Group Army - People's Liberation Army

People's Liberation Army

As of 15 March 1967, the Central Intelligence Agency identified some 35 field armies:

• Shenyang Military Region: 16th, 23rd, 38th, 39th, 40th, 46th, 50th, 64th.
• 'Peiping Military Region': 21st, 24th, 63rd, 65th, 66th, 69th.
• 'Tsinan Military Region': 26th, 67th, 68th.
• 'Nanking Military Region': 12th, 20th, 22nd, 27th Army, 60th Army.
• 'Foochow Military Region': 28th, 31st Army.
• 'Canton Military Region': 41st, 42nd, 43rd, 47th, 55th.
• Wuhan Military Region: 1st, 10th Airborne (part of the PLAAF), 15th.
• Kunming Military Region: 13th Army, 14th Army.
• Chengdu Military Region: 54th Army.
• Inner Mongolia, Lanchou, Tibet, and Sinkiang Military Regions had no armies located within them.

In the mid-1980s, Deng Xiaoping began to redefine PLA orientation radically, beginning with a reassessment in 1985 of the overall international security environment that lowered the probability of a major or nuclear war. Instead, Deng asserted that China would be confronted with limited, local wars on its periphery. The natural consequence of this sweeping reassessment was an equally comprehensive reorientation of the Chinese military. The number of military regions was reduced from 11 to 7, and the 37 field armies were restructured to bring “tank, artillery, anti-aircraft artillery, engineer, and NBC defense units under a combined arms, corps-level headquarters called the Group Army.” Between 1985 and 1988, the 37 field armies were reduced to 24 group armies, and thousands of units at the regimental level and above were disbanded. —James C. Mulvernon, 'The PLA Army's Struggle for Identity,' in The PLA and China in Transition, INSS/NDU, 2003, 111.

Potential disbanded field armies may have included:

• Shenyang Military Region, the 68th Army (the Army and Chifeng garrison District Merger);
• Beijing Military Region section 66 of the Army (the Army and the Tianjin Garrison combined), 69 Jun;
• Lanzhou Military Region; 19 Jun
• Jinan Military Region Jun 46;
• 43 of the Wuhan Military Region Army;
• 60 Army of the Nanjing Military Region;
• Fuzhou Military Region 29 Army;
• Guangzhou Military Region, the 55th Army;
• Chengdu Military Region, 50th Army;
• Kunming Military Region, Jun 11. 24 Army

From 1997 to 2000, force reductions resulted in the disbandment of three group armies: the 28th (BMR), 64th (Dalian, Liaoning, SMR), and the 67th Group Army at Zibo, Shandong, in the Jinan Military Region. (Blasko, 2006, 74) In September 2003, a further series of reductions were announced, and from 2003 to 2006 the 24th Group Army at Chengde, Hebei, the 63rd at Taiyuan, Shaanxi (both BMR), and the 23rd Group Army at Harbin in the Shenyang Military Region were eliminated. (Blasko, 2006, 75).

The People's Liberation Army Ground Force has 18 regular 集团军 or 'Group Armies'. However, a modern Chinese Group Army is a corps-sized combined arms formation with gross manpower ranging from 45,000 to 60,000 personnel. Each of the PLA’s seven military regions is assigned with two or three group armies.

Other PRC Chinese language sources typically describe each Group Army has having 2 or 3 Divisions (mainly Infantry but some are Armour, Motorized or Artillery Divisions) and further augmented by several Brigade or regiment sized 'combat arms'/ 'support-arms' formations e.g. artillery, armour, air defence artillery, motorized (infantry), aviation/helicopter regiment etc.