Well, look at the hair on his arm too. That is just someone dressing up for some paint-ball game.
PLA Ground Forces news, pics and videos
- Thread starter Jeff Head
- Start date
An 7.62x39 version of QBZ-192 armed like this one, with subsonic rounds would be a very nice special-op version.
They finally put QJZ-171 on the MG mount.
How to get new toys（gears） quickly?
Find a way to participate an international exercise i guess
Interesting seeing the on-screen return of the 2018/19 digital monocular for this training evolution. For the most part they're shown in the usual non-functional configuration/power-cable tucked away (clearly for show). With that said in the last few frames while they're standing in formation a number do appear to have them cabled into the battery pack affixed to their vest back-panel (though that may simply be due in part to only a handful of battery packs being available for actual use). Overall, my takeaway is this continues to reinforce that the current digitized soldier system as a whole is still a very limited issuance article within the PLA, and in this case early test equipment was likely sourced from storage for this training event to continue to present a desirable image of more common issuance (They even issued out those funky 2019 drop-leg holsters).
Don't think so. The participating members are from various units of the Western theatre command, whom were among the first to get issued / test the 2018 digital nods (along with the type 19 system in general), they likely just kept on using those even after they were officially replaced by the 19/20 edition of digital nods, which isn't that surprising given the PLA's cost-saving traditions.
A similar case can be seen with units of the 81st GA currently training with the Singaporeans in "Corporation-2024", whom were also the initial testers of the 2018 nods and can be seen using them alongside the newer 19/20 editions of the system in the exercise.
Image of the 81st from back in 2020
My Chinese social media algorithms have recently been recommending me a lot of private deployment pics of members across the PLA between 2021-2023 (believe some of them have been posted here) and from what I can see, digital nods (along with the 19/21 infantry combat system), while not quite having reached complete standard issue, are by no means "limited", seen issued / used in large quantities (not just in PLA photoshoots), especially for the more elite and frontline units.
Well from what I've seen the 81st GA personnel at Cooperation are primarily using the current post-2021 equipment (though in partial configuration) which is the standard for the PLA anymore when participating in an international exercise whether held at home or abroad with Warrior-8 being the oddity to that norm with only 18/19 equipment present. As for visual data most imagery I have catalogued whether personally or for work the past 6 years still points to most units within the PLAGF not having full access to the digital solider system as standard issuance and in many cases the system only being issued out in partial or non-functional condition (no power pack or commo). Other trends including the introduction this year of what is likely an in-testing common digital combat sight points towards the PLA looking at a more streamlined/economical approach to enhancing their forces information sharing/night-fighting capabilities over what is now being marketed as an export package with CS/LN2. I don't say this as saying I think the program is defunct, if anything I think it's very much succeeded in establishing a baseline for the PLA that didn't exist before, but I also think as it was originally envisioned is not in line with where the PLAGF is trending towards for what will likely be another system revision in the near-future. Merely my thoughts on the matter with the data I see.
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