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Nov 13, 2021 21 tweets 14 min read Read on X
1/20
THREAD🇨🇳Chinese Military UAVs

The night between 2&3 October 2021, a few 🇨🇳PLA military exercises took place in central and northwest of China. We’ll focused on the ones were UAVs were used and how they used them, in a fairly traditional way:
Please remember this is twitter
2/20
A joint Land-Air fire strike drill exercise took place in Xinjiang Military Region. It took place with a Blue & a Red team. The strikes took place in a training ground at a 5,100mm altitude, which clearly points towards India
3/20
As it can be seen in, a KVD001/ASN-207 UAV was used in an ISTAR role to keep constant watch of the operational area and to point out objectives for the artillery. This UAV was connected to its Ground Control Station, who was connected to a PLA Rocket Force MLRS battery
4/20
A 370mm rocket firing PHL-16/PCL191 MLRS was used to carry out in-depth (up to 350km) attacks against high-value targets. This could be considered a strategic use of artillery. Interesting to see the integration between PLAGroundForces & PLARocketForces
5/20
The ASN-207 UAV pinpointed the targets and the PHL-16/PCL191 MLRS attacked the four targets. This MLRS can also fire 300mm rockets. Also, this MLRS just went into service, but they don’t rely on their newer ASN-209 UAV, but in their experienced a& relatively old ASN-207 UAV
6/20
Allegedly, the stroke targets were concealed fortifications and field ammunition depots. This exercise is orientated to strike not only hit high-value targets such as airports&ammunition depots, but also vehicle formation or assembly troop points from long distances&heights
7/20
A hidden control & command post was also revealed. ASN-207’s information would normally take a few minutes to reach the artillery battery, so in these cases, a more direct approach is and was taken. The target was immediately neutralized by a reconnaissance & attack UCAV
8/20
As time was critical, a CH-4B UCAV was used for this attack instead with two air-to-surface missiles to make sure the target is destroyed. Its Ground Control Station can be seen in the background of the video
9/20
A live-fire drill took also place in the Northwest Gobi desert by an Artillery Unit during daylight and night. As the drill started, a sandstorm took place
10/20
In this case, by the number of vehicles, the artillery unit was at least formed by (what it looks like) 2 batteries of 5x PCL-181 truck-mounted 155 mm self-propelled howitzers. They were supported by UAV. All pretty standard
11/20
As in the previous exercise, an ASN-207 UAV was launched to be the eyes of the PLA artillery group on the ground. Generally unknown, the ASN-207 is 1 of the most used drones by the PLA. They have thousands of them, in this aspect, PLA rely on quantity, rather than quality
12/20
A vehicle convoy & a fortification were spotted and the information was sent back to the Ground Control Station, who managed to targeting process. This process could take a few minutes, hence density in modern battlegrounds needs to be reduced as much as possible
13/20
The targets were attacked by the artillery group. It would be good to note that this sort of tactical use of the UAVs as ISTAR masterpieces is very similar to the Russian one, that we have seen many times before in Donbas (ie Zelenopillya) or Syria
14/20
As standard procedure in any other army, after the attack the batteries change position to continue with the next artillery salvo, avoid detection and destruction while reconnaissance UAVs continue with the search
15/20
At night, several flares are shot to continue with the activity,allow night operations by other branches, help with Battlefield Damage Assessment or ISTAR. PLA rely heavily on direct datalink rather than satellite communications for UAVs,which difficult Long Range strikes
16/20
The artillery unit continue with the strikes during the night. It is obvious that this sort of exercises will also include some low-level EW elements (radar signature targeting) integrated with the UAV ISTAR platforms and other UAVs used as communication relays
17/20
Another exercise took place in an undisclosed location (probably Sichuan Western Plateau). It also took placed at night & day and included 2 Red-Blue teams in a confrontation scenario with vehicles, breaching exercises, artillery drill & a helicopter air assault
18/20
Although not visible, it is very likely that ASN-207 also took part in these exercises. If you still do not know the ASN UAV family, please take a look to this thread I made some time ago about the whole family:
19/20
An Air Assault took place with a Changhe Aircraft Industries Z-8G transport helicopter. It is stated that an UAV (probably a ASN-207 or ASN-209, ) was used to do a previous landing reconnaissance before the infants disembarked
20/20
Additionally, PLA have been seen using plenty of samllUAV for tactical & low level tactical reconnaissance during their exercises as reconnaissance support for their troops, from the ASN-15, their copy of the US Raven to small quadcopters
/END

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More from @jesusfroman

Oct 23
1/6🧵 CCTV published an urban warfare exercise clip.
The clip was extremely short (10-12sec) so very limited content to observe.
They were🇨🇳PLAGF units from the Central Theater Command.

There were some interesting trends:
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2/6 ... for first time, although general rubble was still missing.
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3/6 ...launchers) collaborated with the armoured vehicles.
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THREAD 1/13 In mid-January 2024, I was invited by the @ukinspain & @DefenceHQ to a British training camp where the Ukrainian soldiers were trained. Here is the full article. For those without much time/subscription, here are some bullet points:
revistaejercitos.com/en/articulos/l…
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1/4 First operational shots of what seems to be the large high-subsonic JY260 target UAVs (ID #24-066 & 24-064) during an exercise launched from the🇨🇳PLAN Type 071 Changbai Shan (989) amphibious transport dock. Supposed to simulate 3rd&4th-gen fighter & cruise missiles...


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2/4 ...the body looks very similar to the NRIST II-260 with a nose closer to the II-150Y UAV.
It has wing tips similar to the WJ-500 target UAV.

Features (via SinoDefenseForum):
"Length: 4m
Wingspan: 1.6m
Takeoff weight: 190+ kg
Max level speed: 270m/s
Ceiling: 12000m...
3/4 Min. Altitude: 20m (land variant), 5m (naval variant)
Endurance: 70 min
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Jul 18, 2023
1/28
LONG GRAPHIC THREAD

On 06/07/2023 CCTV, 砺剑dedicated a 26min episode to the 122mm PHL-11/SR-4 medium-range Multiple Launch Rocket System.

The episode was focused on a 🇨🇳PLAGF 71st Group Army Synthetic Brigade in the Eastern TC.


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2/28
The episode showed a Company-based salvo training live ammunition indirect shooting drill.

The Company unit was formed by 4 vehicles. Each vehicle was manned by 3 individuals. However, during the video, a full Battalion, formed by 11 vehicles (plus a C&C one), was seen.


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3/28
All the Battalion could be seen moving into position and splitting into Companies. The Companies were deployed in position to train different target engagement methods.


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Read 28 tweets
Jun 27, 2023
1/8
Ad hoc thread of the 🇨🇳PLAAF TENGDEN TB-001 UCAV.

Yesterday, CCTV "Intelligent Warfare" published a video where 3x TB-001 UCAVs where showed and tested





2/8
Taking out the UAVs from the hangar to the runway





3/8
It grabbed my attention that the UAVs could be towed, moved around and set in the runways with a single commercial van





Read 8 tweets
May 3, 2023
1/4
CCTV7 showed a few 🇨🇳PLA 300mm (5 tubes, left) & 370mm (4 tubes, right) PCL-191/PHL-16 MLRSystems side by side.

They also showed the modular system loading process. The missile modular canisters can be easily replaced on site, and are interchangeable. ImageImageImageImage
2/4
In the same video, some mobility training was taking place with a battery-size unit. ImageImageImageImage
3/4
Although some fire strike training was shown in the same, it is likely that it was performed at a different time. ImageImageImageImage
Read 4 tweets

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