Army groups of China

Group armies or army groups (simplified Chinese: 集团军; traditional Chinese: 集團軍; pinyin: jituan jun) are corps-level military formations of the People's Liberation Army of China.

History

In March 1967, the Central Intelligence Agency identified some 35 field corps:[1]

In the mid-1980s, Deng Xiaoping began to redefine PLA orientation radically, beginning with a reassessment in 1985 of the overall international security environment that lowered the probability of a major or nuclear war. Instead, Deng asserted that China would be confronted with limited, local wars on its periphery. The natural consequence of this sweeping reassessment was an equally comprehensive reorientation of the Chinese military. The number of military regions was reduced from 11 to 7, and the 37 field armies were restructured to bring “tank, artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, engineer, and NBC defense units under a combined arms, corps-level headquarters called the Group Army.”[2] Between 1985 and 1988, the 37 field armies were reduced to 24 group armies, and thousands of units at the regimental level and above were disbanded.

— James C. Mulvernon, 'The PLA Army's Struggle for Identity,' in The PLA and China in Transition, INSS/NDU, 2003, 111.

Potential disbanded field armies may have included:

From 1997 to 2000, force reductions resulted in the disbandment of three group armies: the 28th (BMR), 64th (Dalian, Liaoning, SMR), and the 67th Group Army at Zibo, Shandong, in the Jinan Military Region. (Blasko, 2006, 74) In September 2003, a further series of reductions were announced, and from 2003 to 2006 the 24th Group Army at Chengde, Hebei, the 63rd at Taiyuan, Shaanxi (both BMR), and the 23rd Group Army at Harbin in the Shenyang Military Region were eliminated. (Blasko, 2006, 75).

The People's Liberation Army Ground Force has 18 regular 集团军 or 'Group Armies'. However, a modern Chinese army group is a corps-sized combined arms formation with gross manpower ranging from 45,000 to 60,000 personnel. Each of the PLA’s seven military regions is assigned two or three group armies.[3]

Other PRC Chinese language sources typically describe each army group as having 2 or 3 Divisions (mainly Infantry but some are Armour, Motorized or Artillery Divisions) and further augmented by several Brigade or regiment sized 'combat arms'/ 'support-arms' formations e.g. artillery, armour, air defence artillery, motorized (infantry), aviation/helicopter regiment etc.

PLA Group Armies and their headquarters

National Revolutionary Army

By the end of the Second Sino-Japanese War, the National Revolutionary Army had organized 40 army groups. These were roughly equivalent to a field army in other militaries.[4]

References

  1. ↑ Central Intelligence Agency, National Intelligence Estimate No. 13-3-67 Communist China's Military Policy and its General Purpose and Air Defense Forces, 6 April 1967, page 28 of 34
  2. ↑ Dennis J. Blasko, “PLA Force Structure: A 20-Year Retrospective,” in Seeking Truth from Facts, ed. James C.Mulvenon and Andrew N.D. Yang (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2001).
  3. ↑ Sino Defence.com (under 'Ground Forces')
  4. ↑ Hsu Long-hsuen and Chang Ming-kai, History of The Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) 2nd Ed., 1971. Translated by Wen Ha-hsiung, Chung Wu Publishing; 33, 140th Lane, Tung-hwa Street, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China.
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