Yao Jianing， 2016-09-21
BEIJING, September 21 (ChinaMil) — The eight-day “Joint Sea – 2016” military drill between China and Russia came to a close on September 19. The joint drill demonstrates the high-degree of strategic mutual trust between the Chinese and Russian armed forces and has positive significance to improving the capability of the two navies to jointly cope with maritime threats, according to China’s military expert Zhang Junshe in an interview.
Zhang said that the two sides held joint drills on anti-submarine, island-seizing and other subjects. And also for the first time, the two sides used “back to back” mode and carried out confrontation drills in red and blue teams. The exclusive commanding information system is also put into use for the first time. Anti-submarine is an important tactical subject for surface ship forces, and the symbol of naval strength and level of training. Ships from different countries can only conduct joint anti-submarine exercise on the basis of high-level strategic mutual trust.
“As the most mysterious weaponry, submarine is one of the most important weapons to safeguard national security, and therefore it is highly confidential and only allies such as the US, Japan and Australia will conduct anti-submarine drills,” said Zhang.
The joint three-dimensional island-seizing drill held on the last day of the drill pushed the China-Russia joint naval exercise to a climax.
Zhang Junshe said that anti-submarine, anti-ship, anti-aircraft and landing are among the basic naval combat capability, but joint exercises in the above subjects require both sides to open their radar and sonar signals of ships and aircraft, and many equipment performance data to each other.
Yu Manjiang, commanding officer of the red team of the joint exercise, said in an interview that it is the first time that the two sides conduct operational planning and realistic confrontation in red and blue teams with “back to back” approach under the same combat background.
The historic use of the exclusive commanding system has enabled the two sides to share information without any barriers, said Yu.
Zhang pointed out that the two sides are in mixed formations and used an exclusive commanding information system, enabling real-time information sharing on dynamic movements of troops.
At the same time, the new commanding system can speed up the delivery of orders, pushing the drill closer to realistic combat and to the needs of future information naval warfare.
Such special wartime commanding information system integrates wireless communications, satellite communications and other means to achieve dynamic information sharing for both the commanding department and maritime mobile commanding post.
“This sharing reflects the high degree of strategic mutual trust between China and Russia, and will further deepen the pragmatic cooperation between the two navies,” said Zhang.