The procurement deal was signed in 2023 and became known after leaked correspondence obtained by the hacker group Black Moon; the analysis of roughly 800 pages of material was carried out by the British Royal United Services Institute(RUSI). According to that information, China purchased:

• 37 BMD-4M infantry fighting vehicles (airborne);
• 11 Sprut-SDM1 light amphibious tanks;
• 11 BTR-MDM Rakushka armored personnel carriers;
• several command-and-staff vehicles produced by NPP Rubin;
• several mobile artillery command posts Reostat;
• a number of Orlan-10 UAVs;
• parachute systems Dalnolyot.

All the equipment is to be fitted with Chinese communications gear. Technical documentation for independent maintenance and modernization of the weapons and equipment is being transferred as well. In other words, China will have more than enough information to reverse-engineer and copy the hardware if it chooses. That raises the obvious question: why would China need to buy equipment from Russia? As Defense Express noted RUSI’s material notes the structure of the People’s Liberation Army Airborne Corps: five airborne brigades, one air-assault brigade, one special-forces brigade, plus a transport (helicopter) brigade, an attack-helicopter regiment and a support brigade.

However, the inventory of dedicated tracked airborne vehicles is relatively small only about 180 ZBD-03 airborne IFVs and some quantity of CS/VN3 wheeled vehicles. China’s airborne troops are even lighter than Russia’s VDV, with an emphasis on helicopter insertion. By contrast, the BMD-4M is armed with a 100 mm gun paired with a 30 mm cannon, and the Sprut is effectively a light tank with a 125 mm gun. That represents a significant increase in firepower. The mention of the Dalnolyot parachute is also notable this is a winged parachute designed for special-operations units that, in favorable conditions, can glide up to some 60 km. All the purchased Russian equipment is intended to be air-dropped from Il-76 transport aircraft. China has roughly 75 strategic transport aircraft in this class (about 20 Il-76 plus 55 Y-20s). RUSI estimates that deploying this package by air would require some 35 Il-76-class sorties about half of China’s available fleet.

Taken together, this can reasonably be viewed as a noteworthy enhancement of China’s airborne assault capabilities a capability that is integral to vertical maneuver operations, where seaborne forces conduct a landing while airborne troops seize key rear objectives and fix or disrupt the enemy. By training Chinese troops in Russia, Beijing also obtained operational know-how for using airborne formations and the tools needed to employ them. In effect, Russia sold China a ready-made turnkey airborne capability.

some further details from the RUSI report directly:

The agreements also require Russia to train a battalion of Chinese paratroopers in employing the equipment. Armoured vehicle drivers will be trained at the Kurganmashzavod base, and the crews of KMN command and observation vehicles and Sprut anti-tank guns will be trained in Penza at JSC NPP Rubin. After completing courses on training equipment and simulators, the collective training of the Chinese airborne battalion will be carried out at training grounds in China. Here, Russian instructors are to prepare the battalion for landing, fire control and manoeuvring as part of an airborne unit. The Russians are also transferring Rheostat airborne artillery command and observation vehicle and Orlan-10 multi-purpose unmanned aerial vehicles. A Centre for Technical Maintenance and Repair of Russian Equipment will be established in China, to which all necessary technical documentation will be transferred. This will allow China to undertake the production and modernisation of these capabilities in the future.

Implications

… If the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, supported in a Joint Firepower Campaign, can successfully suppress Taiwanese air defences, then air manoeuvre offers the fastest means of transferring combat power onto Taiwan, and spreading operations across an expanded area. Helicopters offer the most flexible means of deploying troops, but light infantry, unsupported by armour and fires, will necessarily struggle to hold their objectives against a mechanised adversary, as Russian airborne troops found to their detriment at Hostomel. The capacity to airdrop armour vehicles, therefore, on golf courses, or other areas of open and firm ground near Taiwan’s ports and airfields, would allow air assault troops to significantly increase their combat power and threaten seizure of these facilities to clear a path for the landing of follow-on forces. It should also be noted that an attempt to seize Taiwan would likely see fighting erupt throughout the South China Sea, creating a requirement for the PLA to project combat power further afield. In the initial phases of war air manoeuvre could allow the PLA to move airborne forces with organic firepower and mobility to critical terrain beyond Taiwan, securing airfields or other infrastructure that could otherwise support US operations to counter the PLA amphibious landings on Taiwan. In short, an expanded air manoeuvre capability gives the PLA a diversity of options for rapid power projection.

…

The greatest value of the deal to the PLA, however, is most likely in the training and the procedures for command and control of airborne forces, as Russia’s airborne forces have combat experience, while the PLA does not. The requirement for a battalion’s worth of equipment – with an expanded number of C2 platforms – likely speaks to the desire to conduct battalion scale collective training, and since the Russians are to deliver it, this must be conducted on Russian vehicles. The deal also reflects the growing military-industrial co-operation between Russia and the PRC over the course of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The challenge in the exercise, called DASH-2, was to come up with detailed “Courses Of Action” (COAs) for how to strike a given set of targets with a given set of aircraft and weapons, explained Maj. Gen. Robert Claude, a member of the joint Air Force/Space Force team for the Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS). Human staff using traditional methods generated three COAs in about 16 minutes, Claude said, while AI tools generated 10 COAs in “roughly eight seconds.” Some quick math averages those rates out: The AI generated 1.25 COAs every second, the humans generated one COA every 5.3 minutes. That’s a 400-fold difference in speed. That’s radically faster than in the inaugural experiment in the series, this summer’s DASH-1, where the Air Force claimed AI sped up planning “seven-fold” — without making any more mistakes than humans. But not all AIs are created equal, and the best-laid plans of mice, men and machines oft go awry.

In DASH-2, Claude said, “while it was much more timely and there were more COAs generated [by AI than humans], they weren’t necessarily completely viable COAs.” While he didn’t go into details, he said the errors were not blatant but subtle: more along the lines of failing to factor in the right kind of sensor for specific weather conditions, rather than trying to send tanks on air missions or put glue on pizza. (Of course subtle errors are harder to catch and require more expertise for a human to correct.) The lesson, Claude said: “What is going to be important going forward is, while we’re getting faster results and we’re getting more results [from AI], there’s still going to have to be a human in the loop for the foreseeable future to make sure that they’re all viable [and] to make the decision.”

That said, Claude was confident future iterations of AI planning aides can get that error rate back down. The name DASH stands for “Decision Advantage Sprint for Human-Machine Teaming,” and as both “dash” and “sprint” imply, the emphasis was on speed, with the participating software development teams having just two weeks to build custom planning tools. “It’s all, obviously, in how they build the algorithm. You’ve got to make sure that all the right factors are included,” Claude said. “In a two-week sprint, you know, there’s just not time to build all that in with all the checks and balances.” That’s an acceptable tradeoff for a quick experiment to explore the art of the possible, not for a deployed military system. “If we pursue this route, if we do this for real,” he said, “it’s going to be longer than a two-week coding period.” The third and final DASH of the year is already underway at the ominously named Shadow Operations Center — Nellis in Las Vegas. “I was actually out for the beginning of DASH-3 last week,” Claude said.

westerners just can’t help themselves when it comes to coming up with evil-sounding names

also nice job doing a Call of Duty bit IRL (https://callofduty.fandom.com/wiki/Shadow_Company)

The general was powerfully struck by how much incoming information the Air Force planners in the exercise, known as battle managers, had to cope with. “They sat me in front of a scope and it was an eye-opening experience for me to see … from a battle manager standpoint, what it is they go through,” he said. “If we successfully get to the point where we’ve got a good human-machine team arrangement, how valuable that could be.”

Boeing has received an additional $198 million under the U.S. Navy’s F/A-18 Super Hornet modernization program. The goal is to extend the service life of these carrier-based fighters until a sixth-generation replacement arrives, something the fifth-generation F-35C has not managed to achieve. As part of the program, the service life of Block II Super Hornets will be extended from 6,000 to 10,000 flight hours, significantly prolonging their operational use. The upgrades will also include integration of Block III capabilities. It’s worth noting that this allocation does not provide new funding directly but instead raises the ceiling of the existing contract by $198 million. Future task orders will be signed under this expanded limit for specific upgrade work. Today, the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet remains the backbone of the Navy’s carrier air wings, with over 400 aircraft in service and more still on order. They are already being equipped with the latest weapons, including the long-range AIM-174B air-to-air missile.

Still, the Super Hornet is a 4+ generation fighter. Despite its strong capabilities, it lags behind newer designs, while the F-35C despite solid production rates still makes up only a fraction of the Navys fleet. The long-term solution is expected to come from the next-generation F/A-XX program, for which funding has been secured. However, questions remain about when the aircraft will be ready and how quickly it can be produced in sufficient numbers. Until then, the Navy will continue to modernize the Super Hornet fleet, and further contract expansions are highly likely to ensure incremental improvements. Block III enhancements include the extended 10,000-hour service life, greater range, reduced radar signature, upgraded avionics, and a redesigned cockpit featuring a large touchscreen display. The package also adds improved AN/APG-79 radars, the IRST Block II infrared search and track system, and the IDECM (Integrated Defensive Electronic Countermeasures) suite.