China's fleet conducted its first long-range amphibious exercise

Si the rapid reinforcement of the Chinese fleet is now known to all, the very important efforts made by the People's Liberation Army to train its crews and perfect their mastery of modern naval combat, are much less so.

However, whether it concerns surface, naval, amphibious, logistical and submarine units, all participate in numerous exercises according to increasingly advanced scenarios, and often using ammunition fire, precisely to increase the hardening of sailors and their officers.

Thus, it is now common for large naval units, destroyers, frigates, aircraft carriers or assault ships, to participate each year in several large-scale exercises, or in remote deployments, at a pace significantly denser than that imposed. to Western marine units.

Like the controlled rise in power of the industrial tool producing the new vessels of the Chinese Navy, the crew upskilling programs also seems to have been the subject of very precise and effective planning, with rapid but controlled progress allowing assimilation and feedback from experience.

This is how, in recent years, the Chinese Navy has carried out dozens of amphibious exercises involving an increasing number of ships and power projection units, sometimes on coastlines quite similar to those bordering the island of Taiwan. However, until now, these exercises had always been held close to, or even on, the Chinese coast, which simplified many aspects. It is no longer the case.

Indeed, according to Globaltimes.cn, very close to the CCP, the PLA Navy conducted, a few days ago, a first amphibious exercise described as "remote", that is to say reproducing a projection of power without relying on forces continental.

Therefore, the new Type 075 Haina assault helicopter carriern, entered service just 6 months ago, escorted by the Type 052D Hohhot anti-aircraft destroyer, the Type 054A anti-submarine frigate Liuzhou and the Type 901 replenishment tanker Chaganhu, jointly conducted an exercise simulating an aero-amphibious assault to project Chinese marines using helicopters and hovercraft, during a 30-day mission in the Western Pacific and 'a journey of 9000 nautical miles.

The exact site of the exercise was not disclosed, nor was the volume of forces projected. However, this is both a first for the PLA, allowing it to accumulate experience in this type of exercise, but also a message to the US Navy: the fleet China can now intervene beyond the first circle of islands surrounding the China Sea.

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