The People's Liberation Army (PLA) started a war game on Tuesday at its largest military training field to test what it says is a newly developed system to collect real-time battle data.

Chinese military experts have spent seven years developing the system which allows a PLA commander to acquire real-time information about his troops in combat such as ammunition, food consumption and casualties.

Every soldier, tank and other battle vehicle participating in the game is equipped with an electronic device which they can use to send real-time conditions back to headquarters.

Despite the rapid development of new weapons, the PLA has an outdated field information collecting system resulting in officers making decisions without accurate data.

"The system could let us know the exact conditions our troops are under in combat, how much ammunition, water and food remain, and when we should support them with logistics," said Zhang Jixiang, vice commander of Zhurihe training base.

Zhurihe training base, located in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, is the largest military training field of the PLA.

"We could also know the number of casualties during different periods of the battle and can establish new army tactics based on the data," Zhang added.

Nearly 2,000 troops from armored, missile, reconnaissance, communication, engineering and logistics units chosen from several regiments of Beijing Military Command have participated in the two-day game, dubbed "North Sword 0709".

"We are testing the system in a live ammunition game as part of the information system construction of the PLA," said Zhang Jixiang.

The organizer has also created some electromagnetic obstacles for the game participants to test the army's battle effectiveness when their communications meet with interference.

(Xinhua News Agency September 19, 2007)