The International Army Games 2016 will be held in Russia and Kazakhstan from July 30 to August 13. At the invitation of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) will send a delegation of 22 task teams to participate in this year's Army Games.
Head of the Chinese PLA delegation Major General Yang Jian, who is also deputy director of the Training Management Department under the Central Military Commission (CMC), received on Tuesday an interview by PLA Daily on related information of his delegation and the International Army Games 2016.
Int'l Army Games 2016 focus on real combats
This year's International Army Games has 23 competition events and among them, 17 contests are for the Army, 2 for the Navy and 3 for the Air Force. The competition will be held simultaneously in Kazakhstan and 15 states of Russia, Yang said.
The competitions cover the main battlefield situations that troops of different arms may encounter in real operations and the contents of the competitions highlight combinations of military skills and physical fitness, technics and tactics as well as individual and team actions, in order to capable of reflecting the overall training level of the troops, Yang said.
The quantitative evaluation will be applied in all the events to make the contest more competitive, Yang added.
China sends the largest-ever delegation for Int'l Army Games 2016
The Chinese PLA delegation consists of 22 task teams to participate in 22 events and among them, 17 are from the PLA Army, 2 from the PLA Navy and 3 from the PLA Air Force. China ranks the second on the list of participant countries in the number of task teams following Russia, Yang said.
The railroad transportation of the hardware of the participating troops are carried out at 13 railway stations in 11 provinces (municipalities and autonomous regions) and the destinations of the cross-nation railroad maneuvers are 16 venues in 15 Russian states with the longest distance reaching 13,000 km, Yang said.
The first special train carrying the hardware left for Russia on July 7 and the last batch of participating troops and hardware are scheduled to return to China at the beginning of September.
The Chinese teams will use weapons and equipment provided by Russia and Kazakhstan for the first time in six competitions and that will be a comprehensive test for Chinese troops, Yang said.
Participating troops better prepared with all-round support
The PLA Army, Navy and Air Force have all set up a leading group headed by a deputy commander to be responsible for the training and preparation work, Yang said.
Relevant troop units have selected training pacesetters and technical backbones to act as instructors of the task teams, and as a result, there has been a significant improvement in terms of physical quality of team members, speed and obstacle crossing ability of various types of vehicles as well as the hit rate of machine guns, artillery and missiles, Yang said.
All the participating task teams have been provided with good technical and logistics support, Yang added.
