Chinese weapons are considered junk not just by indians or Americans or the koreas or the Japanese or the ASEAN countries but entire world including Pakistan considers Chinese weapons as junk
Chinese government can hide aircraft crashes easily because there is no independent media but that won’t improve the quality of aircrafts china makes
Chinese weapons are junk you say? Why?
1) Pakistan Air Force purchased Wing Loong II drones. These drones destroyed a number TB2 drones (that Pakistan is also buying) on the ground in Libya.
2) Pakistan used JF-17s in their famous Operation Swift Retort in 2019. In that operation, India ate Pakistani air-gound munitions in broad daylight, lost a Mig-21, lost a helicopter to friendly fire, had a pilot captured and paraded in Pakistan, and then had the US debunked India's lie about the shot-down Pakistani F-16.
3) Most recent high-profile Pakistani military purchase from China:
- VT4 tanks
- Type 039B submarines
- Type 054P frigates
- J-10Cs
* All are big ticket defense sales.
4) These are some Chinese weapons that have done some damage in various wars:
- Type 56 rifles (AK and SKS types): Vietnam War onwards. US GIs in Vietnam fear the weapon along with the AK-47s and AKMs.
- Type 69 RPG: Appears practically everywhere alongside the RPG-7s.
- Type 69 Tanks: The 2 Iraq Wars. Killed a number of US Army personnel.
- Type 85-II-M Tanks: Sudanese Civil War. Destroyed a number of South Sudanese T-72s.
- J-6 fighters: Indo-Pakistani Wars, Vietnam War. Did damage to the IAF and USAF.
- J-7 fighters: Various conflicts in Africa
- HJ-8 ATGMs: Syrian Civil War. No one doubts the lethality of the HJ-8 today.
- FN-6 MANPADS: Syrian Civil War. Shot-down a number of Syrian combat aircraft.
- C-802 AshM: Hit the Israeli ship INS Hanit in 2006
- PLZ-45 SPH: Used by Saudi Arabia on Yemen
- CH-4 and Wing Loong II drones. Used by Saudi Arabia, UAE, and LNA Libya against their enemies.
* And many more.
5) All of India's neighbours are buying Chinese 'junk' weapons instead of Indian Wunderwaffe. Why?
Name any wars in recent memory that Indian-made weapons have proven their worth. Nobody in the defense community could recall even one instance. Pakistan and Turkey have far more success in defense exports than India. Pakistan exported a good number of Al-Khalids and JF-17s. Turkey's most famous exports are their ACV-15s and TB2 Bayraktars.
So what is the real story of 'powerful' Indian defense weapons? Here is a quick summary:
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INSAS Rifles. They are so bad, that even the Indian Army is dropping them for Russian AK-203s. Fun fact, India needed Russia to ToT AK-203 technologies for Indian domestic manufacture. India still needs AK rifle technology in the 2020s! Go figure.
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Indian-made 155mm ammunition exploded in a M777 howitzer. Indian Ordinance Factory Board cannot even manufacture 155mm ammunition with sufficient quality for combat use.
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Brahmos missile. Ah the Wunderwaffe Brahmos missile finally found a client in the Philippines in 2021. Other countries opted to buy P-800 Oniks from Russia instead. Because they trust the Russians more. The P-800 Oniks had seen actual combat, and its Russian-made. I'm betting that its even cheaper than Brahmos, and just as capable. Brahmos OTOH had seen
0 combat, even in 2022! I do wonder how long the Philippines will have to wait till the Brahmos is actually delivered from India.
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Arjun MBT program. More than 30 years behind schedule and the tank is over-budget, over-weight, and very mediocre in performance. Its armed with a 120mm
rifled gun that is capable of
300+mm of RHA penetration at 1800m. Russian 125mm munitions from the 1980s can perform much better than that. The Arjun had a number of reliability issues with its imported engines and transmission. Finally, the Indian Army opted to buy more T-90s instead. Export potential? Dead in the the water.
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Tejas light fighter program. Same like the Arjun program. 30 years behind schedule, with the final product, being very meh. Kaveri engine program was a failure after several decades of development. The Tejas had so much foreign equipment in it that its per-unit price is more than even the Su-30SM fully imported from Russia. The Indian Airforce barely even ordered the plane, and India wants to export it to Malaysia and Sri Lanka. Talk about some of the most delusional defense marketing strategy. Who would buy an unproven jet that is not even procured in meaningful numbers by the producing country's air force? Not to mention its high price?
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HAL Dhruv helicopters. 7 exported to Ecuador, 4 crashed. Ecuador grounded their HAL Dhruv fleet and cancelled their contract with HAL.
Indians can call Chinese weapons 'junk' all they like. History has a much different opinion. Plus history actually matters in the real world, not Jai Hind!
much more so than supa doopa India.
