CCTV News disclosed the details of the service of the PLA Xianyang ship, saying that in just one year, the ship has completed all the training subjects from the unit's installation to passing the full training assessment, and its track has gone deep into the Indian Ocean. This not only indicates that the Xianyang ship has formed combat effectiveness, but also shows that the PLA is paying more and more attention to actual combat in relevant training.
[055 Destroyer Xianyang Ship Chopping Waves]
Recently, as the People's Navy officially celebrates its 75th anniversary, the official media has begun to broadcast more reports about the Navy, and many details have been exposed.
For example, in the latest episode of CCTV News, the interviewed Xianyang ship was revealed to have completed combat readiness patrols and far-sea training tasks in the South China Sea, the eastern Indian Ocean, the western Pacific Ocean and other waters in just one year, and successfully passed the drills and assessments of dozens of topics such as wide-area mobility, air defense and anti-missile, and joint strikes, forming combat effectiveness.
[Xianyang ships participating in the training assessment]
What kind of concept is this? Open source information shows that the Xianyang warship, as the "eldest" of the first batch of eight Type 055 10,000-ton destroyers, was officially announced and confirmed to have entered service during last year's Navy Festival.
This means that the ship has completed the full training assessment in less than one year and has the ability to fight in the ocean. Combined with the service experience of the "old seven" Zunyi ship of the 055 family, the combat effectiveness of the latest batch of 055 destroyers of the PLA can be stabilized at about one year.
[Last year's Navy Day Xianyang ship was officially announced to be listed]
This is undoubtedly a milestone for the PLA. This is because warships, as a highly integrated combat equipment that requires hundreds of people to operate together, cannot be built and delivered to the troops for service as soon as they can play a role. Instead, it requires the hundreds of crew members to continue to train and run in until they can fully understand the ship, so that the warship can play a role in the next series of missions, and continue to accumulate experience to further expand the upper limit of combat effectiveness.
It can be said that a warship is a very "empiricist" piece of equipment. As a result, even if a ship is advanced, if the quality of the personnel on board is not in place, the comprehensive combat capability of the ship may not be higher than that of a ship with a poor technical level but rich personnel.
【Officers and men of the Xianyang ship in training】
Therefore, when developing their naval forces, in addition to devoting a large amount of resources to the field of shipbuilding, various countries will also try by all means to expand investment in "invisible" professional fields such as the naval personnel training system and the formulation of training subjects. In order to make the efficiency of the training of naval personnel keep up with the efficiency of the construction and delivery of new ships, and to shorten the time required for the formation of combat effectiveness as much as possible after the delivery of ships, so as to quickly become an army.
For a long time, the outside world will marvel at China's shipbuilding speed, and at the same time say that "although the PLA has built so many ships, the US Navy still has the advantage." It is precisely because, in their view, China only has empty industrial capacity, and it is still deficient in personnel training and training, and it is difficult for it to catch up with an opponent with a profound "historical heritage" such as the US Navy in a short period of time.
However, the Xianyang ship has proved that this speculation is wrong with about one year of high-intensity training, and the PLA has the ability to build ships with high intensity while efficiently cultivating relevant talents, so that these ships can quickly become an army in a relatively short period of time. As the relevant work is further spread and popularized after this, the second batch of 0.55 million ton destroyers under construction will also rapidly grow into the main unit of the PLA surface ship force in the foreseeable future.
[The 9th 055 to be launched at the end of 2023]
In addition to the relatively short time for the formation of combat effectiveness, the report also revealed another detail worthy of attention. That is, during an ocean-going training, the Xianyang ship's range of activities covered the South China Sea, the eastern Indian Ocean, the western Pacific Ocean and other sea areas. At the same time, since Singapore did not record any information about the Xianyang ship's passage through the Strait of Malacca, the outside world did not know anything about the Xianyang's entry into the Indian Ocean before the CCTV news was exposed.
This shows that the PLA's ocean-going training is becoming more and more combat-oriented, and it has begun to consciously cultivate the technical and tactical capabilities of its troops in unfamiliar waters. It also shows that in the face of geographical factors such as the Strait of Malacca, which cannot be ignored, the PLA is also groping for a breakthrough direction to avoid being exploited by the opponent in a possible military conflict.
It is worth mentioning that, according to the inferences given by some open-source intelligence analysts, the Xianyang ship is likely to take the Southeast Asian route of the Karimata Strait, the Sunda Strait, the Lombok Strait, the Makassar Strait, and the Bass Strait when conducting this training in the open sea.
【Xianyang Ship Speculation Route Map】
Although from a strategic point of view, this route basically has no real combat value. But I can't stand 055 to go around this circle, and directly include half of Indonesia and the whole of the Philippines. Even if we don't have any ideas of our own, it seems to the outside world that China is demonstrating the PLA's naval power to Southeast Asia, and for the Philippines, which is at the forefront of the anti-China struggle with the United States, this is enough to create an invisible deterrent to them.
As for the United States behind the Philippines, although the voyage itself will not have much impact on American interests in the Asia-Pacific region. But the United States, which has the world's largest navy, also knows that it will not be easy to organize such a voyage of more than 10,000 kilometers.
The fact that the Xianyang ship can participate in it indicates that the ship has not only reached the actual combat standard in terms of combat effectiveness, but also met the needs of the PLA in terms of reliability and maintenance for the actual combat capability of the ship.
This means that the Xianyang can take on those combat missions that need to go to the ocean in the future, and China's influence will continue to expand in this series of missions.