300K PLA soldiers died in service since 1949

300,000 service people lose lives since 1949

BEIJING, July 18 (Xinhua) -- More than 300,000 service people from the Chinese military have lost their lives since the founding of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, according to a new military exhibition in Beijing that marks the 80th anniversary of the establishment of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

The exhibition reveals the casualties of the PRC armed forces for the first time, although it fails to elaborate on details of deaths from each war or non-combat activity.

According to PLA military history, the 1950-1953 Korean War was the conflict in which most lives were lost, with more than 140,000 deaths. The Ministry of Civil Affairs cites the death toll at around 170,000. The discrepancy is believed to lie in the ministry's inclusion of civilian casualties during the war.

During peace time, the Chinese armed forces were also mobilized to participate in relief efforts in the wake of natural disasters. Many soldiers lost their lives while building roads on perilous route from Sichuan Province into Tibet. Some military medical workers died from treating highly infectious victims of SARS in the pandemic threat from 2002 to 2003.

The PRC armed forces include the PLA and the People's Armed Police (PAP). The PAP was separated in 1982 from the PLA with the task of maintaining domestic social order.

Regarding the history of the Korean War (1950-53) the figures could be quite significant if they indeed include all fatal casualties of chinese ´volunteers´in Korea. (140000 KIA, 170000 with civ cas included)

The remarkable military performance of the PLA and her ´volunteers´in the Korean war would be even more impressive if they would have sustained only that kind of comparably low casualty rate. Recent research of chinese and korean scholars has indicated that PLA had built an excellent deep fortification and logistics networks in Korea giving indeed some degree of protection against the raw power of USAF bombing campaigns. Furthermore the GI legends of ´mass infantry attacks´by the PLA have been proven mostly incorrect or at least overblown. In fact chinese infantery tactics in offense and defense was quite flexible and chinese commanders demonstrated considerable leading skills.

Moreover the biased legends about the air war over Korea have been dismantled long ago: Just remember US stated that for every lost F-86 Sabre they shot down 6-7 MiG 15!
After an intensive international effort of war historians (Chinese, Russian, American and European) crosschecking evidence in russian and chinese archives they established that the real ratio was around 5 MiG 15 shot down for every 4 F-86 (1.2:1)!
(A russian research team came even to the conclusion that the real ratio was actually 1:1).

Oh but jee the russians arent biased at all, in fact the actual claim by US forces was 12-1 kill ratio over Mig Alley mostly because of all of the experienced ww2 vets and radar operated .50s. But I would be more inclined to believe that it was more like a third or half that but 1-1 no way.

I think the bougus Korean Conflict US casulity & losses reports were due to the "Red Scare" fear going on in the early 1950's in the US which were promulgated by the US Congress looking for Communist(Reds) under every rock in the US. More than likely the bogus figures were brought on to show the American public the US has an upper hand on the "Red Scare". Just my opinion.

bd popeye said:

More than likely the bogus figures were brought on to show the American public the US has an upper hand on the "Red Scare". Just my opinion.

Click to expand...

That's just part of the reason. I read some articles comparing Chinese and American combat records(they're not made up, but recorded by combat troops) for the same battle. Both sides exaggerated the other side causalties, sometimes even 10 times of the real number.

The most exaggeration happend in the defence side, you can imagine what kind of panic mode they were at the time.

Moreover the biased legends about the air war over Korea have been dismantled long ago: Just remember US stated that for every lost F-86 Sabre they shot down 6-7 MiG 15!

After an intensive international effort of war historians (Chinese, Russian, American and European) crosschecking evidence in russian and chinese archives they established that the real ratio was around 5 MiG 15 shot down for every 4 F-86 (1.2:1)!
(A russian research team came even to the conclusion that the real ratio was actually 1:1).

Click to expand...

I can maybe beleive that Russian "volunteer aces" known as the Honcho's could get 1-1. I aid maybe beucase in WW2 the VVS never managed to produce aces to the density of a western trained airforce but still an ace is an ace.

But to think that the majority of the pilots, poorly trained and flying a bomber killer vs WW2 vets including some of America's best aces in a fighter made for dogfighting with a radar gunsight is pushing it. The F-86 pilots reported Nork and PRC pilots (Greenhorns) just hunkering down behind thier armor and taking it till thier planes fell apart.

12-1 is entirely beleivable when puttign the talent of the US vs the green pilots of the commies. The ratio probalby levels out when bombers are added to the commie score. But at the end of the day the F-86 was never forced to fight over the American/ South Koreans but kept the airwar over the coominist forces despite being outnumbered and flying at extreme range and that by it self says all it needs to.

In Korea war air battle, UN recognized that they lost 1986 airplanes, among which USAF and marine lost 1466 + 368, other countries lost 152. Among them they only recognized 174 airplanes were lost in air combat, and they claimed they brought down 976 PLA+Soviet airplanes. American claimed that they lost 914 airplanes to the ground air defence, the others were due to the mechanical problems/accidents.

PLA claimed they shot down 330 UN airplanes, lost 231. Soviet claimed they shot down 1106 UN airplanes, lost 345.

fishhead said:

In Korea war air battle, UN recognized that they lost 1986 airplanes, among which USAF and marine lost 1466 + 368, other countries lost 152. Among them they only recognized 174 airplanes were lost in air combat, and they claimed they brought down 976 PLA+Soviet airplanes. American claimed that they lost 914 airplanes to the ground air defence, the others were due to the mechanical problems/accidents.

PLA claimed they shot down 330 UN airplanes, lost 231. Soviet claimed they shot down 1106 UN airplanes, lost 345.

Click to expand...

Ground fire in North Korea was brutal, the Norks and CVA set up heavy machine guns and light cannon on hill tops and valley ends and these exacted a brutal toll on the fighter bombers and A series craft that flew low level support missions. In air to air missions once the US stopped sending B-29's on daylight missions beucase of the Mig-15 the air battles were fighter vs fighter beucase the US fought daily over Mig Alley to keep the communist air forces bottled up and unable to interfere with the ground war.

If we go by your figures for the communist forces thats 231+345= 576 communist losses. The offical USAF loss was 103 Sabres. I think non-F-86 deisngs got a few kills but surely under 50 so lets say its 526 vs 103 thats still 5-1 in favor of the F-86.

I don't endorse these claims, just list the number they acknowledged.

Don't exaggerate Chinese ground air defence, it was extremely weak. Especially in the first year it's virtually zero, since PLA had no anti-aircraft weapons and training. Even the CVA headquater didn't have any air-defence protection, that's wherer Mao's son got killed in air-raid.

losing near 1500 tac air craft to ground fire is pretty effective.