Implementing Chinese Tactics in Training Events, part 1 Defense

Implementing Chinese Tactics in Training Events, part 1 Defense by James (Jay) Hunt

Army Techniques Publication (ATP) 7-100.3, Chinese Tactics, provides key insights for the U.S. Army training, professional education, and leader development community on how Chinese ground forces approach tactical operations. This article series provides a comparison of concepts and conditions presented in the ATP with the opposing force (OPFOR) as described in the Training Circular (TC) 7-100 series and the Decisive Action Training Environment (DATE). It is intended to suggest practical areas of emphasis for training developers’ incorporation of ATP conditions and S2 development of threat models.

Each article discusses purposes and philosophies that might shape a training event road-to-war and main tactics, battlefield organization, and control measures, implementing force groupings and highlighting  ground conditions or battle drills. This article focuses on implementing ATP 7-100.3 conditions for a defense.

For this series and compliance with AR 350-1 and TRADOC Regulation 350-70, examples will use the fictional country of Olvana, the DATE Pacific large regional hegemon that presents many of the conditions of China as described in the ATP.

An expanded view of defensive operations.

ATP 7-100.3 describes the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) view of defensive operations as its most sacred mission in defending Chinese territory from outside aggression (para 1-10). During offensive action, the defense plays a key role to preserve forces, control key terrain, maintain the initiative, and attrition of enemy combat power (para 8-1). This approach is not significantly different from the composite doctrinal OPFOR or almost any modern military.

Table 1 Comparison of Defensive Purposes

What might be considered new is the ongoing evolution that the PLA that recognizes the potential impact of a multi-domain environment and a connected and informationized battlefield. Chinese perceptions of traditional advantages, such as terrain and developed positional defenses, are evolving to account for attacks across a range of capabilities at depth with the likelihood of communications disruption. Largely based on concerns that communications will be attacked and command and control will be affected, there is an increased acceptance of initiative-taking and emphasis on mission understanding at lower echelons of command. While this may be aspirational in the near term, the modeling of leadership similar to Western forces will continue to shape PLA robustness in the face of multi-domain attacks.

Developer Tip: Portrayal of Olvanan defenses should present targetable nodes throughout their depth requiring a range of offensive capabilities, including long-range fires, Special Operations Forces (SOF), and electronic warfare (EW) attacks.

Main Tactic Selection

Assuming that a defense of some kind is warranted, determining the type and composition will vary greatly based on the commander’s training requirements.

For scenarios in which the Olvanans are conducting a defense of a large area, they will likely field large groupings of forces for their Operational Combat Group. These will mainly consist of light forces. These forces will usually conduct some form of positional area defense leveraging fortifications and predetermined kill zones (“annihilation zones” in the ATP) to destroy the attackers with coordinated direct and indirect files. As the force structure both real and fictionalized develops, these groupings will task organize more heavy forces and specialized groupings to mitigate penetration risk of their defensive line.

Where Olvana has projected or built up forces away from their mainland, the force structure may have a significantly heavier profile. The ATP suggests that such a combat grouping would still rely on light infantry supported by task-organized heavy and anti-tank elements to form a main defensive line, but the decisive element would be a large armor-heavy counterattack force similar to how the U.S. Army might execute a mobile defense. The ATP describes these forces as the Frontier Defense Group and the Depth Defense Group respectively (4-48, 4-49). The ATP suggests that the conduct of this form of defense reflects a measure of adoption of selected Western tactics and techniques by the PLA.