PLA commanders ordered to take part in live-fire drills

Senior commanders have been ordered to take part in the latest round of live-fire exercises by the People's Liberation Army, amid a push to make military drills more sophisticated.

Drills will increasingly focus on coordinated combat skills such as firepower support, assault and defence, retreat and pursuit, airborne and anti-airborne tactics and logistics, the armed forces' newspaper said.

Previously, war games have tended to target a single mode of combat and follow simple scenarios.

In one drill, a two-month exercise dubbed "Firepower 2015", which is under way at a training base in the Lanzhou Military Region, artillery forces from seven military commands had been pitted against armoured reconnaissance, infantry and aviation troops as well as strategic experts from the army's six academies, the PLA Daily reported.

In another drill, "Trans-2015", at the army's second-largest combined tactical training base in Queshan county, Henan province, experts from the general staff department of the PLA headquarters were ordered to work with 255 elite officers selected from the Jinan Military Command. Together they formed a commanding team responsible for instructing other troops.

The PLA Daily said the Queshan drill was the army's first combined tactical military exercise led by the general staff, but organised and undertaken by regional military areas.

Under the new style of training, both senior and lower-level officers take part in the same exercises. Military experts say this will help to keep the exercises realistic.