What Lessons Has PLA Learned From Wars Conducted by and Between Other Nations?

choi

TWO replies follow the main posting.

Dr Andrew Scobell, Dr David Lai and Roy Kamphausen (eds), Chinese Lessons from Other Peoples' Wars. US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), Nov 17, 2011.
http://www.strategicstudiesinsti ... play.cfm?pubID=1090

(a) My comment:
(i) United States Army War College
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_War_College
(located in Carlisle, Pennsylvania; established [in 1901] from the principles learned in the Spanish-American War)
(ii) I read Chapter 1 Introduction and Chapter 3 (about Britain's expedition to retake Falklands). It seems to me that other than Chapter 1, the rest is not interesting. Read quotation next to see if you want to read Chapter 1 at all.

(b) Quote from Chapter 1:

"The richest PLA operational legacy is in land warfare" page 3

"Yet, some lessons do not appear to have been learned or perhaps they were learned but then promptly forgotten. For example, one major lesson of the Korean War concerns the importance of logistics. Since the campaigns against the KMT and the Japanese were fought on Chinese soil, the supply lines were short or, more often, nonexistent. The PLA was used to producing its own food, living off the land, or capturing supplies from the enemy. None of the approaches were available on the Korean Peninsula. These initial problems were addressed as the CPV put considerable effort into building a logistics tail. But keeping roads repaired and supplies flowing were constant challenges for CPV [Chinese People's Volunteers] commanders. Yet, the logistical lessons of Korea seem to have been forgotten a quarter of a century later when the PLA went on the offensive against Vietnam." pp 3-4

"airpower was viewed [by PLA] as a mere adjunct to the main event—operations on the ground. There was no air war in the 1979 Vietnam conflict, and the last 'significant aerial combat' was in 1958. Thus, it was not until the 1991 Gulf War that the PLA leadership began to appreciate airpower not merely in a 'supportive role' but as a dimension of battle space in its own right." p 5

"Similarly, the PLA has traditionally viewed sea power as an adjunct to land power." p 5

"Although China seems to have focused significant attention on its submarine fleet, the PLAN has no experience whatsoever in submarine warfare. As a result, the Chinese navy had to turn to other people’s wars for operational lessons of sea power." p 6

"Where ballistic missiles are concerned, the PLA has perhaps the least amount of experience." p 6

"Another possible wrong lesson [learned by PLA] can be the much talked-about American aversion to taking casualties. As the American sacrifice in Iraq and Afghanistan shows, the nation’s acceptance of casualties depends very much on the situation. It would be a mistake to take aversion to casualties as an inherent problem of the US military and the American people." p 8

(c) Chapter 1 stated, "To date, there is no critical analysis of the PLA’s claimed success or dismissed failure in the Sino-Vietnamese Border War of 1979 by Chinese military analysts (however, there are a few studies done by scholars outside of China3)." p 2

Footnote 3 is as follows: "See Xiaoming Zhang, 'China’s 1979 War with Vietnam: A Reassessment,' China Quarterly, 2005; and Edward C O’Dowd and John F Corbett, Jr, 'The 1979 Chinese Campaign in Vietnam: Lessons Learned,' in Laurie Burkitt, Andrew Scobell, and Larry M Wortzel, eds, The Lessons of History: The Chinese People’s Liberation Army at 75, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, US Army War College, 2003; Harlan W Jencks, 'China’s Punitive War with Vietnam: An Assessment,' Asian Survey, Vol. 19, No. 7, August 1979.

Xiaoming Zhang's paper and the work of Edward C O’Dowd and John F Corbett, Jr will be addressed in each of the two replies.

choi

Xiaoming Zhang, China’s 1979 War with Vietnam: A Reassessment. China Quarterly, 184: 851-874 (2005)

Note:
(a) China Quarterly is published by Cambridge University Press, which charges for online access.
(b) An introduction to the author (faculty bio):

Air War College, Air University, undated
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/facbios/facbio-z.htm
("Dr Xiaoming Zhang is associate professor in the Department of Strategy at the Air War College, teaching strategy, and subjects on China and East Asia. He earned his PhD in history from The University of Iowa in 1994, and taught at Texas Tech University and Texas A&M International University prior to joining the Air War College")

* Air University (United States Air Force)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_University_(United_States_Air_Force)
(headquartered at Maxwell Air Force Base [located in Montgomery, the capital], Alabama; section 1 Organization: Air War College is part of it)

(c) A copy of the paper can be found in
http://viet-studies.info/kinhte/China_War_With_Vietnam.pdf

(i) Please start with page 859, the paragraph that begins with "There were several major concerns: whether the Soviet Union would
respond with reprisal attacks from the north to force China to fight a two-front war."
(ii) Quote from Dr Zhang's paper:

"Training [of China's troops] was largely concentrated on basic soldier skills such as shooting and grenade throwing, with few units able to carry out any meaningful tactical training or exercise at regiment and division levels. Many [Chinese] officers reported that they were unsure about the fighting capability of their troops. In the end, the PLA troops designated for invasion were poorly trained and inadequately prepared for a modern war against Vietnam’s forces, whose combat experience earned in 25 years of war preceding this conflict appeared to have been overlooked. Despite urgent need for training, the PLA continued its military tradition, using political indoctrination to raise morale and improve combat efficiency." page 862

"China’s attack caught Hanoi off-guard. Vietnamese intelligence apparently failed to get the Hanoi leadership to prepare for a Chinese invasion. Despite Beijing’s saber-rattling for several months, Vietnamese leaders could not believe “a fraternal socialist country” would ever attack it. When massive numbers of Chinese troops crossed the border, Premier Pham Van Dong and Chief of the PAVN [People's Army of Vietnam] General Staff Van Tien Dung were visiting Phnom Penh." p 863

"Most contemporary studies, however, note that Vietnam “had indeed outperformed” the Chinese forces on the battlefield because of the PLA’s
problems in operations and reported heavy casualties." p 866

"One major failure of the Chinese military was failing to consider the huge quantity of the militia forces in its calculation of Vietnamese military strength. The PLA experience showed that the Vietnamese militia put up more relentless resistance and made more surprise raids on the invading forces than the PAVN regulars. The PLA planners initially thought they had assembled an overwhelming force of 8:1 against the Vietnamese forces. There were 40,000 to 50,000 militias in the Cao Bang area alone, which significantly altered the force ratio to 2:1. During the campaign, the PLA never appeared able to maintain the force superiority to deliver a knock-out strike. The operation also demonstrates how difficult it is to carry out military operations in a foreign country if the local populace is mobilized
to resist." p 870

choi

Edward C O’Dowd and John F Corbett, Jr, The 1979 Chinese Campaign in Vietnam: Lessons Learned. pp 353-378
http://www.isn.ethz.ch/isn/Digit ... ng=en&id=100621

Note:
(a) The "ch" is country code for Switzerland.
(b) The work of Edward C O’Dowd and John F Corbett, Jr was Chapter 10, in Laurie Burkitt, Andrew Scobell, and Larry M Wortzel (eds) The Lessons of History: The Chinese People’s Liberation Army at 75. US Army War College Strategic Studies Institute (SSI), July 2003.
http://www.strategicstudiesinstitute.army.mil/pdffiles/PUB52.pdf
(c) Quote from Chapter 10:

"Chinese artillery was ineffective. Chinese gunners did not understand how to measure distances and calculate firing data. As a result, the Chinese artillery could not provide effective indirect fire. The Chinese artillery was limited to large-scale barrage firings on prominent terrain features or inaccurate fire on smaller targets. The Chinese apparently did not have a 'call for fire' procedure. Therefore, the Chinese artillery was no more effective than the artillery of the Napoleonic era or the early American Civil War." pp 355-356

"During the Campaign, the students from the [Guangzhou Military Region] Infantry School[Guangzhou Junqu Bubing Xuexiao, which reported in 1979] discovered that the PLA soldiers, at least those from the 43rd Army, could not detect and clear mine fields." p 356

"According to the report of the Infantry School, an instructor, Niu Chengju, from the school found that a regiment was unable to perform its mission because its leaders had a poor understanding of topography and map reading." p 356

"The Vietnamese had unexpected help in their defense against the Chinese attacks. Less that a week into the campaign when the fighting was most fierce, Chinese units began to report shortages of food and water. * * * The Chinese logistics system, although its lines of support extended a mere four or five kilometers into Vietnam and less than 30 kilometers from its railhead at Pingxiang (VN: Bang Tuong), apparently failed. These incidents happened near Lang Son, but the PLA’s weak logistics created similar incidents in the other theaters of the war (e.g., Lao Cai, Cao Bang)." p 357

"The PLA’s logistics problems were, at first glance, a matter of numbers. The Chinese force of 30 divisions required 500 tons of supplies every day for each division (15,000 tons). To move the 15,000 tons of supplies, the force needed trucks. The largest Chinese trucks (Zil-151, Zil-157, Ca-30) carried 9,900 lbs. (4,500 kg.) or 4.95 tons. Therefore, the PLA invasion force needed 3,030 trucks to carry the supplies necessary to keep operating for 1 day. The Chinese divisions had trucks, but the trucks were the prime movers for artillery and other heavy equipment. They were not supply trucks * * * The PLA logistics troops had access to a few independent transportation regiments (702 transportation trucks each), commune trucks, packhorses, and coolies to make up the difference between the requirement and the transportation capacity of their units, essentially zero. But managing four modes of transportation had to be a nightmare. As a result, food, water, and ammunition frequently failed to get to the right place at the right time." p 360

"The quality of troops was judged to be very low, Chinese tactics were not effective, and the level of coordination was inadequate[, according to the 1997 assessment of China's Academy of Military Sciences 9AMS)]." p 362

"It is difficult to say if the PLA of the 1990s had better troops in its ranks than did the PLA of 1979. In 1979 the PLA was a route of social mobility for peasants to escape the poverty of the countryside or, at least, to improve their situation if they returned to their home commune after demobilization. * * * There were few economic alternatives for peasant men in the Maoist economy * * * The new economic policies of Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin changed the situation during the 1980s and 1990s. * * * In the China of Jiang Zemin, there was very little incentive to join the army." p 363

"Any effort to understand the lessons the PLA learned from the 1979 Campaign cannot avoid the feeling that the PLA is not being fully honest with itself. All the problems the various authors discuss were problems in areas that the PLA has attempted to reform in the last 2 decades. But, there were many other problems in the 1979 Campaign that the PLA has not discussed." p 370

"In 1979, the PLA did not have ranks and insignia. This simple fact led to confusion on the battlefield. It was not until 1988 that this problem was rectified with the reinstitution of ranks." pp 370-371