A Certain Automobile Regiment of the Guilin Joint Logistics Support Center Uses Ideological "Icebreaking" to Lead a "Breakthrough" in Support
A Certain Automobile Regiment of the Guilin Joint Logistics Support Center Uses Ideological "Icebreaking" to Lead a "Breakthrough" in Support——
The Decommissioning of the "Mobile Centralized Repair Station"
■ Wan Ren, Luo Ze, PLA Daily Reporter Sun Xingwei
On the eastern coast of Guangdong, the morning mist had yet to lift when the roar of engines tore through the silence. A heavy-equipment transport company of a certain automobile regiment under the Guilin Joint Logistics Support Center was conducting a heavy-equipment transfer mission in coordination with a neighboring unit, the convoy racing along the expressway toward the target area.
Suddenly, one transport vehicle stalled and broke down. The driver jumped out, identified the fault as a clogged diesel fuel filter, then turned and retrieved a spare part from the fixed equipment box behind the cab — removing, replacing, and adjusting in one fluid sequence.
Ten minutes later, the vehicle restarted and accelerated back into formation.
Watching the scene, the recovery vehicle's political instructor wore a complicated expression: "In the old days, the moment a vehicle stopped, all you could do was wait for us to come rushing up from the rear of the column."
The "old days" he referred to was the centralized support model the company had used for years — all maintenance equipment stored uniformly on the recovery vehicle, providing accompanying support. At the time, the recovery vehicle resembled a "mobile centralized repair station," yet it had also become the most fragile link in the support chain. "The moment multiple vehicles broke down at the same time, you could only see them one by one," said Senior Master Sergeant Lao Zheng. While one vehicle was being repaired, the others could only stare and wait for equipment, so anxious that people stamped their feet.
A deeply instructive lesson came during a long-distance heavy-equipment transfer mission the previous year. The convoy was caught in sudden rain on the road, and two vehicles successively reported faults with their wiper motors and air dryers. The recovery vehicle was run ragged — the first vehicle was not yet repaired when the second broke down on the roadside. By the time everything was dealt with and the recovery team led the two disabled vehicles in pursuit of the convoy, they arrived at the destination nearly an hour late.
At the after-action review, not a single officer or soldier was willing to accept the outcome — the problem lay neither in driving skill nor in repair speed, but squarely in the bottleneck of equipment support. From this, the chokepoint problem was placed on the agenda of the regiment's equipment management situation analysis conference.
When the Party committee first took up the matter, certain comrades were full of misgivings, and what emerged was not solutions but a string of "buts" — "Centralized storage of equipment is years of accumulated experience, convenient for management and preventing loss"; "If equipment is dispersed to individual vehicles and a part goes missing or gets damaged, who bears responsibility?"...
Behind the dispute lay a deeper question: why did a change clearly aimed at urgent battlefield needs meet such heavy resistance when it came to implementation?
During deliberation and discussion, the regimental Party committee first turned the blade inward in self-examination and reflection. "On the surface it looks like a question of how to store equipment and how to divide responsibility, but at the root it is a question of ideological concepts and the orientation toward combat readiness," reflected one member of the regimental Party committee standing committee responsible for the area. In the past, when carrying out work, the first thought was not combat effectiveness, but "how to do it safely" and "how to do it in a way that's easy to manage." While this approach could ensure that work under one's own purview caused no incidents, it also constrained the improvement of combat effectiveness — a textbook case of failing to take responsibility and failing to act.
Solving this kind of problem could not be approached piecemeal; it was necessary to strike at the ideological root and use the results of political consolidation training (政治整训) to break through. What followed was a consolidation training debate among Party members and cadres centered on the theme "Who is support for? What does winning depend on?"
Relevant organs retrieved exercise and training information from recent years and systematically sorted through fault categories and equipment consumption details. The results were sobering — more than 70 percent of faults were concentrated in a dozen or so categories of wear-prone equipment, and the frequency of sudden faults on individual vehicles was highest precisely in the area where the centralized support model responded most slowly.
With the data laid out before them, the discussion cut to the essence: was centralized equipment management for the sake of "no incidents," or for the sake of "winning the fight"? The mindset of "fearing accountability, seeking the easy way out" had nowhere to hide under the scrutiny of the combat effectiveness standard. Deepening political consolidation training means turning the two characters "toward war (向战)" from a slogan into a hard benchmark in the heart of every Party member and cadre.
"Calculating only the small ledger of equipment management while ignoring the big ledger of support for winning — that's a losing calculation, and the view of political achievement has gone off course." The regimental Party committee took an unambiguous stance: Party members and cadres must step up, take the lead in breaking through ingrained thinking, and for the sake of being able to win battles, be willing to bear more responsibility in management — they must absolutely never (决不) allow the improvement of combat effectiveness to be affected.
After extensive solicitation of opinions, the relevant departments adjusted and refined the Single-Vehicle Accompanying Equipment Configuration Standard Manual and decided to implement a "single-vehicle equipment support model" — formulating a "single-vehicle wear-prone equipment list" based on mission area, seasonal climate, and vehicle condition, with each vehicle carrying no fewer than 15 types of high-frequency parts stored in fixed positions; the driver serves as the "primary custodian" of their vehicle's equipment, conducting an inventory before departure and a check upon return, with fixed persons, fixed items, and fixed responsibilities; relying on routine maintenance and fault-clearance training, drivers are required to master the skills for replacing wear-prone equipment proficiently, achieving "no waiting for small and medium faults"...
In this way, the "mobile centralized repair station" is deployed only in emergencies; at all other times, maintenance and support equipment is broken up and pushed down to every combat vehicle, and the maintenance support model has shifted from "series connection (串联)" to "parallel connection (并联)."
"Now I feel much more confident," said Squad Leader Wang, a Staff Sergeant Second Class, after inspecting the equipment box before a mission. "What's on your own vehicle is what your own vehicle might need — you know exactly what you have and what you're missing."
"Whether the improvements are effective ultimately has to be verified on the battlefield," a regimental leader told the reporter. Since the new model has been in operation, the average time to handle common single-vehicle faults has been reduced by two-thirds; when multiple vehicles break down simultaneously, overall repair efficiency has improved by nearly double, and the predicament of "sitting and waiting for equipment" is now a thing of the past.
The deeper change has occurred in people. Replacing wear-prone equipment has become a "required course" for drivers, and it has become the norm for grassroots officers and soldiers to study maintenance and practice fault clearance. Repair personnel face reduced pressure, drivers have expanded their capabilities, and more and more officers and soldiers are moving from "only knowing how to drive" to "able to drive and able to repair."
From "afraid of making mistakes" to "daring to take responsibility," from "centralized storage" to "single-vehicle configuration" — this transformation, originating in the depths of ideology, is now spreading throughout the regiment. More combat readiness materiel is shifting from "locked in the warehouse" to "ready at the front line," and every terminal node of equipment support, tempered in the fire of deepened political consolidation training, can connect directly to the battlefield.
This experience itself proves: what deepened political consolidation training forges is not only the purity of thought, but also the hardness of winning.
Reporter's Notes
Equipment Has Been Pushed Down —
Responsibility Has Been Shouldered
"Before, I always thought reform was top-level design from the organs above. Now I understand that every bottleneck at the fighting position is precisely the starting point for breaking through in reform." This is how a company-level cadre reflected during the interview. This is the most direct result of political consolidation training: making the character "war (战)" step down from the slogan on the wall and transform into a responsibility checklist on every person's shoulders.
The reason this regiment's rectification of problems was able to take root lies in the fact that consolidation training brought about an ideological "return to proper footing (归位)": Party members and cadres no longer treat "no incidents" as the baseline for fulfilling their duties, but instead take "able to win" as the primary consideration. As one commander put it: "In the past, we feared bearing responsibility for lost equipment; now we only fear breaking down on the battlefield." The shift from "fearing lost materiel" to "fearing delayed war" reflects a fundamental leap from "management convenience" to "warfighting standards."
What consolidation training forges is not only thought, but also the concrete methods for breaking through (破局的实招). How should equipment be pushed down with precision? How should responsibility be seamlessly connected? How should capabilities be elevated in step? The straightening out of this series of question marks is a vivid footnote to the proactive responsibility-taking of front-line officers and soldiers. When equipment is allocated to the front line and responsibility is shouldered, every officer and soldier becomes the most solid link in the support chain. The results of political consolidation training are not written on paper, but carved in the wheel tracks; not shouted in slogans, but fused into the confidence to win. The optimization of support methods changes not only the location of materiel, but also the immense weight of the character "war (战)" in the hearts of all officers and soldiers — especially Party members and cadres. When war is in the heart, solutions come of their own accord.
Extended Lens
From "Fire-Fighting Captain" to "Repair Instructor"
■ Liang Rong, Staff Sergeant First Class and Repair Technician, a Certain Automobile Regiment of the Guilin Joint Logistics Support Center
As a repair worker who has spent years running with the recovery team, I have deep feelings about this optimization and adjustment of maintenance equipment support.
Before, all the maintenance equipment was stacked box by box on the recovery vehicle. On a mission, whichever vehicle broke down, I rushed to it. It sounds reasonable enough, but actually doing it was a different matter entirely. I remember one time on the expressway, two vehicles broke down one after another. I was sweating over the first vehicle when the driver of the second was already shouting frantically over the radio. By the time I finished with that one and rushed to the next, the driver had been waiting for nearly an hour — he wasn't waiting for me, he was waiting for the equipment on my vehicle. At that moment, I wished I could truly master the art of "splitting into multiple bodies."
Now things are better. Wear-prone equipment is issued directly to individual vehicles. What drivers can replace themselves, they replace on the spot; common minor faults no longer require a call to me. The recovery team's radio has gone quiet, and yet I feel more at ease than before.
Some people ask me: "So does that mean you repair workers have nothing to do?" Quite the opposite — what I do now has far more "combat content (含战量)" than before. I don't need to worry about basic minor faults, and I can free up a great deal of energy to work through difficult and complex problems. More importantly, I'm mentoring apprentices. Before, when young drivers encountered a fault, their first instinct was "Sergeant, come quick!"; now, after they've cleared a fault themselves a few times, their sense of accomplishment rises and their confidence grows with it.
"How the battle is fought is how support must follow (仗怎么打，保障就怎么跟)." This transformation is rooted in the solid political consolidation training the unit has carried out. In the past, I raised related issues several times, but they all came to nothing — and we understood why: people were afraid that changing things would cause problems. Since the deepening of political consolidation training, the guidance from higher levels has been very clear: firmly establish the combat effectiveness standard, and as long as something is beneficial to improving combat effectiveness, no matter how difficult the problem, it must be overcome.
Not long ago, organ cadres came down to the grassroots and led us in conducting reflective analysis around "breaking through the accumulated ills of peacetime (破除和平积弊) and focusing on combat readiness and fighting." We examined problems and corrected shortcomings in earnest. Everyone came to a deep realization: wasn't the old practice of piling all the equipment onto one vehicle a textbook example of the "guarding one's turf (守摊子)" and "ensuring safety" mindset? It was precisely the fire of deepened political consolidation training that burned away the accumulated ills of peacetime thinking deep within us, forcing us to proactively push equipment down and push support forward, and making the character "war (战)" truly step down from the wall and into every person's responsibility checklist.
Once the thinking is clear, the path becomes smooth. After equipment was pushed down to individual vehicles, I seized the opportunity to teach more comrades the methods for diagnosing faults step by step, helping them advance from "knowing how to replace parts" to "knowing how to diagnose." I too have transformed from a "fire-fighting captain" running all over the place into a "repair instructor" who mentors and guides.
(Compiled by Wan Ren and PLA Daily Reporter Sun Xingwei)