At 4 pm on December 21, the opening ceremony of the Joint Sea 2022 naval exercise between the Chinese and Russian navies was held in certain waters of the East China Sea. Rear Admiral Wang Yu, the executive director of the Joint Sea 2022 from the Chinese side, said that this year coincides with the 10th anniversary of the China-Russia Joint Sea exercises. Over the past decade, the navies of the two countries have enjoyed a high degree of mutual trust and close coordination, steadily improved their ability to jointly respond to security threats, which demonstrates their firm determination to safeguard world peace and regional stability.
For this exercise, the Chinese vessels did not invite technicians from the ship manufacturer to come for onboard support during the exercise. According to Zhao Yingming, the deputy commanding officer of the guided-missile destroyer CNS Jinan, sufficient onboard technical talents could guarantee the solutions to almost all the technical problems encountered. Ning Yuanjuan, a female sailor enlisted as a college student who once won the military’s third-level prize for achievements in electronic countermeasure reconnaissance technology, is one of them. Proficient in her specialty, Ning has been daily growing into a technical expert.
It is learned that in order to improve the support ability of the crew members, CNS Jinan had clarified the working process and supporting mechanism, which were translated into detailed, easy-to-understand graphics and forms. New crew members must get familiar with them and pass the assessment targeting professional technical difficulties before they could get the certificates for posts. "The more you know about the equipment at your operation, the more confident you will be in troubleshooting on your own," Zhao said.
The absence of external technicians has also been a result of the innovation of support means. For instance, the on-site solution by the manufacturer's technicians in the past has been changed to remote guidance. Song Junguo, a squadron leader of CNS Jinan, shared his experience that once the crew couldn't find out the problem of a failed certain equipment module after repeated inspections while training at sea. Through remote consultation with experts online, the equipment was restored by on-site maintenance personnel under the guidance of these experts.
"If we totally rely on the manufacturer whenever encountering difficulties rather than forcing ourselves to study and solve the difficulties and cultivating technical talents, we would have hidden dangers left in building combat effectiveness, and suffer losses in wartime," said Wang Xiao, vice political commissar of the warship. It is understandable to have a moderate number of aids to assist the training process at the very beginning, and to help form the troops’ combat effectiveness as soon as possible. However, in the long run, a lack of awareness to strengthen our own talent development will slow down the pace of training and growth of troops.