By Liu Xiaohong, Zhang Wei
NANJING, June 5 (ChinaMil) -- The Army’s “Crossing Rivers and Seas 2019” Competition organized by the Chinese PLA Military Transportation Academy kicked off on June 4 in Zhenjiang, east China’s Jiangsu Province. More than 100 competitors from the border and coastal defense troops of the PLA Ground Force attended the competition including more than 20 items within4 subjects.
This was the first competition for border and coastal defense ship-and-boat troops held by the PLA Ground Force since China’s military reform in 2016, as well as the largest military competition of the PLA Army’s ship-and-boat troops since its establishment.
Zhao Yongsheng, director of the Border and Coastal Defense Division of the Staff Department of the PLA Army, noted that the 3-day competition in an unfamiliar battlefield on waters would examine the physical strength, military skills and intelligent performance of officers and soldiers of ship-and-boat troops, as well as their capabilities in command, tactics, and coordinated operations.
The ship-and-boat force of the PLA Army is an organically assigned unit of the PLA Army for aquatic combat, support and logistics. Deployed along China’s coastlines and border rivers (or lakes), it plays an important role in safeguarding transportation of supplies to troops stationed on islands, laying and maintaining undersea cables, conducting coastal patrols, carrying out offshore reconnaissance and guard, etc. It provides strong support and guarantee for border defense troops to efficiently organize border river (or lake) patrols, prevent illicit border crossing and operations on waters, carry out aquatic rescues, and transport personnel and cargos.