The PLA at Home and Abroad - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

of the series, with a total of about 2,600 personnel,
half of which were Chinese. The main participating
PLA ground force units were elements of the 190th
Mechanized Infantry Brigade, the 9th Army Aviation
Regiment, and the Special Operations Group of 39th
Group Army, Shenyang MR, supported by a PLAAF
battle group of 20 fighters (J-8II), ground attack aircraft
(Q-5), and fighter-bombers (JH-7), along with an
air defense missile and radar unit. 65
According to Senior Colonel Lu Chuangang, head
of the PLA’s command group in the exercise directorate,
“The preparation time for the joint exercise has
been shortened from 10 months in the previous exercises
to 4 months this year, which show how Chinese
and Russian armed forces can mobilize and deploy
to a location within a very short time.” 66 The exercise
scenario was constructed around actions to rescue
hostages taken by an armed terrorist group in an urban
setting and included blowing up a chemical plant.
In particular, the enemy was said to have “a certain
degree of organization and combat capability rather
than disbanded militants who could be easily put to
rout.” 67 The terrorists used man-portable surface-toair
missiles in their defense and had access to some
sort of aircraft (exact specifications unknown). As a
result, for the first time in a “Peace Mission” exercise,
PLA and Russian forces were required to integrate
air and air defense operations, including the use of
their own surface-to-air missiles. 68 Senior Colonel Lu
also indicated that despite the smaller number of personnel
involved, the exercise used “few to represent
many” suggesting that the units on the exercise field
may have been smaller than would actually be used in
a combat scenario. 69
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