The Chinese have built a Joint Rapid Deployment Force & What is a Chinese "Super Heavy" Mech Infantry Division?

via China Defense Blog.

Soon, the CMC will have two corps of light infantry (The Marine with six infantry and a SpOP brigades and the Airborne of the same), two Army Air Assault Brigades (the 121st and the 161th) and  a super heavy Mech Infantry Division (the 112th) under its direct strategic command.  It does not take much of an imagination to picture a Joint Rapid Reaction Force in the making.  The JRRF (kuaisu fanyin budui) concept was first proposed by the British Army in the 1990s consists of combat and support elements from land, sea and air to a trouble spot rapidly and at a short notice.  More importantly than just showing the flag, a JRRF is capable of fighting a high intensity small/medium scale engagement.

Story here. 

I love this guys blog.  He gives us a real order of battle with regard to Chinese forces.  I'd even bet that Navy, Marine Corps and even DoD intel monitors his blog for the latest and greatest.

Having said that a few things come to mind.

You wonder why I scream at the moon when it comes to the Company Landing Team concepts and literally fear the idea of the Expeditionary Rifle Squad?

This is why.  The Chinese are getting ready to push forward combined arms teams at the Battalion level and higher.  I just don't see the formations that are being contemplated surviving against such forces.

Fighting and winning against larger units might sound good in the classroom or even at the war colleges but in reality its gonna be a meat grinder for the guys we send into it.

Next is that the Chinese are doing what we aren't.  We're replacing the ability to surge battalions, brigades or divisions to where they're needed with the idea that penny packets of soldiers or Marines will act as a deterrent to enemy activity.

I don't believe that for one minute.

If this idea had real merit it would have been tried before.  Wait.  It has.  Before WW2 with the idea of Coastal Defense Battalions.  We saw what happened to them and it will happen to our forces in the modern era.

Unfortunately I don't even see it being that successful.  What we're doing today is more akin to small outposts used during the Vietnam war.  How many were isolated, cutoff and destroyed by the enemy during that war?

Last but not least.

WTF is a Super Heavy Mech Infantry Division?