China News Service, Chengdu, August 4 (Zeng Tao) In the midsummer season, a joint combat exercise under informatized conditions is raging on the western plateau at an altitude of more than 4,000 meters.
Suddenly, the "enemy" dispatched a reconnaissance plane to conduct battlefield reconnaissance and patrols on us. Once we succeed, our deployment will be seen by the "enemy".
Zeng Wenlong, a professional and technical lieutenant colonel engineer of a certain support team in the Western Theater Command, quickly made judgments, analyses, and assessments... and quickly put forward suggestions on how to deal with it to the command post.
Based on this, the command post made careful arrangements. Eventually, as soon as the "enemy" target reached the combat area, it got into the electromagnetic "ecstasy array" laid by our side and returned without success.
Zeng Wenlong took oxygen to rest while marching on the plateau.
Photo by Wu Zhefeng
This is not the first time that Zeng Wenlong has participated in this kind of drill.
With a background in electronic warfare, he has been in this field since he joined the military academy. He has never been absent from the major training missions organized by the army every year.
"My job is to use electromagnetic waves as a weapon to control and block the enemy's signals, turn the enemy into a'blind' or'deaf' at a critical moment, and help us defeat the enemy through electromagnetic suppression." Zeng Wenlong said, he has been guarding the invisible battlefield. The invisible line of defense of the motherland.
On February 1, 2016, the Central Military Commission held a theater inaugural meeting, sounding the clarion call for building a joint combat system for our military.
Zeng Wenlong was appointed as the director of the business office of a guarantee team in the western theater.
From military regions to theaters, electronic countermeasure support under joint operations has transformed from a single data support to command support that provides multi-dimensional comprehensive information; from a single service operation to a multi-service joint operation.
In the face of higher demands, Zeng Wenlong regarded "victory of the invisible battlefield under the conditions of joint operations" as his goal, and embarked on the path of capacity upgrading and quality transformation.
The bookcase in Zeng Wenlong's office is full of books on artificial intelligence and unmanned intelligent combat, some of which have been turned up and curled up.
In response to the ever-changing information technology, he always keeps an eye on the frontier tackling problems in the field of new qualitative operations, and incorporates the latest technologies such as big data into the research field.
Soon after the establishment of the theater, a joint exercise was organized for the first time. During the preparatory stage, Zeng Wenlong discovered that there was no basic data suitable for the mission area and combat calculations could not be carried out.
He hurriedly organized the forces to urgently reorganize and load combat data, "nailed" in the office for a week, and finally cleared the problem to zero before the formal exercise.
During the exercise, he completed simulations of dozens of scenarios, and innovatively proposed 8 operational calculation index models and 1 operational calculation theory, realizing the "good start" of electronic countermeasures in joint combat command.
"The plateau alpine region is the main battlefield for soldiers in the west, and it is also the main battlefield for electronic countermeasures." In order to accurately and fully understand the battlefield environment and perceive battlefield changes, Zeng Wenlong spends more than half of his time in the snowy plateau every year.
He went to the plateau border defense 14 times to perform missions, with a journey of more than 100,000 kilometers, over a hundred times over snow-capped mountains above 4000 meters above sea level, and traveled to the highest, farthest, and most difficult points on the front line of the western border defense.
Zeng Wenlong (second from left) instructs officers and soldiers to operate equipment.
Photo by Wu Zhefeng
In the past, due to the influence of terrain, weather, equipment, etc., collecting data was basically "waiting for nothing", and sometimes squatting for ten and a half months did not get anything.
When it was Zeng Wenlong's turn to take charge of this work, he started a "sports war" and optimized the equipment, which significantly improved the efficiency of data collection.
In the past, data collection worked alone, and the quality of the results was not high, and it was difficult to meet operational needs.
Zeng Wenlong took advantage of the command of joint operations in the theater and tried every means to promote the implementation of the joint operation mechanism.
He went to manufacturers and troops to investigate, master the technical standards of equipment parameters of different services and arms, and open up information sharing links.
Taking advantage of training and monitoring opportunities, inspection and supervision of all services and arms integrated planning and integrated joint operations, in a short period of time to achieve "joint operations" of aerospace, aviation, ground and other multi-dimensional forces.
"One person is not strong, but a strong team is really strong!" At the beginning of the establishment of the business office, the staff came from different services, and the professional direction, operation method and thinking habits were quite different.
Faced with the new support needs of the theater and the scarcity of joint combat talents, Zeng Wenlong pondered every day how to recruit and educate people for the war.
"Do you have a bicycle?" On the first day when the staff member Wu Zhefeng reported to the business office, he was bewildered by Zeng Wenlong's question.
The office is 3 kilometers away from the accommodation, although there is a shuttle bus to and from, but overtime work too late to catch up.
Zeng Wenlong gave him his car key and said, "You can work overtime tonight. After overtime, please ride my bike and go home."
Zeng Wenlong also asked Wu Zhefeng to work with himself in an office. During the day, he passed on method and experience hand by hand, and at night he "opened a small stove" to teach professional knowledge, and gave him a "burden" for every major task.
Through careful help, Wu Zhefeng has grown into a business backbone after half a year.
"The non-commissioned officers in the business room are not errands, they are to be used as cadres and staff." Zeng Wenlong is also very dedicated to the training of fighters, planning a "growth roadmap" for them one by one.
When the fighter Jiang Weigang was transferred to the business office, he was at a loss for new positions and new business.
Zeng Wenlong arranged for him to study majors and practice skills in the unit for the first year, and then go to the plateau to perform tasks to accumulate practical experience. When the time is right, he will participate in the intermediate vocational skills appraisal to prepare for the conversion of higher-level non-commissioned officers.
The soldier Chen Yang has been with Zeng Wenlong since he joined the army. Zeng Wenlong not only explained his professional knowledge in detail, but also often sent him to participate in major missions.
Two years later, Chen Yang had the ability to stand alone.
Today, the unit's annual professional training for recruits, from curriculum setting, practical teaching to inspection and assessment, is handled by Chen Yang.
"No matter how good a person is, you may only be able to produce one result in a year, but if you bring out a team, you can produce a lot of results in a year." Under the leadership of Zeng Wenlong, a "planner", all 13 business backbones have obtained joint guidance. With the center duty qualifications, 3 people have entered the "talent pool" of professional backbones in the theater.
The data collected by his team and the results of the reorganization have been improved year by year and breakthroughs have been made year by year. He has won 1 special achievement of the whole army, 7 first-class achievements, and 3 second-class achievements. Many achievements have also filled the theater and the whole army. The blankness provided a solid and powerful support for the victory of the alliance.
During the interview, Zeng Wenlong said that he was deeply impressed by the Naga conflict last year. From this war, one can glimpse the future battlefield, in which unmanned, intelligent weapons and electronic warfare will dominate.
"The new combat capability has become the new key to the door to victory. Whoever masters it first will seize the opportunity to win." (End)