Isn't the current number of the Chinese Army a little small? Because you see, our army has only 13 group armies, which are distributed in five major theaters, and each theater has 2-3 group armies. However, China has 23 provinces, 5 autonomous regions, 4 municipalities directly under the central government, and two special administrative regions, which add up to 34 provincial-level administrative units, and 13 group armies are not enough. Is it really reasonable for each provincial-level administrative region to have at least one army group?
Not really. If there is an army group in each province, it will not be able to be used at all, it will be too crowded. Although everyone often says that the Air Force has new aircraft, the Navy has new ships, and the Army only has new boots, in fact, the only army in the world that can compete head-on with it is the United States, with 13 army groups, 84 composite brigades and 4 synthetic divisions. But the problem is that they can't prove it, because they lost on the Korean battlefield, and they can only hold back if they don't accept it.
At this stage, the task of the Chinese army is to defend the territory, so the sophistication of the army's equipment is far greater than the number of troops, especially the number of army units such as synthetic brigades, which mainly focus on technical weapons, and the number of people is not the most important at all. In the past, it took 10 people to form combat power, but now because of the upgrade of equipment, one person can do it. And for those non-technical classes, they can be expanded at any time for the time being. As soon as there is a need, those soldiers who have not been retired for a long time will be called up on a priority basis, and after a short period of training, they can regain their combat effectiveness and replenish the attacking units at any time. This is what we often say that the soldiers are fine, not many.
Although it is said that the army has not served all kinds of advanced weapons and equipment like the navy and air force in recent years, the army is inherently unpretentious. Classes of equipment such as tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and rocket artillery can't be played no matter how much they play. However, our army has developed a lot of high-tech unmanned equipment in recent years, such as unmanned armored combat vehicles, unmanned reconnaissance vehicles, unmanned amphibious combat vehicles, and so on. The use of these equipment on the battlefield can minimize casualties.
Why does China still have 4 compositors? As we all know, since the military reform in 2017, the original 18 group armies have been adjusted to 13 group armies, and the army establishment has also been changed from the original army-division-regiment-battalion to army-brigade-battalion, and the division and regiment structure has been cancelled and changed to brigades, that is to say, our current group army no longer has two units, divisions and regiments. The reason for this change is to deal with the modern war.
Modern warfare emphasizes flexibility and mobility, and now a division has more than 10,000 people, which is too huge. In addition, the corps-division-regiment-battalion unit model makes the transmission of information even more unfavorable for rapid response and command. However, now that the personnel have been reorganized, the mobility of the troops has been increased, the time for information transmission has been reduced, and the response and command have become smoother.
However, China currently retains four separate composite divisions, which are deployed in the Xinjiang Military Region. The reason why these 4 synthesizers are still kept is actually for India. As we all know, China is the country with the largest number of neighbors in the world, and among the neighboring countries with which China has land borders, except for India, have solved the border problem. As for why the synthetic division is zoned in the Xinjiang Military Region instead of Tibet, because Xinjiang also borders India, and the Ali area on the Sino-Indian border belongs to Tibet in terms of administrative planning, but the Xinjiang Military Region is responsible for defense.
In the previous confrontation in the Galle Valley, our front-line troops were from the Xinjiang Military Region. The size of the Synthetic Division is about twice as large as the Synthetic Brigade, so in large-scale operations, the Synthetic Division is more suitable than the Synthetic Brigade. Moreover, Xinjiang and Tibet are inherently vast and sparsely populated, making them very suitable for the deployment of large-scale troops. Compared with synthetic divisions, synthetic brigades are more suitable for small but refined wars, and for military powers, it is difficult to break out large-scale wars that require dispatch at the division level. As long as it is not a large-scale war, the synthetic brigade is completely sufficient. If it's a large-scale war, send two more synthetic brigades and you'll be done. Therefore, there is no need to keep the formed army of the division, and these four composite divisions are independent of the group army.