While an operation exercise on new equipment organized by the launch company of a brigade of the Second Artillery Force was underway on Nov. 5, a malfunction suddenly occurred to an equipment vehicle. Unexpectedly, experts on the spot did not clear the malfunction in person as usual, in stead, they asked the technical backbones of the company to fix it by themselves. Finally it took the technicians of the company 6 days to do the job.

　　The malfunction was caused by a small problem on the circuit, and it could have been fixed in only 6 minutes. However, it gave much trouble to the company commanders and technical backbones. In order to solve the problem, they spent 6 days in referring to many related technical books and checking nearly one hundred plugs and 400 joints.

　　Later, some soldiers complained that the experts did not offer help in trouble-shooting but looked on with folded arms. However, the expert team insisted that experts could not fix all the technical problems for grassroots companies. It was the responsibility of grassroots companies to solve such kind of technical problems according to the technical support requirements. The leading group of the brigade was in favor of the experts' approach. They believed it was necessary for the experts to give trouble-shooting instructions in person to soldiers. However, it would be harmful to the troops and improvement of battle effectiveness if the troops were entirely dependant on the experts and did not improve their ability to settle problems by themselves.

　　The Party committee of the brigade made use of the opportunity to carry out a special education on "how to generate battle effectiveness of the new equipment" with the aim of specifying the responsibilities of all levels in settling technical problems. Besides, all the companies of the brigade were demanded to have correct guiding thinking in military training and to pay much attention to improving their technical skills. In order to improve the trouble-shooting ability of technical backbones, the brigade organized a number of training courses for them and methods on how to eliminate more than 100 equipment operation failures were taught in the courses. In addition, the brigade also revised the training plan, for the purpose of providing more opportunities for the technical backbones to improve their trouble-shooting abilities in practical operation.

　　By Wen Jianbo and Xia Hongqing

　　(December 3, PLA Daily)