Group army (military unit)
Group armies (
Some may use or translate 'Group Army' loosely to mean the same as
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]
People's Liberation Army
Armies of the PLA 1948-1985
From November 1948, the
It appears that over 37% (26 of 70) of the seventy new armies may have been disestablished from 1949 to 1953. In 1949, the 8th and 34th Armies were disbanded,
After the
In March 1967, the Central Intelligence Agency identified some 35 field corps:[6]
- 64th.
- 66th Army, 69th.
- 67th, 68th Army.
- 60th Army.
- 31st Army.
- 47th, 55th.
- 15th.
- 14th Army.
- 54th Army.
- Inner Mongolia, Lanzhou, Tibet, and Xinjiang Military Regions had no armies located within them.
PLAGF Group Armies (1985-2016)
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."[7]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:
- Shenyang Military Region, 68th Corps.[8] In 1985 the 68th Corps was reorganised as the Chifeng Garrison, in Inner Mongolia but part of the Shenyang MD.[9]
- Beijing Military Region: 66th Army(the Army and the Tianjin Garrison combined), 69 Jun;
- Lanzhou Military Region: 19 Jun
- Wuhan Military Region: 43rd Army (People's Republic of China) - definitely disbanded, see above;
- 60th Army (People's Republic of China)
- Fuzhou Military Region: 29th Army;
- Guangzhou Military Region: the 55th Army;
- Chengdu Military Region: 50th Army;
- Kunming Military Region: Jun 11. 24 Army
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.[10] In September 2003, a further series of reductions were announced, and from 2003 to 2006 the 24th Group Army at Chengde, Hebei, the 63rd Army at Taiyuan, Shaanxi (both BMR), and the 23rd Group Army at Harbin in the Shenyang Military Region were eliminated.[11]
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 up until 2016
- 1st Group Army(Zhejiang, Nanjing Military Region)
- 12th Group Army (Jiangsu, Nanjing Military Region)
- 13th Group Army (Chongqing, Chengdu Military Region)
- 14th Group Army (Kunming, Chengdu Military Region)
- 16th Group Army (Jilin, Shenyang Military Region)
- 20th Group Army (Henan, Jinan Military Region)
- 21st Group Army (Shaaxi, Lanzhou Military Region)
- 26th Group Army(Weifang, Shandong, Jinan Military Region)
- 27th Group Army (Hebei, Beijing Military Region)
- 31st Group Army(Fujian, Nanjing Military Region)
- 38th Group Army(Baoding, Beijing Military Region)
- 39th Group Army(Liaoning, Shenyang Military Region)
- 40th Group Army (Jinzhou, Liaoning, Shenyang Military Region)
- 41st Group Army (Guangxi, Guangzhou Military Region)
- 42nd Group Army(Guangdong, Guangzhou Military Region)
- 47th Group Army (Shaanxi, Lanzhou Military Region)
- 54th Group Army(Henan, Jinan Military Region)
- 65th Group Army(Hebei, Beijing Military Region)
PLAGF Group Armies (2016-present)
The reform in 2015 was a major restructuring of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which flattened the command structure and allowed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to have more control over the military, with the aim of strengthening the combat capability of the PLA.[12]
Legend:
- Northern Theater Command, TC headquarters at Shenyang, Liaoning;
- TC Ground Force Headquarters Jinan, Shandong.
- 78th Group Army (Harbin, Heilongjiang, formerly 16th Group Army);
- , formerly 39th Group Army);
- , formerly 26th Group Army).
- TC Ground Force Headquarters Jinan, Shandong.
- Eastern Theater Command, TC headquarters at Nanjing, Jiangsu;
- Western Theater Command, TC headquarters at Chengdu, Sichuan;
- Southern Theater Command, TC headquarters at Guangzhou, Guangdong;
- Central Theater Command, TC headquarters at Beijing.
- TC Ground Force Headquarters Shijiazhuang, Hebei.
- 81st Group Army(Shijiazhuang, Hebei, formerly 65th Group Army)
- , formerly 38th Group Army);
- , formerly 54th Group Army).
- TC Ground Force Headquarters Shijiazhuang, Hebei.
PLA Army groups listed below have been disbanded:
- 14th Group Army
- 20th Group Army
- 27th Group Army
- 40th Group Army
- 47th Group Army
Structure
People's Liberation Army's army groups (combined crops) are divided into Combined Arms Brigades (CA-BDE) and other support elements. Typically, a group army consists of:[1][13][14]
- Group army headquarters
- Fire support/artillery brigade
- Air defense brigade
- Army aviation brigade
- Special operation brigade
- Combat support and engineering brigade
- Service support and sustainment brigade
- Six maneuver combined arms brigades (CA-BDEs), including a mix of:
- Medium combined arms brigade
- Light combined arms brigade
- Amphibious combined arms brigade
- Mountain combined arms brigade
- Air assault Brigade
- Heavy combined arms brigade, and each CA-BDE typically includes:
- Brigade headquarters
- Fire support/artillery battalion
- Air-defense battalion
- Reconnaissance battalion
- Combat support and engineering battalion
- Service support and sustainment battalion
- Four combined arms battalions (CAB), and each CAB includes:
- Battalion headquarters
- Two tank companies
- Two mechanized infantry companies
- Fire support/artillery company
- Combat/service/sustainment support company
Notes
- ^ The 34th Army was disbanded in November 1950 but all three of its divisions had been reassigned in 1949: the 100th to the 33rd Army in July; the 101st to the 10th Army/Corps in November, and the 102nd in December to a special assignment but then became the 3rd Artillery Division. In November 1950 the military organs and direct troops of the army became the 13th Public Security Division in East China (PLA360).
- ^ The 211th Division may have become Huanggang Military District, and the 212th another district.
- ^ Regarding the 25th Corps/Army, the second 75 Division Headquarters Air Force, 73rd division was redeployed to the 23rd Army, the 74th Division redeployed to the 24th Army, the 75th division of the group were redeployed first to the 31 Army and then to the Jiangsu military.
- ^ The military adapted for the Air Force 3rd Army, the 145th Division (First Formation) into the 21st Corps, the 146th Division transferred to the Guangxi Military Region, and the 147th Division (First Formation) was reorganised as the 12th Public Security Division.
References
Citations
- ^ a b "Learning from Russia: How China used Russian models and experiences to modernize the PLA". Mercator Institute for China Studies. September 23, 2020.
- ^ "Group Armies / Combined Corps". globalsecurity.
- ^ "PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY "GROUND FORCES" Quick Reference Guide" (PDF). United States Army Training and Doctrine Command. December 2021. p. 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.
- ISBN 0-8330-1296-7.
- ^ 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 Archived 28 November 2011 at the Wayback Machine, page 28 of 34
- ^ 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).
- ^ See NPIC, https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/document/cia-rdp80t01355a000100060001-1
- ISBN 0-8330-1296-7.
- ^ Blasko, 2006, 74
- ^ (Blasko, 2006, 75
- JSTOR 26644516– via JSTOR.
- ^ Arostegui, Joshua (2020). "An Introduction to China's High-Mobility Combined Arms Battalion Concept" (PDF). U.S. Army.
- ^ "Chinese Tactics" (PDF). Federation Of American Scientists. August 9, 2021.
Sources
- Blasko, Dennis J. (2006). The Chinese Army Today: Tradition and Transformation for the 21st Century. London, England; New York, NY: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-77002-5.