Ordinary PLA infantrymen

planeman said:

Interesting thread. My I just add that whoever is whining about this gun or that gun being unreliable, has obviously never worked with the SA-80. Britain rules again!!!!

PLA infantryman may have crap training, but at least his gun doesn't melt if he uses insect repellant.

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What do you mean the PLA have crap training? For a country with that kind of size of troops within the PLA some 2.2ish million I'd say that the PLA is doing quite well in training with the amount of troops which they have to train. The PLA is trying to make its PLA force a strong elite fighting 21st century army. But it knows its force is too big and takes too long to do a mass transition. Money people cost lots!!! So the PLA have designed not so much the Special Forces equivalant althougth PLA too has them. But an elite unit which is better then the ordinary soldiers but not as good as the PLA spec op boys. So we got low class, middle class and high class if you can put it that way. Very much simular to the structure China is inplementing right now with its society. All an all PLA DOES NOT HAVE CRAP TRAINING!!! Maybe not as good but not crap.

netspider said:

Maybe I am wrong, but I believe I saw these three pictures before. The first picture was took very recently in PLA "QueShang" 2006 exercise, and the last two pictures, thery are not PLA but armed polices. I believe those pictures are about a armed police exercise recently conducted in Xinjiang province.

Also, don't believe those internet rumors spread by those who pretented to be PLA infantry men, you may have already heard that there are a lot of people paid by Taiwan, Japan, FLG or possibly CIA to say such negative things on Chinese forums. Use your own judgement, do you really believe that a PLA infantry man only fired five rounds in his career? Come on, if there is one thing that PLA has plenty of, that must be bullets. When I was in college in China, I fired more than 5 rounds in 20 days military training.

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In my experience in the U.S. Army I can garanteed you than we don't use to underestimate our oponents, thats why we train so hard, so respectfully I doubd really mush than The U.S. Goverment spread something that is not true just to make the China's military... We dont get any benefit for such thing... Interesthing you fire more than 5 rounds in a 20 military training in China. I knw 5 rds for a entire military career is ridiculous... I respectfully ask you how many you exactly fire in the 20 military trainning?... I fire 6 twenty rounds magazine in one day when I was in BCT (off course dont mean all days in bct we get to fire this amount). Can I also ask how far where the targets and whish assault riffle you use?

I have a friend from china who did the compulsory training thing at the end of secondary school (junior high), I'll get some more info from him about weapons training he did and post it up here.

Chengdu J-10 said:

What a load of c##p comparing Chinese soldiers and US soldiers stating that US soldiers are better trained. How do you know that US soldiers are better trained than Chinese soldiers? What through some papers and articles that US pros wrote. China military activities are covered more heavily than the US even realises. The US gives the impression that Chinese soldiers are ill equipped and trained, with only handful of well trained and well equipped. As to the Type 56 I have no idea what you are going on about cause PLA troops use Type 81 and 95 now. Chinese troops are pretty well trained and this is not refering to the elite forces of the PLA. Equipment yes I must agree to you on that one to a certain degree of the bulk of Chinese soldiers. But the amount of modern equipment pouring into the PLA is increasing and soon about 3-4 more years the PLA troops will all have modern rifles and equipments. Give a Chinese troop an AK-47 and im sure they will be lethal with it. Chinese troops are not push overs, which your post is giving me this strong impression of what you are writting.

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I din'd say The PLA it's ill trained... far from it I just saying that U.S. Army it's better trainned. I backed up my point with the next website:
I dint say all of PLA soldiers are pushovers I just say than based on than half of PLA are conscript the standars should be lower than the U.S. does... doesen't mean at all they are low... just lower than U.S. as I say half of them are conscript... probably that change now scince I read that in a website dated in 1999... probably now only a 1/4 of the PLA is conscript but scince the last information I have say 1/2 of the PLA I don't create or say something diferent that what I read

Mr_C said:

You are just making yourself look very silly with this very superficial and ill informed statement. It appears you are in abit of a dreamworld.
Infact why are you constantly comparing the PLA with the US military when the entire topic has nothing to do with comparisons with any other organisations.
And i am sure any true veteran soldiers, air men and sailors in here will agree that there is no real such thing as the "best". It is all a matter of how they are used.
I myself have no doubts about the level of training that each PLA soldier receives depending on their role which makes them effective as an entity of the entire army.

And machine guns can be fired with good accuracy too, depending on how you want to discharge the weapon.

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I scence you are a little mad... my bad wasan't my intention to do so... I back up my information of how PLA trains with... .
and The U.S. Army with...
I see you say than machineguns can be acurate to...I agree on it, but I gonna tell you a free advice than may save your life someday... If you're loocking for acuracy dont use a machinegun... in terms of acuracy it's nothing to be compare with an assault riffle and mush less an sniper riffle...
A dreamworld he??? well I say where I get my information... globalsecurity.org (PLA trainning and doctrine), some from wikipedia.com (the Type 56 assault riffle) as you see I have nothing to hide of my sources... I respectfully ask you for some of your sources so we can see how your "realworld" really is.
"i am sure any true veteran soldiers, air men and sailors in here will agree that there is no real such thing as the "best". It is all a matter of how they are used."... Well looks like you are confused best (or maybe I din'd make myself clear enough) "Best" (talking about trainning and enquipment) doesen't graranteed victory but believe me it helps out a lot a true soldier join their countries forces even when they have a war that they don't even believe on... they are not join when you know war is not likley to happen just to say... look at me I'm in the army (it's easy to do so when you know it's unlikely to go to the battlefield)

Comparing the PLA with the U.S. Army all the forum... Probably you are right but I still talking about The ordinary PLA infantry... (it's that the theme here isn't it?) the most easy way to put something to prove it's by comparing it with something similar but not necesarily from the same origen... probably you only focus in what you think im doing bad (from your perspective off course) but you don't note than Im asking questions about the PLA to a certain guy in this forum, besides you call me ill informed when I say something but you dont provide the "correct" information... after all you never give us a link or some sort of evidence to back up your opinnion... As far as I understand you are a soldier too and you have all the right in the world to say constructive critism to me or anybody else but please when you do so make sure you provide sources than can back up your points...

Well let's get back to the PLA ordinary infantry... Somebody know whats the minimal standars for them? (i'm talking about marksmanship, Physical Fitness Test, military operations skils and other RELEVANT things in the battlefield?

And for thouse people who serve the PLA I gonna apreciate than they tell my how long their BCT and AIT (or the eqivalent) is for infantryman?

Chengdu J-10 said:

What do you mean the PLA have crap training? For a country with that kind of size of troops within the PLA some 2.2ish million I'd say that the PLA is doing quite well in training with the amount of troops which they have to train. The PLA is trying to make its PLA force a strong elite fighting 21st century army. But it knows its force is too big and takes too long to do a mass transition. Money people cost lots!!!PLA too has them. But an elite unit which is better then the ordinary soldiers So the PLA have designed not so much the Special Forces equivalant althougth but not as good as the PLA spec op boys. So we got low class, middle class and high class if you can put it that way. Very much simular to the structure China is inplementing right now with its society. All an all PLA DOES NOT HAVE CRAP TRAINING!!! Maybe not as good but not crap.

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I din'd remember say The PLA have a crap trainning ... If I did please tell me where I put this stuff... please people don't say that I say something like that... I dont even use the word "crap" very much... to be honest I dont think I say that word here...

planeman said:

Interesting thread. My I just add that whoever is whining about this gun or that gun being unreliable, has obviously never worked with the SA-80. Britain rules again!!!!

PLA infantryman may have crap training, but at least his gun doesn't melt if he uses insect repellant.

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It was this guy i was referring to. I never quoted you aquilis182, read my post and above them who i quoted, the post i quoted was from planeman.

planeman said:

Interesting thread. My I just add that whoever is whining about this gun or that gun being unreliable, has obviously never worked with the SA-80. Britain rules again!!!!

PLA infantryman may have crap training, but at least his gun doesn't melt if he uses insect repellant.

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SA-80 might be almost as good as type 95,
but to use it wouldn't you need infantry to NOT surrender at patrol boats?

I guess, maybe Type-95 is better suited to taking on patrol boats.

Just to clarify, by crap training, I mean crap. I guess "crap" is a relative term, but frankly most armies, particularly large ones with conscripts, have crap training. It's like McDonalds only less tasty and slightly more drab. That doesn't make the PLA a pushover, afterall a 5 year old with an AK clone is pretty tough cookie in my books, but it doesn't get away from the obvious training problem.

In a contest of craps, I might prefer PLA crap.

planeman said:

I guess, maybe Type-95 is better suited to taking on patrol boats.

Just to clarify, by crap training, I mean crap. I guess "crap" is a relative term, but frankly most armies, particularly large ones with conscripts, have crap training. It's like McDonalds only less tasty and slightly more drab. That doesn't make the PLA a pushover, afterall a 5 year old with an AK clone is pretty tough cookie in my books, but it doesn't get away from the obvious training problem.

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Just in case you aren't aware, the PLA is entirely a professional army. No conscription what so ever.

Ok can we let this discussion of crappy training aside? Unless there are someone who has actually served in PLA making such claim, and have alternative experience to compare that experience...Those who have actually been in military service would know that the two key elements to make good training is the ammount of basic Drill manouvre, to forge the dicipline and the ammount of time spend in the woods (or in plains, mountains ect. depending the geography ) simulating everyday life in crisis situation.
Those are the key of making good soldiers, despite how technically demanding his post is.
PLA service time last so long that they have plenty of time to make sure this takes place. Many of the Arms chair generals tends to forget that all regular armies are pretty much the same in the root level, they need to be in order to function properly as an army. Where there are doupts that PLAs doctrines and organisation (expecially the chain of command) arent the most flexible and adjustable that there is, it doesent automatically mean that PLA has crappy training...or from the fact that they have obsolecent looking weapons.

But as a moderational Side note, Goldenpanda, You should really think twice next time you are up to bring useless India bashing into one of the Chinese military discussion forums.

Also, to those who wishes to compare PLA to US army, I believe there are some forums in the internet with lower standards that actually allows such ranting. Please keep it out of China defence today - forums.


But back to the topic...And if talking about relevant things in the battle field, Motivation is the number one key issue that goes beyond everything else. If PLA soldiers are even half as patriotic as some of the outside living chinese youth that I have encountered in these few years, Im sure they are just fine in the terms of the motivation...