the Chinese troops and the effective coordination among different arms of the army.

　　According to the Foreign Affairs Office of the Ministry of National Defense, the invitation of foreign military observers to watch the exercise was designed to increase military exchanges and cooperation between China and the rest of the world, to adjust to new military changes in the world and to build up friendship and mutual confidence.

　　Some comments from those observers echoed the words of the office. A senior Russian officer said that the base was advanced, modern and practical and that the exercise could serve to increase the friendship and cooperation between the two countries. A Turkish military attache showed great interest in saying that they saw these highly qualified Chinese troops and the exercise would help strengthen military understanding and exchanges between China and Turkey. He finally added that the Chinese soldiers were welcome to Turkey to watch its military drills.

Pix of the Zhurihe Training Center mentioned in above acrticle: