Starting from the deputy company commander of the Soldier Assault Team

After the frontline division commanders finished their evaluations, the atmosphere of discussion in the meeting room continued to heat up.

The standing committee members and heads of the headquarters departments of the group army in charge of training, equipment, political work, and logistics spoke in turn.

The deputy commander in charge of training spoke first, saying, "This pilot project of the combined arms battalion is a key reform task for the year. The three comrades have firm political stances, obey orders, and are dedicated to their duties. They have all withstood the test of the organization."

The key difference lies in the reform mindset. Gaocheng has a tough style and strong execution, and is deeply rooted in traditional heavy equipment training, making steady progress, but it is slightly lacking in innovation.

Chen Beizhou is calm and pragmatic, good at systematic planning, and suitable for establishing rules and regulations and summarizing and solidifying experience, but he lacks front-line practical experience in handling emergencies.

Zhang Anbang is young, adventurous, and has a broad vision. He possesses both information technology expertise and frontline experience in special operations and multiple branches of the armed forces. He understands information-based collaboration and dares to break with convention. His only weakness is his relatively short tenure, which requires the Party Committee to provide key support and guidance.

The Standing Committee member in charge of equipment work continued to comment, "From the perspective of equipment operation and maintenance, digital adaptation and pilot risks, Gao Cheng's understanding of information terminal joint debugging and new group adaptation is relatively traditional and his thinking is limited."

Chen Beizhou has a background primarily in government agencies, but lacks practical experience in grassroots equipment operation and is unfamiliar with the pain points of frontline equipment maintenance.

Zhang Anbang has a formal academic background, is proficient in the mechanisms of digital equipment, and possesses practical skills in operating armored and special operations equipment. He has unique insights into the adaptation of mixed military branches and the establishment of information links, which truly aligns with the direction of the pilot reform.

The director of the group army's political department focused on improving political work skills and conduct. "The three individuals have upright party spirit, excellent work style, and are honest and self-disciplined. They have all passed the political work assessments over the years, demonstrating high political loyalty and a strong sense of the overall situation."

All three are talented young people in our C Group Army, but I believe that pioneering spirit is the most important aspect of this pilot program.

The Minister of Logistics Support continued, "The pilot program for combined arms battalions succeeded because of its coordination and support capabilities, and the margin for error in full-element mobile support is extremely low."

Gao Cheng has been stationed in the field for training all year round, is familiar with the pain points of front-line support, leads his troops strictly, maintains order, and ensures that risks are controllable and bottom lines are solid.

Chen Beizhou excels at process streamlining and overall planning, and can build a standardized and long-term guarantee system.

Zhang Anbang is familiar with multiple branches of the armed forces and has a deeper understanding of logistical support issues, which aligns with the future development trend of combined arms operations. However, he has never held a commanding position, and his practical experience in large-scale, sustained field support may be somewhat lacking.

Subsequently, the other members of the Standing Committee spoke in turn, and their summaries were similar: all three comrades were high-quality talents reserved by the military region, politically reliable, and of excellent quality.

The core differences are clear and intuitive, Gao Chengying, Chen Beizhou Shen, and Zhang Anbang Xin.

After the last member of the Standing Committee finished speaking, the meeting room gradually fell silent, and no one else took the initiative to speak.

Gao Shijun raised his hand and gently pressed down, instantly silencing the scattered whispers, making the entire room so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

He slowly swept his gaze across all the attendees, his tone calm and steady, "I have listened to all of your opinions."

Each of the three comrades has their own strengths and weaknesses, and it is difficult to directly distinguish who is better based solely on their resumes and past achievements.

The combined arms battalion pilot program is a new approach that the entire army is just beginning to explore, and there are no ready-made standard answers.

Outdated formations and traditional tactics can only guarantee basic operations and cannot support the tasks of this reform and exploration. Therefore, this time we will not directly issue appointments, but will judge the merits of our plans, comparing our ideas and practical implementation capabilities.

Zhang Anbang, Gao Cheng, and Chen Beizhou were given ten days to each independently develop an implementation plan for the establishment of a pilot integrated training camp and its annual training.

From battalion-level organization and configuration, troop and equipment allocation plans, year-round tiered training system, and live-fire combat special projects, to daily personnel management and detailed rules for ammunition and fuel support, everything has been meticulously detailed and implemented.

Whoever's proposal best aligns with actual combat standards, is compatible with the heavy-equipment chassis pilot program, and can effectively address various bottlenecks and difficulties in current multi-service coordination will be given priority for the position of acting battalion commander in the pilot program.

As soon as Gao Shijun finished speaking, the political commissar followed up, "Then let's do as the army commander said. After the meeting, the chief of staff will lead a special review team composed of personnel from the training, armored, infantry, and cadre departments."

We formulated unified quantitative scoring rules and scored each item fairly against the plan.

A week later, a special meeting of the Party Committee Standing Committee will be held to collectively determine the final candidates for the pilot program leadership, taking into account the program review results and the cadres' consistent performance.

Gao Shijun looked around the room and said, "I want to emphasize again that we are not doing this pilot project in a superficial or empty way."

Over the decades, the army has undergone transformation, with motorization laying the foundation for mobility, mechanization building the hardware framework for combat, digitization opening up information links, and multiple branches of the armed forces continuously supplementing the dimensions of combat.

All the groundwork is laid to achieve a systemic breakthrough at the grassroots tactical unit level. Mechanization is the skeleton, integrated systems are the tendons and ligaments connecting the whole body, and information technology is the eyes, ears, and nerves. The three complement each other and are indispensable.

Relying on a mature heavy mechanized chassis, the barriers between different branches of the armed forces at the battalion level have been completely broken down, making up for the long-standing shortcoming of disconnected grassroots coordination.

Our purpose in this pilot program is to genuinely explore a feasible, replicable, and live-fire-tested approach for building heavy combined arms battalions for the entire military.

After speaking, he looked up at all the standing committee members and attending officials and asked, "Does anyone have any objections to the selection and review arrangements just decided?"

Everyone in the room straightened their backs in unison and replied in unison, "No objections!"

With the matters related to cadre selection settled, Gao Shijun looked down at the meeting agenda folder and steadily moved forward with the next stage of the agenda.

"That's all for now regarding the selection of personnel. Next, we will move on to the second item on the agenda of this meeting: the specific details of the personnel allocation and deployment system, equipment allocation and deployment, field training site adaptation, and full-cycle support for the pilot launch phase."

Although the commanding officer for Xia Li has not yet been confirmed, we must first complete the preliminary preparations, clearly define the responsible units for each item, and strictly adhere to the completion deadlines to ensure the smooth launch and orderly progress of the combined arms battalion pilot project.

Upon hearing this, the expressions of the standing committee members and staff of the army group remained relatively unchanged. However, the commanders and political commissars of the T and B divisions were quite different, as this matter directly affected the various companies under their command.

Seeing that no one spoke, Gao Shijun leisurely added, "Let me first talk about the organizational structure of this pilot combined arms battalion to avoid any cognitive biases when allocating cadres later."

Our heavy-armored combined arms battalion is just a pilot unit for a special reform. The entire army has not yet issued a finalized and upgraded organizational structure, and the battalion's main organizational framework remains unchanged.

Each subordinate unit remains a standard company-level unit, and the battalion commander position is fixed at the battalion level and is not directly promoted to deputy regimental level.

The issue of upgrading or reclassifying should be considered after the pilot program yields mature results.

If the pilot program is successful in the following year and the experience is forwarded and promoted by the military region or even the headquarters, the Party Committee can apply for a temporary promotion or upgrade to deputy regimental level, which will facilitate the principal officer in coordinating resources across branches of service and units.

However, this is currently in the initial startup phase, and there's no way to immediately assign a deputy regimental commander position from the outset. All preparations will be carried out according to the established battalion-level structure.