Horrendous plate carrier placement.
And these are Marines, boggles the mind really...
And these are Marines, boggles the mind really...
PLA Small arms
- Thread starter Vanguard1688
- Start date
plawolf
Lieutenant General
You guys are getting way too obsessed over nothing. It’s frankly comical to be obsessing about how grunts are wearing plate carriers without plates! As if wearing empty plate carriers an inch or two higher will magically imbue them with bullet stopping characteristics!
How much time and knowledge does one need to adjust a pair of shoulder straps? Any schoolboy who has had a backpack will have been fully trained to adjust the straps.
What should have been absolutely obvious is that the PLA are just using their plate carriers as regular tactical webbing when using them without armour inserts. That’s why they are all wearing them so low, that’s how you wear tactical webbing. And the reason for that is simple ergonomics and human anatomy, just look how normal tactical webbing is designed and worn. It’s actually the ones who wear empty plate carriers high that are doing so for parade dress purposes with limited or empty equipment/ammo loads as opposed to actual everyday training and use. Because without the hard shell provided by the plates, carrying all your magazines and equipment that high on the body is very uncomfortable as heavy hard objects endlessly bang against your ribs with every step you take.
It’s also for this same reason I’m not at all bothered about them developing bad habits and not wearing their plate carriers high enough when they do get the armour inserts.
Believe it or not, modern body armour are designed with the human body in mind! They are that size and shape because that’s the optimal compromise between protective coverage and impact on mobility for the average sized human male. They are not longer because that will adversely affect the wearer’s range of movement too much and/or make them too uncomfortable to wear for prolonged periods, meaning they will get uncomfortable to wear if they are too low down.
If you have worn a plate carrier with ballistic plates before for any length of time while engaging in active movement, you will know how silly the notion of wearing them that low with plates in is, because a plate carrier with plates worn that low will absolutely wreck your range of movement. Drill instructors won’t need to remind grunts to adjust their straps, they will do it themselves within minutes of getting plates because it will be uncomfortable as hell otherwise.
Abnormally low hanging plates only really happen in their field when someone too tall gets issued plates too small. For most people, sheer discomfort will stop them wearing them wrong.
The actual valid criticism is that they should be wearing armour inserts much more regularly on everyday training. Fair enough you want to want waste nice ceramic plates with needless wear and tear damage, but they can easily and cheaply buy millions of mild steel training plates to issue with every plate carrier. I don’t understand why they are too cheap to do that.
How much time and knowledge does one need to adjust a pair of shoulder straps? Any schoolboy who has had a backpack will have been fully trained to adjust the straps.
What should have been absolutely obvious is that the PLA are just using their plate carriers as regular tactical webbing when using them without armour inserts. That’s why they are all wearing them so low, that’s how you wear tactical webbing. And the reason for that is simple ergonomics and human anatomy, just look how normal tactical webbing is designed and worn. It’s actually the ones who wear empty plate carriers high that are doing so for parade dress purposes with limited or empty equipment/ammo loads as opposed to actual everyday training and use. Because without the hard shell provided by the plates, carrying all your magazines and equipment that high on the body is very uncomfortable as heavy hard objects endlessly bang against your ribs with every step you take.
It’s also for this same reason I’m not at all bothered about them developing bad habits and not wearing their plate carriers high enough when they do get the armour inserts.
Believe it or not, modern body armour are designed with the human body in mind! They are that size and shape because that’s the optimal compromise between protective coverage and impact on mobility for the average sized human male. They are not longer because that will adversely affect the wearer’s range of movement too much and/or make them too uncomfortable to wear for prolonged periods, meaning they will get uncomfortable to wear if they are too low down.
If you have worn a plate carrier with ballistic plates before for any length of time while engaging in active movement, you will know how silly the notion of wearing them that low with plates in is, because a plate carrier with plates worn that low will absolutely wreck your range of movement. Drill instructors won’t need to remind grunts to adjust their straps, they will do it themselves within minutes of getting plates because it will be uncomfortable as hell otherwise.
Abnormally low hanging plates only really happen in their field when someone too tall gets issued plates too small. For most people, sheer discomfort will stop them wearing them wrong.
The actual valid criticism is that they should be wearing armour inserts much more regularly on everyday training. Fair enough you want to want waste nice ceramic plates with needless wear and tear damage, but they can easily and cheaply buy millions of mild steel training plates to issue with every plate carrier. I don’t understand why they are too cheap to do that.
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These are the same soldiers who are under no obligation to wear body armor according to your arbitrary standards in a hastily arranged press photo—when operational missions arise, they clearly understand proper protocol.
Good points, and I just remembered one more thing. Given how the carrier will be front heavy with magazines, tools, and ammunition, the plate carrier's front bag will inevitably sag. You would have to readjust the vest drastically to the point in which the rear plate bag would be sagging downwards, so one side is going to sag anyways. I wouldn't be surprised if their current configuration already have plates in mind, but they didn't want to adjust them for the sake of optics.
by78
General
Arbitrary standards? Do you even know what those words mean? Assuming you do, may I ask whether the internal organs of Chinese soldiers are arranged according to arbitrary standards too? Please tell us what organs occupy their upper thorax and how they are arbitrarily arranged.
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Aren't the Chinese UN Peacekeepers always wearing them correctly, even with all the extra added stuff? I also am annoyed by the sagging on the front, but I do feel like they know how to wear it properly. They probably didn't put much effort into looking the best since it's just a photoshoot.
For real. There is no way there aren't instructed on this. I wonder if the plate carriers were adjusted with plates in them but are worn without plates in peace time. We also know they have training plates they wear during exercises. I wonder why they don't wear even training plates regularly.
by78
General
Some of them do, yes. They must have received specialized training from the few instructors who know how to properly adjust the shoulder straps. The proper wear of vests will take a long time to propagate through the ranks, because it took them almost 70 years to learn proper trigger discipline.
"it took them almost 70 years to learn proper trigger discipline"
In fairness to the PLA, the online consensus (including posts from US veterans) seems to be that even in the US military, trigger discipline wasn't a thing until the 1980s or thereabouts.
(It also took the PLA quite a while to tuck their bootlaces, as I'm sure you know.)