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Implementing Chinese Tactics in Training Events, part 2 Offense 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 World). 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 highlights unique conditions or battle drills. This article focuses on implementing ATP 7-100.3 conditions for an offense.
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.
A similar, yet distinct approach to offensive operations.
ATP 7-100.3 describes offensive actions as the decisive form of land operations for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Army’s (PLAA). The approach is most often against enemy formations but may also focus on key terrain. While this is not unique to the PLAA, the focus of its execution is distinct from how the OPFOR has traditionally executed offensive actions as described in TC 7-100.2, Opposing Force Tactics.
The Chinese model relies much more on separating and isolating portions of an enemy's defense for subsequent defeat in detail, rather than the common OPFOR’s disruption of an enemy’s defense and massing of combat power to overcome it. The envelopment of a flank, whether an actual enemy flank or one created through action, takes advantage of areas in which the enemy has no concentrated defenses, does not expect an attack, or is in some other way vulnerable. Where no clear flank exists, PLAA elements will leverage all domains (including air, electronic, virtual) to create a vulnerable point for an enabling attack.
Figure 1 Sample Functional Diagram for OPFOR Integrated Attack (with common activities, actions, targets)
The PLAA holds that forces have multiple combat power effects through coordination and synchronization of their capabilities and that isolation of an element from its parent is the most effective way to diminish the enemy force and subsequently annihilate it. This philosophy extends to isolating reinforcements, reserve forces, and support elements from contributing in any significant manner.
Rather than focusing on winning direct confrontations through technological superiority, technology advantages, deception, and agility are used to offset or negate enemy strengths while finding and exploiting enemy weaknesses. This effectively results in a return to classical tactics, albeit across multiple domains, to enable flank-creation, envelopment or isolation, and defeat in detail.