Since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, China has become the next target of United States.
Although there is constant friction between China and the United States, because of their military status and combat strength in the international community, the two countries will not easily go to war. The most recent real battle between China and United States was the Korean War in the 50s of the last century.
【Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea】
In the fighting of the Korean War, the United States has already sensed the strong combat effectiveness of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, which is why the United States not only wanted to make trouble on the Korean Peninsula, but also ran to the Taiwan Strait to provoke - they needed to use Taiwan Province to contain the PLA.
During that time, the United States CIA also conducted a more detailed intelligence analysis of China.
Now, the declassification of the two reports, "Memorandum of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Ministry of Defense (March 16, 1951)" and "CIA Assessment of the Power of Chinese Mainland and Its Intentions toward Taiwan in 1952 (April 1952)", also gives us an idea of the true strength of the original volunteer army.
【Volunteers in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea】
The strength of the PLA has surged
From the comparison of the CIA report, we can find that the combat strength of the PLA has grown at an astonishing rate, especially the weak navy and air force at that time.
Their March report showed that the PLA Air Force had only about 650 warplanes, which was basically ineffective for the United States.
However, by April of the following year, the number of PLA Air Force fighters in the report had surged to 1,700, and in just one year, the Volunteer Air Force had grown into an air and space force that could not be ignored.
【Chinese People's Volunteer Army Air Force】
In terms of the navy, although there has been no obvious change in the data within a year, and the mainland's warships are still those "old and broken", the PLA's amphibious force projection capability has been significantly improved, and in United States intelligence, the PLA Navy can even project the strength of seven armies at a time.
This frightened the US troops who were originally sent to the Taiwan Strait to carry out provocations in order to contain the volunteers.
It's not because China's military is strong enough to beat them, it's because the rate of growth in China's power and the unexpected "big surprise" make them feel like they can't control everything.
【The Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy in the last century】
In addition, at that time, the strength of the Chinese Air Force had even developed to the point where it could conduct operations in North Korea while dispatching nearly 500 aircraft to China's Taiwan Strait to confront United States.
【Air Force Pilot of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army】
The Army Corps, which was originally regarded as a trump card by the United States, suffered successive defeats after shouting the slogan "Go home for Thanksgiving after fighting", and now it has only been able to get out of the Korean battlefield for nearly three years.
And United States has always believed that China's production technology is very backward, and our military industrial capacity cannot support battlefield attrition, but China has only established its own large-scale production industry shortly after the founding of the country.
Every month, nearly 900 artillery pieces, 260,000 shells, 15,000 rifles, and 30 million rounds of ammunition are produced like flowing water, and then flow to the Korean battlefield under artillery fire.
[Models of weapons used by the Volunteers during the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea]
Volunteers on the Korean battlefield
The key is that the volunteers who beat them to the ground and fled in embarrassment are almost a group of "mud legs", they have to have ambition, they still have ambition, they still have ambition, and even the equipment of the first batch of volunteers who entered North Korea is "made in all countries", compared with the US military armed to the teeth, it is simply a heaven and an underground.
As a result, this force, which lacks experience in modern warfare, can still "develop" rapidly in large-scale wars and defeat the world's number one military power with an absolute disadvantage.
【U.S. Army during the Korean War】
This feeling of being unable to control the situation and feeling unknown to everything is terrifying to the United States GIs.
Previously, when a United States soldier recalled the scene of the volunteers ambushing them in his later years, he remembered it vividly:
"The volunteer soldiers rushed out of the woods wearing white cloths, wave after wave, like a tide, they were not afraid of death at all, the people in front were knocked down, and the people behind immediately made up for it, even if we hit in the end that the weapons and equipment were about to be scrapped, it still couldn't stop the footsteps of the volunteers."
Therefore, the United States believes in the report that I am afraid that only the Soviet army, which has similar willpower to the PLA, understands China better, and is stronger than China, can fight with the PLA.
[Soviet Army during World War II]
But if the PLA is the side defending the country, then the Chinese People's Liberation Army is invincible on land.
The lesson of blood and tears in United States
As can be seen from the archives, the United States did not initially have a clear understanding of the strength of the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
Of course, we didn't know much about United States at that time, and the only intersection between the two armies might be the Kuomintang army.
[Kuomintang army during the Liberation War]
United States believes that the Kuomintang army looks very large and more numerous than the PLA on the surface, but the overall combat effectiveness is low, morale is low, and the individual level of the fighters is poor, so the KMT cannot defeat the PLA even if it has a large amount of American-style equipment.
In the minds of the United States military, the strength of the PLA may be a little stronger than that of the Kuomintang army, but it is no less fearful.
At that time, the PLA troops also used the Kuomintang army as a reference for fighting the US army, because the Kuomintang received a lot of assistance from the United States back then, and almost all of the equipment was advanced military weapons provided by the United States.
Since we can defeat the Kuomintang, we can also defeat the US military, which is slightly stronger than the Kuomintang.
【Chinese People's Volunteer Army】
As a result, they met on the battlefield, and the two sides really understood the horrors of the other party.
Therefore, the US military later also said in a report: If the People's Liberation Army with such strength wants to unify Taiwan, the Kuomintang will not be able to hold Taiwan Island without international support.
Resources:
[1] Why was the Chinese army able to win to resist US aggression and aid Korea? Mao Zedong summed up the 14-word · China Youth Network
[2] The mighty and majestic cause of war - written on the 70th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army to resist US aggression and aid Korea· study corps
[3] History has never been false, · CCTV network