China took the armored regiment of the 164th infantry division and converted it to the Second Marine Brigade. This brigade is organized using the new format, with one company of each infantry battalion having armored vehicles, in this case amphibious light tanks (Type 63A). The infantry companies have amphibious armored personnel carriers. The brigade artillery battalion has self-propelled 122mm howitzers. The First Brigade is larger, and has five combat battalions (two armored, with amphibious tanks, and three infantry.) The armor battalions have two tank and one infantry companies. In addition to the two brigades, there are two marine recon battalions and two frogman platoons (think SEALs Lite). These are usually attached to the First Marine Brigade. There may be a skeleton Marine Brigade in Shanghai, to be used to rebuild a Marine Brigade if one of the other two is destroyed in combat. The total size of the Chinese Marine Corps is over 10,000 troops.
