Can PLA training catch up with China’s rapid weapon development?

China’s military mouthpiece has issued a rare warning that personnel may be insufficiently trained to operate new weapons, including unmanned systems, despite Beijing’s rapid advances in hardware.

Some military units showed a low level of integration between personnel and equipment, Monday’s PLA Daily article cautioned, highlighting limited trust in systems and weak coordination between human operators and technology.

It warned that without proper integration, “even advanced equipment may fail to deliver its operational advantages, reducing combat effectiveness and potentially leading to defeat in war”.

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A series of domestically developed new weapons and equipment had been gradually distributed throughout the People’s Liberation Army, and many of the fielded weapons “are the results of new technologies, especially the widespread use of unmanned and intelligent systems”, the article said.

“Without strong technical expertise, personnel simply cannot operate them effectively – let alone achieve coordinated manned-unmanned operations.”

Weapon systems were increasingly becoming long-range, precise, intelligent, stealthy and uncrewed, and some advanced weapons had technologically broken through traditional time and space limitations, reshaping the offensive and defensive dynamics of warfare to varying degrees, the article noted.

It said that some military units had not done enough on personnel-equipment integration and some had not devoted enough effort to cultivating specialised talent.

South China Morning Post