'Fire-2014 Shandan' drill kicks off

An air defense brigade of the Tibet MC participating in the drill encountered air raid by the "Blue Army" and organized its marching troops to evacuate and take cover immediately. (mil.cnr.cn/Xie Luying)

The "Fire-2014•Shandan" trans-regional tactical drill kicked off at an air force training base in the Hexi Corridor of northwestern Gansu province in the wee hours of July 15, 2014.

The "Red Army" played by an air defense brigade of the Tibet Military Command (MC) of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) engaged in combat with the "Blue Army" played by an air force base after a nearly 4,000km march.

According to a leader of the Military Training Department under the PLA General Staff Headquarters (GSH), it is the first time for the GSH to organize such a low-altitude drill for the Tibet-stationed troops, which aims to explore the methods for the arms of service to carry out systematic and normalized trans-regional trainings at bases.

In the next three months, nine troops of different arms of service including rocket gun, artillery and air defense from the Nanjing MAC, Shenyang MAC, Guangzhou MAC, Beijing MAC, Chengdu MAC and Jinan MAC will carry out drills successively in six training bases.