Chinese forces battle rain as war game continues

BEIJING - Chinese forces Thursday battled rain while continuing a five-day military exercise featuring drills that include the relocation of air defence positions and command posts.

More than 12,000 Chinese military personnel, along with seven types of military aircraft, divided into Red and Blue rivals, took part in exercise Vanguard-2010 which started Tuesday in seven cities across Henan and Shandong provinces, Xinhua reported.

The Red forces started their seven-hour relocation drill, which was complicated by heavy rainfalls that began early Thursday morning in the Shandong and Henan provinces.

The Red forces had finished relocating to their new defence positions by 1 p.m. (local time), while the Blue forces launched a second round of attacks which began Wednesday.

Earlier reports said the annual drill, consisting of two phases to run from Tuesday to Saturday, would feature emergency evacuation, war planning, reconnaissance, early warning activities, ground-to-air attacks and evacuations of command posts during its first phase which ends Thursday.

Its second phase will include testing Chinese air defence troops’ abilities in fighting air units in a “complicated electromagnetic environment”.