PLA Small arms
- Thread starter Vanguard1688
- Start date
broadsword
Brigadier
Or rather, the troop version is a descendant of the airborne one.
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
So I don’t know how I missed this. Maybe it’s because of the hiatus I imposed upon myself. Sometimes I do that helps distress being among the last of the old guard.
Anyway I went looking through the media that reported on this for some damned reason they said it was a Bullpup.
I shouldn’t need to say this but…
^This is a Bullpup. [1]
^This is not. [2] You can thank the British for the Bullpup configuration of rifles it was their idea. I cannot see how articles could say “Bullpup”. There is no evidence of the magazine and action of the system being anywhere but at the front of the trigger mechanism. Ergo a conventional rifle configuration. Like the Barrett SRS pictured here, which is by the a 30x42mm semiautomatic grenade launcher.
Anyway first comments. The Chinese seem to have ended up copying the whole of the OICW program at this point even into the PGS program. For you youngsters around here. I am old. OLD! I have been a member of this page from 2005. I was a member even before that on the previous iteration of the page. So gather round as Grandpa tells a story.
Back when I was a younger man over 20 years ago at the turn of the millennium. The U.S. Army had the Objective Individual Combat Weapon program. Its aim was to build a combination rifle that had a semiautomatic 20mm Grenade launcher fed from a 5 round box mated atop basically a HK G36C. All topped with a state of the art Thermal/Night vision/Day scope that laser range found for the 20x28mm High Explosive Air burst grenades. This was the XM29. The concept was basically Aliens pulse rifle meets Eraser rail gun.
The project inspired others. France had a concept, Canada had one Australia. South Korea (K11) had a virtual copy save that its was a bolt action repeater grenade launcher with a 5.56 carbine. North Korea claims to have one. China built one too the QTS-11 a single shot bolt action 20x28mm grenade on a 5.8x42mm carbine.
However it was all fundamentally doomed. By 2004 the U.S. Army was looking to break the OICW into two programs. The XM29 was heavy, It was complicated and the little 20mm shells were as unimpressive as you vs the guy she told you not to worry about. The amount of space the fuse required didn’t leave much room for explosive and fragmentation.
So the Carbine part became the OICW increment I aka the XM8 aka the Tactical Tuna rifle which would be cancelled in about 2006 because the U.S. Army couldn’t do anything with it they couldn’t do with an M4A1.
The XM29 Launcher was rechabered to 25x40mm and became the XM25 Objective Individual Combat weapon increment II then the Individual Semiautomatic Air Burst Sytem Aka The Counter Defilade Target Engagement system or The Punisher. ([1]It’s the Bullpup I posted above.)
Pretty much all the rifles it inspired met a similar fate of cancellation. In 2011 the Chinese had launched the QTS11 and it similarly seems to have followed the Dodo birds but a few short years later.
The XM25 almost entered service even limited field use in Afghanistan in 2017 but internal disputes between the U.S. contractor lead for the system, Ammunition, Fire control and Optics ATK and German subcontractor for the launcher Heckler & Koch had a huge blowout. To this day trying to figure out what was actually happening is still difficult with this popular notion that somehow the XM25 was a war crime. (Spoiler alert: it’s not if it was it would’ve been cancelled due to the sheer number of lawyers in the U.S. DOD, it also wouldn’t have been copied. As those MOD would have faced the same issues if not used it for propaganda. Nor does it seem like other European makers have such a problem as FNH of Belgium and Rhinemetall also of Germany are bidding their own PGS systems which would both not fit the St. Petersburg Declaration under the same interpretation.)
With the pair (ATK & HK) unable to meet contact obligations, US DOD cancelled the program.
Now back in about 2022 The US army was talking about basically a redux under the moniker Precision Grenadier System. Today it’s in full swing with multiple offerings. PGS It’s a bit more ammunition agnostic in that the offerings for that in the U.S. very from Northrop Grumman (formerly ATK) 25x40mm to 30x42mm to 40x46mm. It seems like the nickname this one will automatically get is “Bolter” due to all of the bids looking like the rifles off a Warhammer 40K Space Marine. ([2]See the other image I posted above.)
The move from the smaller volume 20mm (XM29/K11/QTS11) shell to the 25mm(XM29, Northrop Grumman PGS) may seem small but it’s almost a double the explosive volume with the same fuse. So a Significant increase in HE effect. Weight wise the QTS-11 given weight fully loaded was about 11lbs minus optic, NG’s PGS is listed at about 12 pounds so a 25mm launcher is in the same neighborhood.
Application wise launchers like this are of interest due to both the ability to counter adversaries in defilade (Pill boxes, barricades, Trenches, buildings) but also the ability to sling proximity burst ammunition against small drones. Both of which are wants for infantry capability given reevaluation of events in light of Ukraine war. It’s kinda a been a wake up call that infantry is still relevant. The question is how do you integrate such a system into a rifle section.
Other than against thin skinned vehicles this isn’t a tank buster, sorry to the fans of Die Another Day. It’s also not a high velocity weapon. The need to make such a system able to be fired by a human being not a Spartan II in full powered armor means that it’s under powered vs a full automatic canon.
This means that fielding such a weapon has to be done along side existing anti armor capabilities in the rifle squad. The US Army has an openly posted aim of issuing its PGS to replace One of the M4/M7 and an M320 in the 9 man dismounted Rifle squad.
For the PLA GF it’s another matter because although in theory PLA Rifle Squad are also 9 men they count 3 men who are vehicle crew. So the dismounts are only 6. So either someone ends up doubling down with more weapons or a rifleman is traded for another Grenadier.
Isn't this QBA-221 auto shotgun?
It is. You can tell by the handguard, barrel, and magazine.
Allegedly PLARF latest terminal close-in weapon system posted on WeiBo by Chengdu Gay Guy. Composed by 12x Type 95.
I don't think this qualify as "AA system" so I will just post it in this thread.
Interestingly, the pic below of a similar Indian setup was posted in the SDF Indian military thread almost four years ago, eliciting some ridicule/criticism at the time. I'm not saying anyone is guilty of hypocrisy here, just suggesting that people guard against it.
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They were ridiculed because that’s the only thing they fielded. For PlAGF we have anti-drone laser, microwave, dedicated FK series of compact anti-drone missiles, Gatling based point defense solutions, guns + missiles solution, RF jammers, etc.
This is also not standard AA used by the PLA. If anything, it mostly likely just something they made just to test and get data from.