(ASK) How well trained are the pla special forces?

I have seen posts on the Chinese sites bragging about how in the ERNA raid competitions, the Chinese team have beaten the Navy SEALS. But the funny thing is, probably most Chinese fans don't know about, that ERNA raid is an amateur competition. If you look at the list of entrants, it includes police, firemen, border guards, and even military academies. If my memory serves me correctly, the only time China won was in 2002, and those sent were all from active special forces. Of course you can win, by comparing a specially trained soldier against amateurs.

There was a famous claim on how the Chinese team beat the navy SEAL during that competition, but the funny thing is that they never entered.

I can't help but sigh and cover my face, speechless at how good those Chinese fans are at day dreaming and making up fake news.

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solarz said:

I dare say drug smugglers are better equipped and more experienced than Taliban draftees.

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A lot of them were active military and a few were in the special forces. In fact, one of the chief instructors was ex-Egyptian special forces member, I think it was Ali Mohammed. He immigrated to the states and married a US woman. He gained citizenship and joined the army. Because his experience, he excelled in all areas. If my memory serves me correctly, he was drafted into the special forces and stationed at Fort Bragg, training alongside Delta Force, but I'm not sure if he was in the actual Delta Force. He was stealing a lot of secretive training documents and manuals to help train those in Afghanistan.

Long story short, they are very well trained. I'm sure most of you here have seen those videos of the training camps.

On the other hand, those smugglers are "self employed". Even if they are in some sort of organizations, they still operate in small numbers. They are just small time. Those real big drug lords and armies are deep in the Golden Triangle. They don't dare getting close to the border. Even regular police with pistols can handle most of those smugglers.

CottageLV said:

Long story short, they are very well trained. I'm sure most of you here have seen those videos of the training camps.

On the other hand, those smugglers are "self employed". Even if they are in some sort of organizations, they still operate in small numbers. They are just small time. Those real big drug lords and armies are deep in the Golden Triangle. They don't dare getting close to the border. Even regular police with pistols can handle most of those smugglers.

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I don't know anything about the operation history of the PLA special forces, but you contradict yourself by saying that PLA special forces deal mostly with drug smugglers, and then restrict those drug smugglers to only the the small-timers that regular police can handle.

Don't you think that extra-territorial operations are *EXACTLY* what Special Forces are created for?

CottageLV said:

I can't comment much on this subject, neither do all of us here in this forum. None of us are from inside the PLA, even if some were, still not from the special ops branch. We can only speculate and cannot make assertive assumptions.

But one thing certain is that the PLA special ops crews don't have as much real combat experience. The best they have done were probably fighting drug smugglers close to Southwestern border or crazy terrorists in the Northwest. But these are more small scale criminals, barely even have guns. Even if they do, they are probably only armed with few bullets, nothing in comparison like those hardcore players in the MiddleEast. Although they are in the Army, they are more like PAP in those situations. Unless another major battle erupts with a neighbouring country, there is no way we will ever find out how effective they are.

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Those drug smugglers in Southeast Asia are very well equipped and highly experienced at fighting conventional battles. Many of the drug lords have their own armies and have been fighting government forces for decades. Many of these drug lords originated from Chinese Nationalist army troops fighting the Japanese in the Southeast Asia in WWII. By the end of the war, many of them decided not to go back to China. Since the decision was made by high-up commanding officers, many stayed as complete military units. And they went into the drug business while maintaining their military units and fighting capabilities because of the need to constantly fend off the local govn'ts as well as rival drug lords. Compared to lone suicide bombers and some poorly trained, equipped and isolated fighters in Mid East, these Southeast Asian drug lords are not only well-equipped, but well-organized and highly experienced at fighting conventional battles.

I don't know where you get the idea that they are equipped with knives and a few bullets. These people are very well-equipped. Let's face it, they are in the drug business. They have more than enough to arm themselves with whatever they can get on the black market. And being well-armed is critical to their business as they have to protect themselves not only from various govn'ts, but other drug lords.

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And the issue at hands is that none of us knows anything about PLA Spec Ops. Without facts, none if us is in position to argue for or against the effectiveness of the PLA Spec Ops. As Wolf has mentioned, the nature of the Spec Ops is its covertness. Just because we don't hear about it, it does not mean that the PLA Spec Ops has not been in action. It may as well be that they have been so effective that no one knows who did it when they are done. So unlike conventional units, you cannot conclude that these PLA Spec Ops are inexperienced simply because we don't hear about it on the news. This is especially the case, given the tight lips of the Chinese govn't. Even if some units have been sent abroad on some mission, no one will know about it as they look the same as the locals (in Asia) and can easily acquire the same weapons used by the locals (China might have sold those weapons to the locals in the 1st place). And without the govn't admitting to it, no one will know about it. This is in stark difference from most of the scenarios that Western Spec Ops are involved. Majority of the cases where Western Spec Ops are operating, they look and behave very foreign. even with the beard and local clothing, most of them are still very Caucasian-looking and can be easily spotted. For all we know, the PLA Spec Ops could be highly experienced because they very well might be operating all over Asia without anyone knowing. So IMHO, arguing about their effectiveness is pointless.

CottageLV said:

I can't comment much on this subject, neither do all of us here in this forum. None of us are from inside the PLA, even if some were, still not from the special ops branch. We can only speculate and cannot make assertive assumptions.

But one thing certain is that the PLA special ops crews don't have as much real combat experience. The best they have done were probably fighting drug smugglers close to Southwestern border or crazy terrorists in the Northwest. But these are more small scale criminals, barely even have guns. Even if they do, they are probably only armed with few bullets, nothing in comparison like those hardcore players in the MiddleEast. Although they are in the Army, they are more like PAP in those situations. Unless another major battle erupts with a neighbouring country, there is no way we will ever find out how effective they are.

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Just kinda surprised how much you underestimate druglords. As for your other points about Chinese fanboys making stuff up and making random, pointless comparisons, I agree on that. It's ridiculously immature. I recalled some even comparing them to the SDU about some cross-competitions that they had conducted and then claiming SDU was inferior. They are just so pathetic. I also don't think any types of competitions can ever be used to justify capabilities. The Chinese have demonstrated themselves to be very capable of winning competitions, especially in Olympics or even various other types of competition(SWAT or not)..however anyone who attempts to claim that the Chinese is better/worse simply through competition is losing their touch of reality. It will be just as bad as making conclusions like that TV show Deadliest Warriors(god I hate that show), which is completely invalid.

And my final point..even IF there was a way to prove the SEALs to be superior than the SAS, Delta, GIGN, GSG9, KSK, Chinese SOF, JTF2, or anything you can think of, it will also NEVER mean anything. This is simply because GIGN may conduct the Iranian Embassy rescue different from the SAS, and any teams may prove themselves in handling a certain case scenarios and situations better than some other SOFs, which still won't mean the other SOFs are lesser.

on the contrary of most opinions here, going against the flow, i somewhat agree with our friend inzim here

if anything can be used to see how professional a special force/ special operations team is their appearance,
because they are mostly secretive in nature, there is very little information released
even amongst military themselves, the only way to get to know each other is through joint training/exercises

photo ops during training, or photo shoots can show you how well maintained or well equipped one force is
the basic observation logic would be if you have the gear, you have the skill to use it, if you don't then that the skill probably does not exist

we have seen quite a number of so called Chinese spec ops, and i think they are woefully equipped compared not only to NATO/American spec ops, but even to higher tier US regulars like Airborne, army Rangers, or Marines

also most of the time, like popeye usually laments of, is Chinese shots are staged shots, it would be nice to see some genuine training pics of PLA sofs, like CQCs or marksmanship training

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as to why, there are probably some reason

1. doctrinal challenge from the past
2. no dedicated service branch within the PLA, as we know they are spread out in each MR, as opposed to a single entity(s) under direct PLA subordination
3. quite numerous in number? as each MR have them
4. probably just regular top tier soldiers 'elevated' to spec ops status to be assigned spec ops missions and tasks, which also the case how other army in the world recruit spec ops, but perhaps lacking in intensity and depth
5. lack of interaction and exposure of NATO/US style training
6. lack of quality firearms, as we know Chinese made small arms and round are still performing below NATO standards

Old pics of 2nd Arty SOF

Why care about how well trained of "special forces"? - When heavey cavalry die just as the same as swordsman, when under systematic archery fire.

I have no informantion on how good or bad Chinese Naval SOF trained, but for inzim's angle of peek the PLA's (more specific, PLAN's) combat efficiency, let's have a look their best, the SOF's efficiency - this angle, in my opinion, don't really means much.

On top of I agree with people in this thread indicating this SOF differs from that SOF, they can not being dick-size-measured whatsoever, I would like to indicate that, navy, being what we Chinese call "a pure technical force"（纯技术兵种）, its overall "how good it is" measure, is the least depending on SOF's performances. If the original intention is to question "how good it is" of PLA combat readyness / efficiency (which I presume?), inquiry on certain SOF's quality is not a good angle to start with. - Heavey cavalry die just as the same as swordsman, when under systematic archery fire. - A perfect spc ops may suddenly gose south way because your naval aviation didn't secure the airspace tight enough, that the enemy CAP drop a guided bomb in the middle of your retreating convey.

It's just my interpreting of the usually-not-saying-loud scepticize of "Dose PLA good or not?" debate-creating session, no offence intent but to air out the issue.

I find it funny that OP opens thread to label Chinese special forces amateurish and when other posters disagree with that opinion and bring up points, he then says they are too aggressive. Maybe we should start using, "excuse me, if I may, sorry to interrupt ..." and smilie faces in every sentence we reply in this thread.

Red___Sword said:

Why care about how well trained of "special forces"? - When heavey cavalry die just as the same as swordsman, when under systematic archery fire.

I have no informantion on how good or bad Chinese Naval SOF trained, but for inzim's angle of peek the PLA's (more specific, PLAN's) combat efficiency, let's have a look their best, the SOF's efficiency - this angle, in my opinion, don't really means much.

On top of I agree with people in this thread indicating this SOF differs from that SOF, they can not being dick-size-measured whatsoever, I would like to indicate that, navy, being what we Chinese call "a pure technical force"（纯技术兵种）, its overall "how good it is" measure, is the least depending on SOF's performances. If the original intention is to question "how good it is" of PLA combat readyness / efficiency (which I presume?), inquiry on certain SOF's quality is not a good angle to start with. - Heavey cavalry die just as the same as swordsman, when under systematic archery fire. - A perfect spc ops may suddenly gose south way because your naval aviation didn't secure the airspace tight enough, that the enemy CAP drop a guided bomb in the middle of your retreating convey.

It's just my interpreting of the usually-not-saying-loud scepticize of "Dose PLA good or not?" debate-creating session, no offence intent but to air out the issue.

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I agree with you. Man I don't know what's with your posts. Sometimes I have to try really hard to decipher and interpret your words(and still bear no fruits in understanding what you wanna say), and sometimes posts like this one are fantastic.(I cracked up on the dick-size measurement analogy).
Regardless, very well said, ESPECIALLY the second last sentence.

Excellent discussion!

Here's links to US Navy photos of the SEALs & Special Warfare. (Mostly training). Use these photos for comparison. The first link is the best.