not sure if it's real. too many features correlate too closely with this picture of the adaptive combat rifle, like detail on the stock, barrel, gas port... too easy to doctor and thhen apply a filter to make it seem like a "different" rifle.
Of course I won't say it's fake outright, because we know that the new Chinese service rifle is said to take substantial influence from the ACR... but I'm not sure if it would follow its configuration that closely.
Coping some of those details is not a failure it's just necessity of design. Barrels for a combat rifle of similar caliber are going to not change that much. The stock on the ACR is already copied by three other makers and an externally identical gas port is seen on the AK400, SIG, LWRCI, HK UK and more. Over all though I think this image is just a drawing probably based off an early concept for the "New" rifle.not sure if it's real. too many features correlate too closely with this picture of the adaptive combat rifle, like detail on the stock, barrel, gas port... too easy to doctor and thhen apply a filter to make it seem like a "different" rifle.
Of course I won't say it's fake outright, because we know that the new Chinese service rifle is said to take substantial influence from the ACR... but I'm not sure if it would follow its configuration that closely.
Coping some of those details is not a failure it's just necessity of design. Barrels for a combat rifle of similar caliber are going to not change that much. The stock on the ACR is already copied by three other makers and an externally identical gas port is seen on the AK400, SIG, LWRCI, HK UK and more. Over all though I think this image is just a drawing probably based off an early concept for the "New" rifle.
Eh, you're probably right that it's a fake. The pistol grip, trigger guard, and mag release also seem identical to that on the QBZ-03, yet are redesigned in the images of the prototypes that has been leaked. Would make no sense for the PLA to suddenly revert back to that if they found a better design. Guess I should've checked before posting.
There's a simpler way: until troop trials pics got out to the public domain, treat all pics that claimed to be the new rifle as PS.nah, taking a look at that picture, it's pretty obvious they doctored the lower receiver, pistol grip, magazine and mag release of the QBZ-03, with elements of the ACR, and then tried to apply a "filter" to it to make it seem like they were deliberately obfuscating what it looked like to make it appear more "legitimate"... when in reality the filter was put onto the picture to also make it reduce how obvious the doctoring would've looked in its original colours.
It is understandable to replicate certain common elements of a successful design, but in this case the picture is way too specific and similar to existing guns that makes me think it's almost definitely a PS.
it is a fairly convincing PS, it definitely fooled me for a moment before I looked closer.
There's a simpler way: until troop trials pics got out to the public domain, treat all pics that claimed to be the new rifle as PS.
Over-doctored is usually the giveaway sign that the pic is a PS BS...Nah, I think we can expend a bit more effort and be a bit more selective than that.
Being able to accurately discern doctored photos is part and parcel of PLA watching and a big reason why it's fun.
In this specific case, I think we definitely have at least those two well known photos which are not fakes and are quite real.
Over-doctored is usually the giveaway sign that the pic is a PS BS...
I understand your desire to find that one nugget of truth in a big bucket of fakes, just that I offer a way to quick-screen: see, once troop trial pics become available, the quailty of truth in subsequent pics will improve to the level that it'd then worth the effort and time spent on them to discern its truthfulness, plus we'd then have more valid data to be used as baseline for fact-check.I don't see how this relates to my previous reply, which was that it would be silly to treat all new pics as PSed.