By the way, (a bit unrelated to the thread) but does anyone happen to know the military budget of the Philippine Armed Forces?
Why not type 97? At this point, I think the Philippines might need more heavy equipment. Is the mutual trust still not at the level for heavy deals?
What, they CQ and CS/LR4 not "heavy enough" for you or something?
Well if anything they do have their hands on the T97, (I've left a picture in the PLA small arms thread) but if it wasn't a formal military delivery such as this one, I do recall their are civilian variants already available in the Philippine, my best guess is at this point they are being resourceful and are really not going to say no to anything that works, such as they wooden armor plans on the GKN Simba's.
The Philippine Armed forces are heavy AR15 users There standard issue before this was rebuilt M16A1 US Supplied M16A2 rifles and M4A1 rifles. As such it's easier to move to the CQ then have to retrain for the QBZ series. They can basically drop CQ's into the hands of troops with only a minimum of issues. Also giving them CQ's places less strain on Norinco to supply QBZ 95 1 and QBZ 97 rifles.The Filipinos might be more used to conventional assault rifles.
Being Blunt the Philippines are not able to employ such. due to the island structure and climate ( political, Economic and weather) Armor would be a waste. Utility and scout Helicopters are fine for there needs as they are not fighting an army only insurgenciesThe heavy equipment I meant were tanks, IFV, armored vehicles, armed helicopters... so on. Guns are considered as small arms.
exactly. The Philippine Islands are not suitable Tank country They lack the infrastructure to maintain heavy IFV's frankly if there was a move I think they should meake in the IFV/APC department it would be to standardize on an Amphibious type.Consider they don't actually have modern fighter jet in their inventory, its pretty low.