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People's Liberation Army Air Force

PLAAF Order of Battle

The PLA Air Force underwent reorganization and streamlining as part of the general reduction in military forces begun in 1985. The PLAAF is organized into air corps, ground-to-air missile corps, anti-aircraft artillery corps, radar corps, parachute corps and other professional forces. Before the 1985 reorganization, the Air Force reportedly had four branches: air defense, ground attack, bombing, and independent air regiments. The air corps consists of fighter plane units, bomber units, attack plane units, reconnaissance plane units and air transport units.

In peacetime the Air Force Directorate, under the supervision of the PLA General Staff Department, controls the Air Force through Air Army headquarters located with, or in communication with, each of the seven military region headquarters. It is unclear how the 1985 reorganization and the incorporation of air support elements into the Group Armies affected air force organization. The army Aviation Corps was established in 1988 by the transfer of utility helicopters from the Air Force to support ground troops as transport a force. In war, control of the Air Force probably reverts to the regional commanders. The largest Air Force organizational unit is the Division, which consisted of 17,000 personnel in three regiments. A typical air defense regiment has three squadrons of three flights; each flight has three or four aircraft. Each air division has 70 to 124 fighter planes or 70 to 90 bombers. As of 1996 Class-A combat regiments accounted for 95 percent of the total number of combat regiments, with 74% of pilots trained in all-weather flight. About half of all flight and air defense units are Category B units, equipped with old armaments and not receiving much training.

As of 1997 the PLA Air Force had a total strength of approximately 370,000, organized into 45 air divisions. Among them are five bomber divisions, 32 fighter divisions, six attack divisions, two transport divisions, 17 air defense divisions [with 220,000 troops], and one airborne army comprising three airborne divisions with 20,000 airborne troops.

The ground-to-air missile corps was formed in 1958-59. On 7 October 1959, it shot down a Taiwanese reconnaissance aircraft over Beijing, the combat use of surface-to-air missiles anywhere in the world. In the 10 ensuing years, the missile force shot down six US-made U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft and three US-made pilotless aircraft. As of 1996 there were 600 air defense missile battalions, equipped with HQ-2 air defense missiles; HQ-3 air defense missiles; HQ-61 air defense missiles; HQ-7 air defense missiles; LY-60 (Lieying) air defense missiles; PL-9 air defense missiles; HY-5 shoulder-launched air defense missiles; QW-1 shoulder-launched air defense missiles; and three sets of advanced Russian-made C-300 missiles.

Detailed information concerning the PLA order of battle is not readily available in the unclassified literature. The single most authoritative source, indeed the only source, of such information is the Directory of PRC Military Personalities, produced for many years under the sponsoship of the US Military Liasion Office at the US Consulate in Hong Kong. This estimable work lists thousands of PLA military officers and their associated posts and units. Although unique reference work provides a reasonably illuminating depiction of the PLA ground forces order of battle, coverage of the PLA Air Force is rather more fragmentary. At the Division level, only 29 of the reported 45 Air Divisions are even alluded to in the Directory, and of these only half a dozen are identified with any specificity. The Directory provides no order of battle data for the Chengdu Military Region, and only fragmentary insight into even the frontline Nanjing Military Region opposite Taiwan.

Sources and Resources

• Directory of PRC Military Personalities Serold Hawaii Inc, June 1998 [This is apparently the final edition of this publication, since the Military Liasion Office at the US Consulate in Hong Kong does not have a more recent edition, and repeated attempts to locate the publisher have failed.]
• An Assessment of the Chinese Air Threat to India in the Year 2000 K.S. Chhina
• Modernizing China's Air Force: Its Strategy, Budget, and Capabilities Patricia M. Fornes

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