A brigade and a battalion of the 77th Group Army improved the quality and effectiveness of actual combat training
People's Liberation Army Daily reporter Zhang Leifeng.
Special correspondent Li Jiahao and correspondent Liu Zhuo.
Members of the Blue Army squad analysing the terrain. Photo by Xu Chunlei.
The plateau is cold in winter, and the moon is bright and the stars are scarce.
In the darkness of the night, a certain brigade of the 77th Group Army was conducting an observation and reporting training. Suddenly, a puff of white smoke rose, and a reconnaissance staff officer of a certain battalion who was conducting reconnaissance of the "enemy's" fortification target was wearing a muffled buzzer, which meant that his position had been exposed and he had been "shot and killed."
In the past, when I conducted basic training, most of the enemy's situation existed on paper, which led me to focus only on determining the coordinates of the 'enemy' fortifications during the training, but neglected to conceal myself. When reviewing and summing up, the reconnaissance staff officer had a feeling: "Now that there is a 'blue army team,' the officers and men are forced to take every training session seriously as a real battle." ”
The "Blue Army squad" in the mouth of this reconnaissance staff officer is a combat squad led by Chen Xinglin, sergeant and squad leader of a certain battalion of the brigade. Although the establishment is still in the company, whenever the battalion organizes tactical training, they will turn into opponents and try their best to "cause problems" and "cause trouble."
Basic training is not a competitive competition, and the results should be tested by actual combat. According to the battalion commander, in order to improve the technical and tactical level of officers and men in training close to actual combat, they decided to set up a "blue army team" in the battalion after study, and expand the red-blue confrontation from major training tasks to daily subjects and basic training such as military topography and battlefield ambulance, so that officers and men can walk on the training ground as if they were on the battlefield.
On the morning of the next day, this reporter met this "blue army team" at the tactical training ground of a certain company. I saw that they took the lead in occupying favorable terrain and began to "shoot" at their comrades-in-arms who were undergoing squad tactical training. Within their firing range, although the officers and men took actions such as leaping forward and lying down from time to time to evade, there were still individual comrades whose simulated equipment for individual confrontation glowed red, indicating that they had been "hit" ......
In the past squad tactical training, the enemy situation was in the squad leader's 'brain', and the squad leader let him lie down and lie down, let him leap forward, and change what formation he presented, which was more like air-to-air. Now that the 'enemy' is in front of us, the 'enemy situation' is around us, and everyone is facing 'bullets' and 'artillery fire', we must know what tactical actions to make at what time. Walking off the training ground, Private Wang Le dusted off his body of dirt and said breathlessly, "We love and hate the 'Blue Army Team', we love them for being able to effectively improve our ability to win, and we hate them for daring to be 'ruthless' and 'dead' in the confrontation." ”
This is the purpose of the formation of the 'Blue Army'. The battalion commander told this reporter that in the past, when they organized basic training, they focused more on the "basics" and ignored the confrontational nature of military training.
During the lunch break, the reporter returned to the camp with the "Blue Army Team". In their dormitory, a sign hangs: "Be strict and difficult, beat me." Talking about the origin of the slogan, Chen Xinglin told a piece of the past.
At the beginning of the formation of the "Blue Army Team" last year, due to the comrade-in-arms relationship, they often "stopped at the point," which greatly reduced the effectiveness of confrontation training.
In a subsequent offensive combat training, several recruits were "killed" without firing a single shot due to excessive tension that caused their tactical movements to be distorted and distorted. At this point, Chen Xinglin understood a truth: "The purpose of being ruthless on the training ground is to help comrades-in-arms survive and win on the battlefield." Since then, they have turned into "hungry wolves and tigers" and began to mercilessly "bite" their comrades on the training ground.
A year has passed in a hurry, and under their hard work, the comrades-in-arms have improved their awareness of actual combat and their fighting skills. In a comprehensive training, the battalion won the victory in the real confrontation by an overwhelming margin, and the battle loss rate also hit a record low.
Nowadays, we evaluate the performance of basic training, no longer simply by the excellent rate of heroes, but more by whether they can withstand the confrontation test of the 'blue army team' as a yardstick. The commander of the battalion happily told reporters: "The process of confrontation training is the process of 'CT' combat effectiveness, and the more confrontations there are, the more difficult the confrontations, the more problems are discovered, and the more effective the training will be." ”
As he spoke, a burst of shouts came. Following the prestige, another fortification construction training kicked off under the attack and harassment of the "Blue Army Team".
Micro-Discussions
Basic training must abandon the "shooting range mentality".
Ru Jiawei. In terms of shooting skills, professional shooters seem to be far better than grassroots "gun kings". But when the troops organize shooting training, why don't they adopt the same training mode and method as athletes?The answer is self-evident: the former is for "shooting targets" and embodies "shooting range thinking", while the latter is for "fighting wars" and shows "battlefield thinking".
However, in the basic training of individual units, there is still the shadow of "shooting range thinking": tactical training is simply a competition of crawling speed, shooting training is a simple competition of hitting accuracy, and grenade throwing training is a one-sided competition of distance ......As everyone knows, the real battlefield is far more complex and harsh than this, and the "meter-second ring" in isolation cannot meet the needs of future wars.
Of course, for most recruits, it's understandable to lay a solid foundation with athlete training, but when recruits become veterans, they should learn to shift their training horizons from the "playground" to the "battlefield". You must know that on a real battlefield, the enemy will not wait for us to adjust our breathing and gun before starting to shoot, and there is basically no difference between a bullet hitting the center of the eyebrows and hitting the chest.
Therefore, troop leaders must abandon the "shooting range mentality," clearly understand that basic training is by no means a "sports competition," and always keep in mind the confrontational nature of war. Only by treating every training session as an actual battle and allowing officers and men to enhance their ability to fight a war in the course of a real confrontation can we lay a solid foundation for the troops to be able to confront the enemy at any time, and can they have the ability to fight a war and have the confidence to win a war.
Published in the 8th edition of the People's Liberation Army Daily on December 13.
*丨People's Liberation Army Daily, Xue Xi Corps (ID: xuexijuntuan).
Producer丨Ou Can, Hou Dawei, Editor丨Liu Jianwei, Yan Shan, Qian Zongyang, Editor丨Zhou Zhou, Li Chen.