Again, the cost of a carbine kit vs a true PDW/SMG wouldn't be that high of a difference especially when we are talking about domestic weapons. Secondly, the benefits of a PDW/SMG here grossly outnumber the benefits of a pistol carbine to the point that if there were any higher costs for a PDW/SMG, it would be worth it. The M4 wasn't replaced for the last couple of decades because any benefits the replacements had did not come close to the justified cost that came with them. To make matters worse, the AR-15 platform today have so many modifications and accessory available that it downright beats almost every one of its replacements in both cost and performance, making a replacement worthless and a waste of money unless it's something major.
Remember though mainland China. Making comparisons to the US is misleading as any police agency in the US has virtually unlimited access via the commercial market to high quality carbines and Pistols. Even a tiny village police agency can get a good AR15 from either US government programs for a song or source from a commercial supplier. If the agency can’t get surplus selective fire AR15 it’s a safe assumption they can source duty quality semiautomatic only version.
The smaller agencies in PRC and many nations with restricted gun access don’t have that luxury. They have to depend on what they are allowed to access as they get it. The PLA and it’s arms procurement takes priority, followed by the PAP then The tiered cities. Production of a quality weapon takes time and resources.
In the US we have the luxury of the civilian market feeding small arms industry beyond the capacity of the big names. In other words if a hypothetical world war 2 situation rose and there was a huge demand for small arms at the front the US because of the large arms manufacturing capacity could easily supply multiple nations with pistols, SMGs, Rifles even machine guns from the commercial base without touching Sig, HK, FN or whatever is left of Colt.
In China the base is maintained by the state with state owned makers maintaining state owned factories for primarily military contracts. Whatever is left then trickle down. We saw for a number of years PAP units using Norinco AR15 carbines well the PLA got the latest QBZ rifles.
With this in mind we still see images of older SMGs and these pistol kits likely as again the new SMGs are firing to the military orders well lower priority parties have to make due.
Just compare the M4A1 and all its derivatives and upgrades to the XM8, SCAR, ACR, etc. vs the M4A1 to the new SIG M5, and even then the M5 still looks overpriced for what it is.
XM8 was a development program. It was trying to reduce the weight of the rifle as much as possible. It wasn’t about the budget. It was the material technology. What killed it was the way it was run was improper and frankly it never really could or did outperform M4A1. Had XM8 been run by a lower tier army other than the US whom hadn’t adopted an existing 5.56x45mm Rifle it probably would be in production today. But being the US Army being that M4A1 was an option. It was doomed.
SCAR has its own issues. It was created at a time when Colt was the only maker of the M4 carbine and what was being asked of the weapon was well outside its intended function. It had to be modified to make M4A1 heavy barrel to correct that issue once that was done the SCAR L was dropped with only selected adoption by US Army Rangers primarily due to the folding stock. it didn’t help that in trails the SCAR’s stock was lack luster at best and it had a strange habit of triple feed jams. It was always supposed to be a specialized issue weapon but once M4A1 got the Socom barrel Mk16 was DOA.
Scar H was to fill a niche that wasn’t in mainstream US DOD use. A DMR and assault rifle with a bigger round for use defeating harder targets. To match that need at the time Socoms existing options were either surplus M14 rifles circa 1960s or the few Sniper SR25s. It remained in service still is to degrees but it’s heavy has a habit of killing optics and overall could have been a far better rifle.
ACR that could refer to a purely commercial product the Magpul Masada. Again purely commercial never really had a chance at military contracts. Or it could be the Advanced Combat Rifle program of the US Army but that’s going back to the late 80s early 1990s. Again a technology demonstration program looking at multi bullet rounds, Caseless, cased telescoped, flechettes. It failed as none of the options really were either actually effective or commercially viable.
XM5/XM250 costs what it costs right now because the infrastructure has to be established. This is a situation where tooling and manufacturing has to be shifted from a few prototypes to mass production but not just for the weapons but for the suppressor, blank firing adapter, ammunition in multiple types, Optics of a brand new highly sophisticated verity (where previous weapons save for XM8 sourced the sight separately), support including spare parts and barrels, training. As with other military pricing the first units are often the most expensive and least to spec. The more you make the more consi
An M4A1 costs on average $700 according to wiki whereas a Scar L cost $3,200 on average. You can deck out an M4A1 to have the same performance if not better than the Scar L for less than the cost of $3,200. The cost-benefit ratio is not proportionate to what you pay for whereas an SMG is an opposite.
Misleading because the M4A1 price you list of the contract list for the DOD where the Scar is the MSRP. If you bought a civilian clone of the M4 from the same maker the FN USA FN15 Series will MSRP for about $1800
Again military agencies buy in bulk on contracts with bidders oftentimes cutting to the bone. So that $3,200? A military contract could easily drop that to a third. FN to make a civilian version of the Scar has to have a second separate factory separate tooling and modified design to meet US laws. But they have the ability to pad the price with MSRP $$$. Capitalism.
So is the SMG the better value? Probably, would a police version of the QBZ series be even better? Absolutely.
However that doesn’t mean that as a law enforcement agency can get their hands on one. Pistols are easier to get. Farther law enforcement agencies across the world are notorious cheap skates. Proper pistol training takes time money and instruction. More so than rifle training. Rifle training has an advantage the stock it helps stabilize and adds better recoil control. Yet as indicated in a nation with strict gun control measures getting rifles isn’t always an option. Adding a stock to a pistol like the kit seen in the photos can bridge the training gap. It can also be deployed to more traditional police as such kits when trimmed of the fat can be slung on the belt. Deployed rapidly by a shooter with a better chance of accuracy than a pistol alone.
