The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Tibet Military Command recently sent troops to a high-altitude region at an elevation of 4,700 meters at night for infiltration exercises behind enemy lines and tested their combat capability under a harsh environment. At 1:00 am at an undisclosed date, a PLA scout unit began to mobilize toward its target in the Tanggula Mountains. During the march, vehicles turned off their lights and used night vision devices to avoid hostile drone reconnaissance. After encountering defensive obstacles built by the enemy, the scouts sent drones and dropped explosives to clear them.
They engaged in combat when approaching the target, for which they sent a sniper unit to crack enemy spotlights and a fire strike team to destroy enemy light armored vehicles with anti-tank rockets. The scout unit successfully launched the final assault on the enemy headquarters, in which commanders used a vehicle-mounted infrared reconnaissance system and guided the troops to lock in on targets and deliver fire strikes. More than 2,000 munitions, including mortar shells, rifle grenades and rockets were fired during the mock battle. The exercises not only tested the results of the troops’ training with newly commissioned equipment, but also placed them in an extremely complicated situation, Ma said.
Under condition of anonymity on Tuesday that nights in plateaus are very cold and the lack of oxygen at high elevations can cause problems for troops and hardware. Infiltrating behind enemy lines and launching an attack at a hostile command center at night can effectively win a small-scale conflict with only one battle. China and India share borders at the high altitude area, and incidents have recently occurred between the two countries’ troops, and both sides reportedly reinforced deployments. Both Tibet and Xinjiang are China’s borderlands, and exercises like this will boost the PLA’s capabilities to safeguard the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
