PLA Small arms

gongolongo

Junior Member
Registered Member
Just reposting a question from the ask anything thread but does China have anything similar to the US's 6.8 round project? I've heard the 6.8 bullet is quite strong in both energy and ballistics. Many of the users have said good things about the new bullet especially when compared to the 5.56 especially the penetration. Don't know much about ammo but do you think China needs to have something of their own to catch up?
I served as an 11A. 6.8 theoretically helps a ton but really only changes our effectiveness beyond the 200m range up to +400m.

In a pure gun fight at long ranges, it helps a ton. But this is definitely not the case in a war with China. It seems like infantry weapons don't play as large of a role anymore.

China doesn't need it because it's unlikely infantry engagements are over +200m. But China's lack of a larger caliber GMG is something that would be more important.
 

Kejora

Junior Member
Registered Member
I served as an 11A. 6.8 theoretically helps a ton but really only changes our effectiveness beyond the 200m range up to +400m.

In a pure gun fight at long ranges, it helps a ton. But this is definitely not the case in a war with China. It seems like infantry weapons don't play as large of a role anymore.

China doesn't need it because it's unlikely infantry engagements are over +200m. But China's lack of a larger caliber GMG is something that would be more important.
Thay could adopt 6.8mm for their GPMG and sniper rifle while retaining 5.8mm for assault rifle and LMG.
 

MwRYum

Major
Thay could adopt 6.8mm for their GPMG and sniper rifle while retaining 5.8mm for assault rifle and LMG.
China will have to think about their GPMG and re(?)-adopt 7.62mm (as it goes now, it seems not likely 7.62R but 7.62mm NATO).

For now, it's 5.8mm SAW and then jump all the way up to 12.7mm HMG, which in distribution sits in the GPMG bracket. The so-called "highland MG" 12.7mm that comes with bipod like the KORD. It'll not be as portable as those of 7.62mm that's for sure, but 12.7mm laughs at NIJ Level V rating body armour.

Chinese are zealot in pursuit of firepower...
 

Boneroyalx

New Member
Registered Member
China will have to think about their GPMG and re(?)-adopt 7.62mm (as it goes now, it seems not likely 7.62R but 7.62mm NATO).

For now, it's 5.8mm SAW and then jump all the way up to 12.7mm HMG, which in distribution sits in the GPMG bracket. The so-called "highland MG" 12.7mm that comes with bipod like the KORD. It'll not be as portable as those of 7.62mm that's for sure, but 12.7mm laughs at NIJ Level V rating body armour.

Chinese are zealot in pursuit of firepower...
I think we saw their 5.8 LMG alongside an 7.62x51 NATO GPMG several times before.
 

gongolongo

Junior Member
Registered Member
China will have to think about their GPMG and re(?)-adopt 7.62mm (as it goes now, it seems not likely 7.62R but 7.62mm NATO).

For now, it's 5.8mm SAW and then jump all the way up to 12.7mm HMG, which in distribution sits in the GPMG bracket. The so-called "highland MG" 12.7mm that comes with bipod like the KORD. It'll not be as portable as those of 7.62mm that's for sure, but 12.7mm laughs at NIJ Level V rating body armour.

Chinese are zealot in pursuit of firepower...
From my understanding, China has a lot more emphasis on crew served weapons. Infantry fighting has moved towards counter terrorism so crew served weapons have fallen out of favor. But in a near peer conflict, they probably could be effective which is maybe the reason why China doesn't have a larger caliber gpmg.
 

Boneroyalx

New Member
Registered Member
From my understanding, China has a lot more emphasis on crew served weapons. Infantry fighting has moved towards counter terrorism so crew served weapons have fallen out of favor. But in a near peer conflict, they probably could be effective which is maybe the reason why China doesn't have a larger caliber gpmg.
In a near peer conflict, the scenarios involving infantry combat will have soldiers just calling in support to strike spotted enemy positions, particularly if they are out of range. I'm not going to talk how a war between equivalent powers will have infantry fights at the bottom of the focus compared to heavy stuff and technology.

Since a decade or so, China as reformed their army and command structure to be similar to USA, including weapon doctrines. The reason seems to be due to a war game they did with two teams representing PLA and USA respectively. The red team got their butts handed to them so hard that some of the commanders cried! They decided that the USA model would be more ideal. (Ironically to fight USA)

Proxy infantries are how modern wars are being fought. Yet, whenever a state decides to do an direct attack, they ALWAYS just use some form of ordinance, like drones, missiles or jet airstrikes. The Chinese are not different in this philosophy, yet there is a "difference". Since the end of the Korean war, the Chinese learnt their lesson, they had a big focus on mass infantry, yet had an chronic lack of firepower, leading them to invest a lot of firepower today.

We saw that the PLA has some guns designed for long range fights and penetration. The atributes of some of their guns suggest that they don't want to enfatize too much on extensive "sniping" or long range small arms combat, instead engaging targets with explosive support. Even USA is not different, their soldiers in the middle east tend to just call air support to engage enemies when they are outside of their comfort range.

"Counter-terrorism" doctrine is almost an euphemism of USA and NATO fighting middle eastern tribes. The militias lack effective body armor, which allows even small rounds to retain their wounding effectiveness even at long ranges. They also lack heavy support and anti air, which allows the West to pound them without retaliation. Crew served weapons bring heavy firepower for duking out and for sieges, but are not of much use due to their "slowness" to the counter-insurgency scenarios where the enemy "dissapears" whenever they are not in a fight, and where things happen when they decide to attack a certain patrol or outpost using a certain amount of militants for the attack. They are literally police dealing with guerrilla. It might be of use for dealing with proxies in conflict, but engaging other world powers is a completely different ball game

I'm not much of an expert on Chinese geography and geopolitics, but maybe not so much of the most likely hypothetical land combat zones will share the same characteristics of the deserts and mountains of Iraq and Afghanistan for long range combat. The exception might be Xinjiang, with the possibility of an small group of USA black ops trying to do stuff, but it will be hard for them to put vehicle support in here.

The numerous predictions for an war with China even says that USA won't even get to beach their troops on land in the end. The action will boil down to cyber attacks, missiles and ships.

The PLA infantry fighting strategy without artillery, seems to involve a mechanization mobility that allows them to get closer to the enemy to fight from a relatively shorter range.
 

gongolongo

Junior Member
Registered Member
Ye
In a near peer conflict, the scenarios involving infantry combat will have soldiers just calling in support to strike spotted enemy positions, particularly if they are out of range. I'm not going to talk how a war between equivalent powers will have infantry fights at the bottom of the focus compared to heavy stuff and technology.

Since a decade or so, China as reformed their army and command structure to be similar to USA, including weapon doctrines. The reason seems to be due to a war game they did with two teams representing PLA and USA respectively. The red team got their butts handed to them so hard that some of the commanders cried! They decided that the USA model would be more ideal. (Ironically to fight USA)

Proxy infantries are how modern wars are being fought. Yet, whenever a state decides to do an direct attack, they ALWAYS just use some form of ordinance, like drones, missiles or jet airstrikes. The Chinese are not different in this philosophy, yet there is a "difference". Since the end of the Korean war, the Chinese learnt their lesson, they had a big focus on mass infantry, yet had an chronic lack of firepower, leading them to invest a lot of firepower today.

We saw that the PLA has some guns designed for long range fights and penetration. The atributes of some of their guns suggest that they don't want to enfatize too much on extensive "sniping" or long range small arms combat, instead engaging targets with explosive support. Even USA is not different, their soldiers in the middle east tend to just call air support to engage enemies when they are outside of their comfort range.

"Counter-terrorism" doctrine is almost an euphemism of USA and NATO fighting middle eastern tribes. The militias lack effective body armor, which allows even small rounds to retain their wounding effectiveness even at long ranges. They also lack heavy support and anti air, which allows the West to pound them without retaliation. Crew served weapons bring heavy firepower for duking out and for sieges, but are not of much use due to their "slowness" to the counter-insurgency scenarios where the enemy "dissapears" whenever they are not in a fight, and where things happen when they decide to attack a certain patrol or outpost using a certain amount of militants for the attack. They are literally police dealing with guerrilla. It might be of use for dealing with proxies in conflict, but engaging other world powers is a completely different ball game

I'm not much of an expert on Chinese geography and geopolitics, but maybe not so much of the most likely hypothetical land combat zones will share the same characteristics of the deserts and mountains of Iraq and Afghanistan for long range combat. The exception might be Xinjiang, with the possibility of an small group of USA black ops trying to do stuff, but it will be hard for them to put vehicle support in here.

The numerous predictions for an war with China even says that USA won't even get to beach their troops on land in the end. The action will boil down to cyber attacks, missiles and ships.

The PLA infantry fighting strategy without artillery, seems to involve a mechanization mobility that allows them to get closer to the enemy to fight from a relatively shorter range.
Yeah I mention in and earlier post that small arms doesn't matter because most of the conflict would involve drones and air power.
 

gelgoog

Lieutenant General
Registered Member
US started work on 6.8mm round because of experience in Afghanistan with long distance fires against snipers.
Armor penetration is only a secondary concern of that program.
If the PLA is designed to fight in a Taiwan conflict scenario with a lot of urban fighting long distance fires would be a least concern.
Much more useful to have a short rifle which is easy to maneuver in tight spaces.
Plus PLA already uses larger caliber than 5.56mm NATO.
 

TerraN_EmpirE

Tyrant King
US started work on 6.8mm round because of experience in Afghanistan with long distance fires against snipers.
Armor penetration is only a secondary concern of that program.
True to a point, the problem is that you I think underestimate the “Secondary concern” if the US Army just wanted long range vs Taliban fighters firing from high positions with plunging fire. The US army could have adopted 6.5x39mm in M4 based carbines. A higher velocity ammo that offers ranges out past 400m with minimal recoil. Instead they are pushing a round with both high velocity and mass. Now in standard ammunition vs peer grade body armor the 6.8x51mm still isn’t a money back guarantee on AP. But with a hardened core AP it would be. Conventional 5.56x45 nor 5.45x39 or even 5.8x42mm even with a hardened core AP isn’t a guaranteed AP vs modern lv4 plate. You have to move up to 8.6mm to AP modern armor plate with standard core ammo.
 
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