PLA Ground Forces news, pics and videos

iBBz said:

They are expensive for Europeans because they don't produce them in large numbers and they love complicating things, like the Archer extends the barrel and a double door that closes once the barrel is retracted. That system is great but can be made simpler and cheaper and can be made to go faster, too. All the PLA had to do was take the turret of the PLZ-05 and place it on a truck. This would have made for a design that shares almost all its parts with other products, introducing next to no new complexities to the supply chain and cutting development costs greatly. It would also have reduced training cost and time, and the number of the crew would have been reduced, and most importantly, it would have greatly increased the survivability due to two factors, one being the crew still inside an armoured platform protecting them from many variants of loitering munition drones and shrapnel, and the second factor being that they can leave before counter battery arrives. Then theres the element of deterrence and sales through prestige. Developing high end designs tends to attract global respect and increase sales.

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There are a few other points
PCL-181 was specifically designed to fit 2 in a Y-20. It is quite possible that such a turreted design would not be able to fit this constraint.

Another thing, European militaries are facing falling recruitment numbers necessitating increased automation, PLA doesn’t have this problem. As mentioned, the increased cost/complexity doesn’t necessarily give a positive pay off.

Honestly the speed of loading is not going to be the critical factor in a shoot and scoot mission. Physically unhooking and laying a towed gun is going to take up way more time than loading five rounds with a full crew of loaders, especially since all the ammo is contained on the chassis.

iBBz said:

Then they should give up a destroyer or even the 004 for this and jamming resistant guided artillery munitions. Artillery superiority should be a priority for the PLA, they aren't as blessed geographically as the US is for example. Look I'm not saying they should throw away the PCL series in the dumpster, but simply deploying the howitzers we are discussing in conjunction with the PCL series, can make life much more difficult for hostile counter battery fire.

India is kind of hostile here and there, and from what I'm seeing in the Russia Ukraine war, artillery is king when fighting a land connected neighbour

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Yes, in the case where both sides are incapable of even asserting basic aerial + naval supremacy / support and are resorted to fighting long duration WWI style trench warfare, where recon is performed not by advanced AEW&C platforms but by cheap DJI drones and manual sighting, this honestly doesn't sound like the type of war the PLA would be fighting anytime soon.

In the case of a large scale Sino-Indian border engagement (or any modern warfare in general), as soon as one side establishes any form of areal dominance, artillery pieces would be detected, targeted and shredded by PEMs, cruise missiles etc. before they even get into firing position. Doesn't matter if it's a old soviet D-30 or brand new PCL-181 with "jamming resistant guided munitions", they're equally worthless under air or naval suppression

Papppi said:

Yes, in the case where both sides of incapable of even asserting basic aerial + naval supremacy / support and are resorted to fighting long duration WWI style trench warfare, where recon is performed not by advanced AEW&C platforms but by cheap DJI drones and manual sighting, this honestly doesn't sound like the type of war the PLA would be fighting anytime soon.

In the case of a large scale Sino-Indian border engagement (or any modern warfare in general), as soon as one side establishes any form of areal dominance, artillery pieces would be detected, targeted and shredded by PEMs, cruise missiles etc. before they even get into firing position. Doesn't matter if it's a old soviet D-30 or brand new PCL-181 with "jamming resistant guided munitions", they're equally worthless under air or naval suppression

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Neither side being unable to assert "basic aerial + naval supremacy" may actually be the case for substantial portions of a modern hypothetical conflict, because asserting air supremacy and naval supremacy is anything but basic.
In a modern conflict between two nations, it is very plausible that it will take time to achieve superiority in those domains, and in the interim where that air control or sea control is being contested, it doesn't mean your ground operations and artillery operations suddenly stop. It just means that your operations have to be done without air superiority or with transient air superiority.

In those situations, it is still absolutely important to have sufficiently capable ground forces to try and perform the mission that is given to them.

The ground war between Russia and Ukraine is useful as a way to remind people that a ground war may still have to be fought and contested even if neither side lacks air superiority.
The ground war between Russia and Ukraine is not necessarily useful to other nations who have the means to prosecute a more competent ground war (even if they lack air superiority) than what either of those two sides are presently doing.


To address the comparison between older and newer guns -- using your examples, there absolutely is a meaningful difference between a D-30 or a PCL-181 in a modern context (though really it should be a PCL-161 or 171 to be compared for the purposes of analogous equivalents given you'd want to at least compare a 122mm gun with a 122mm gun rather than 155mm), simply because there is likely going to be meaningful scenarios where neither side has decisive air superiority or if your air support cannot immediately be called upon but where your ground forces still need organic fire support or still need to win a pop-up artillery duel.

Taking all of this back to the PCL-181 (and PCL-161, PCL-171), what it means is that ultimately investing in being able to compete or dominate the higher order domains (air, or naval depending on the conflict scenario) is more important than dominating in a lower order domain (like tube artillery, or even lower than that would be something like infantry capability) -- and the hard questions posed to a military as a whole is to choose which domains and capabilities to put more money into, and which domains and capabilities can be assessed as being "good enough" and where further investment reaches a state of diminishing returns in context of a finite budget.

Blitzo said:

To address the comparison between older and newer guns -- using your examples, there absolutely is a meaningful difference between a D-30 or a PCL-181 in a modern context (though really it should be a PCL-161 or 171 to be compared for the purposes of analogous equivalents given you'd want to at least compare a 122mm gun with a 122mm gun rather than 155mm), simply because there is likely going to be meaningful scenarios where neither side has decisive air superiority or if your air support cannot immediately be called upon but where your ground forces still need organic fire support or still need to win a pop-up artillery duel.

Taking all of this back to the PCL-181 (and PCL-161, PCL-171), what it means is that ultimately investing in being able to compete or dominate the higher order domains (air, or naval depending on the conflict scenario) is more important than dominating in a lower order domain (like tube artillery, or even lower than that would be something like infantry capability) -- and the hard questions posed to a military as a whole is to choose which domains and capabilities to put more money into, and which domains and capabilities can be assessed as being "good enough" and where further investment reaches a state of diminishing returns in context of a finite budget.

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Think you misunderstood my point. I'm simply refuting the OP's point that "Then they should give up a destroyer or even the 004 for this and jamming resistant guided artillery munitions. Artillery superiority should be a priority for the PLA" (aka, sacrificing major areal / naval platforms in exchange for improvements on a rather minor component of ground warfare).

Im not claiming that there aren't major technological and operational differences between a rusty D-30 and a PCL series SPGs (where if given the correct circumstances, can lead to vastly different results), just that under a scenario where the air or naval war was lost (presumably due to prioritizing a minor platform like artillery), a modern PCL is equally easy to eliminate for the opponent's air and naval assets as a D-30, they are all sitting ducks without proper integration and support.

Or in your words, "to choose which domains and capabilities to put more money into, and which domains and capabilities can be assessed as being "good enough" and where further investment reaches a state of diminishing returns in context of a finite budget"

Papppi said:

Think you misunderstood my point. I'm simply refuting the OP's point that "Then they should give up a destroyer or even the 004 for this and jamming resistant guided artillery munitions. Artillery superiority should be a priority for the PLA" (aka, sacrificing major areal / naval platforms in exchange for improvements on a rather minor component of ground warfare).

Im not claiming that there aren't major technological and operational differences between a rusty D-30 and a PCL series SPGs (where if given the correct circumstances, can lead to vastly different results), just that under a scenario where the air or naval war was lost (presumably due to prioritizing a minor platform like artillery), a modern PCL is equally easy to eliminate for the opponent's air and naval assets as a D-30, they are all sitting ducks without proper integration and support.

Or in your words, "to choose which domains and capabilities to put more money into, and which domains and capabilities can be assessed as being "good enough" and where further investment reaches a state of diminishing returns in context of a finite budget"

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No, I understand your point, but you took up a scenario which is also unlikely -- of course it's a scenario which is not as unlikely or unrealistic as theirs obviously, but that doesn't mean your scenario is a good way of countering the argument, and talking about air supremacy or naval supremacy as if it is basic or easily asserted is a bit of a yikes.

Refuting a point with an argument that also has flaws just ends up complicating the discussion further, so your overall argument would have been stronger if you had omitted the entire scenario to begin with.

PLA | PHL-191 MRLS launch

PCL-161/171/181 have much better mobility than the automatic wheeled artillery we've seen to date (remember that thing which is basically an SPG turret on a low-loader? Totes ridic.), and I'd expect much lower cost. Another factor is reliability. One of the lessons of the Ukraine war is that it's much better to have a less capable system that actually works rather than an 'exquisite' capability that it sat waiting to be repaired. I read somewhere AFU were having big logistics problems with the likes of Archer and PzH2000 as they keep breaking down due to heavy use.

Blitzo said:

There are so many more higher yield ways of attaining fires superiority than making all of their self propelled artillery have automatic reloading.




This sounds like a you problem. They are not going show a full demonstration of a shoot and scoot fire mission just because we want to see it, in the same way that they aren't going to show us a full video of J-20 firing a volley of its BVR missiles just because we want to see it.
Directly from official PLA media, one of the earliest stated advantages of PCL-181 over its towed predecessors is the speed of employment, carrying out a fire mission, and moving on. And it's even been translated to English, in a manner which isn't how I would select the specific diction but it conveys the point rather obviously.

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If you are unable to even do some basic research into the rate of fire, mobility, fire direction, of the 155mm PCL-181, and 122mm PCL-161/171 series relative to towed howitzers, then maybe you shouldn't be posting before doing your own investigations.

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I tried to but didn't run into this article at all, but you are right, next time I'll try harder to find more info. The videos are good propaganda, nothing wrong with showing off some of these capabilities, and it could be done without revealing any sensitive information. The article claims the 181 can setup and fire 6 projectiles then move on in three minutes. Why do you think that is? Its because they want to show us but through text. Its still propaganda. That claim is outlandish, not saying its a lie, but it sounds faster than even the fully automated systems and merits video proof, even if its from a camera mounted on the dashboard showing nothing but the truck stopping and the firing sound repeating 6 times then the truck moving. If this claim is true, then I rest my case.

Blitzo said:

Yes, because what you described is rare for the PLAGF.

There is a reason why the PLAGF doesn't typically buy the most high end of potential capabilities and platforms or variants that exist, because the PLAGF have such a scale that they have to balance additional capabilities versus what is good enough to find the right balance between cost and diminishing returns, in context of their overall strategic military modernization opportunity costs.

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You have to admit this is kind of a bummer and may not be wrong, but will still look wrong. Why should anyone trust the equipmemt you sell if you yourself don't operate them? If you say the PLA runs on a tight budget, which I didn't know, then fair enough.

Blitzo said:

In reality, in a hypothetical conflict against India, having massive superiority in tube artillery is not going to be the decisive factor -- air power/air interdiction, MLRS and SRBMs will be the fires of importance --- and even then, if one wants to look at the balance of tube artillery, in terms of actual gun platforms and SPH the PLA's orbat and distribution of brigade and corps level artillery is among the most capable in the world, especially if one looks at the networking and organic ISR they have access to.

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If a conventional conflict was to ever take place with India, I imagine China would want to instantly cut off east India from west India by severing the Lepcha passage west of Bhutan, and that would require artillery superiority with or without air superiority, so it would most likely have to be fought like the Russo Ukraine war.


This forum could use a section that timelines facts about PLA components to shorten discussions, like spec sheets with photos and such. It would be fun to read through something like that instead of rolling through thousands of pages of discussions trying to learn about the PLA. Also thank you for posting the article, that was a good read.

iBBz said:

I tried to but didn't run into this article at all, but you are right, next time I'll try harder to find more info. The videos are good propaganda, nothing wrong with showing off some of these capabilities, and it could be done without revealing any sensitive information. The article claims the 181 can setup and fire 6 projectiles then move on in three minutes. Why do you think that is? Its because they want to show us but through text. Its still propaganda. That claim is outlandish, not saying its a lie, but it sounds faster than even the fully automated systems and merits video proof, even if its from a camera mounted on the dashboard showing nothing but the truck stopping and the firing sound repeating 6 times then the truck moving. If this claim is true, then I rest my case.

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If you're gonna be: It's propaganda, can't trust.
Then just get the fck out of here, afterall, can't trust anything from the PLA, right?

Also, do think we had some videos of how fast they were able to setup and fire, although not 100% sure, also not where in this thread it might be.

iBBz said:

You have to admit this is kind of a bummer and may not be wrong, but will still look wrong. Why should anyone trust the equipmemt you sell if you yourself don't operate them? If you say the PLA runs on a tight budget, which I didn't know, then fair enough.

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You also gotta realize the scale/size of the PLAGF.
It's pretty darn big, with quite a lot of artillery pieces, so Blitzo is totally right.

iBBz said:

If a conventional conflict was to ever take place with India, I imagine China would want to instantly cut off east India from west India by severing the Lepcha passage west of Bhutan, and that would require artillery superiority with or without air superiority, so it would most likely have to be fought like the Russo Ukraine war.

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Current PLA has both artillery and air superiority over India's military.

iBBz said:

This forum could use a section that timelines facts about PLA components to shorten discussions, like spec sheets with photos and such. It would be fun to read through something like that instead of rolling through thousands of pages of discussions trying to learn about the PLA. Also thank you for posting the article, that was a good read.

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Honestly, a fine suggestion, but like, no one seems willing to invest time to do it.