PLA Small arms
- Thread starter Vanguard1688
- Start date
MwRYum
Major
If it does, then it'd receive a more official designation instead of its commercial model number. The only thing we know is that the CS/LR line of sniper rifles are more seen with police departments that has more budget to spend (typically those in major cities) and PAP formations (famously those took part in the international sniping competition), adoption by PLA formations (including the spec ops) are unconfirmed and even so, currently only in limited numbers and most likely as on-trial basis .
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
Some nice Canadian Type 97 mods.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
Equation
Lieutenant General
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Apparently so does Master Cheif.
This Shows that with some ingenuity The QBZ series could easily be expanded into a modern modular firearm; the only thing stopping this is the PLA.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
Those are just minor cosmetic changes that poses useability and reliability questions to the rifle.
As an example, I have reservations about the design and execution of the makeshift charging handle.
I would have preferred a design that made use of the hole in the original handle and clip the new add-on to the original to create a single, integrated piece, rather than the two piece design currently in use. That could easily cause jams if the two pieces get separated.
Having an lower rail allows you to add grips, but makes for an uncomfortable hold if you don't use an add-on grip.
The top rail means doing away with integrated irons or needing flip ups.
US military experience in Iraq and Afganistan sees soldiers generally quickly loose enthusiasm and interest in blinging up their rifles with gadgets in favour of keeping the weight down.
The only truly useful modern add-on to combat rifles are optics, which are already available on the 95s, although only through proprietary mounts.
However, given the price tag of high end western optics and export clearances usually attached to their export, I just do not see any Chinese infantrymen being willing or able to buy them to use on their rifles to be a factor worth considering.
The only thing dated and lacking about the 95 in my view is the lack of widespread use of modern optics and the sometimes awful execution of some of the optics options field tested by the PLA.
But decently designed and integrated optics options are certain available, and Could be developed easily enough if the PLA ever showed interest in fielding them en mass, and therefore create a market for them.
As an example, I have reservations about the design and execution of the makeshift charging handle.
I would have preferred a design that made use of the hole in the original handle and clip the new add-on to the original to create a single, integrated piece, rather than the two piece design currently in use. That could easily cause jams if the two pieces get separated.
Having an lower rail allows you to add grips, but makes for an uncomfortable hold if you don't use an add-on grip.
The top rail means doing away with integrated irons or needing flip ups.
US military experience in Iraq and Afganistan sees soldiers generally quickly loose enthusiasm and interest in blinging up their rifles with gadgets in favour of keeping the weight down.
The only truly useful modern add-on to combat rifles are optics, which are already available on the 95s, although only through proprietary mounts.
However, given the price tag of high end western optics and export clearances usually attached to their export, I just do not see any Chinese infantrymen being willing or able to buy them to use on their rifles to be a factor worth considering.
The only thing dated and lacking about the 95 in my view is the lack of widespread use of modern optics and the sometimes awful execution of some of the optics options field tested by the PLA.
But decently designed and integrated optics options are certain available, and Could be developed easily enough if the PLA ever showed interest in fielding them en mass, and therefore create a market for them.
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MwRYum
Major
1. The lower rail is a mountable piece, which could be uninstalled if no need for it, thus solved the hold-sans-grip problem.
2. When comes to bullpup, the common design is to throw in the optics as part of the standard kit (eg. AUG, Tavor 21 and L85 series), whether it's reflex sight or low-zoom scope that's other matter, while the iron sight is there for backup.
3. The "weapon blinging" of course will have its novalty worn out eventually, but more so as the user finally met "the butter zone" they'd stick with the setup and go with it - from then on the rail mount system is there more as an ease of maintenance, to quickly detach kits to maintain the weapon, then quickly snap them back on.
4. Although the QBZ-95-1 already made an effort to lower the overall height when use with scope, it's still sits higher than most other rifles, to replace it with a top rail instead would be a better option.
It's like the QBZ-95, being critized by the troops for being "overly range-friendly, not battle oriented enough" in its design, so one of the improvement in the QBZ-95-1 was to change the selector switch to the position above the pistol grip...if and when the PLA have the chance to fight in some small wars to get some real world experience, it'd help to see more changes and improvement to their infantry small arms.
plawolf
Lieutenant General
They could easily use the grenade launcher mating to develop a snap on underslung flashlight/laser/grip attachment without needing to bother with screw on rails.
None of those have irons as back ups. They have integrated optic in place of traditional irons, which has its own pros and cons.
The pros of optics is well understood, so I won't go into too much detail.
The cons of relying solely on optics is that they are a lot more expensive, multiply that extra cost by a couple million copies and that adds up to a fair amount; are less durable than irons (drop or knock optics hard enough and they will break, applying same force will rarely damage good irons, although maybe not rail mounted clip-on irons); they can be less environmentally tolerant - moving quickly from hot to cold environments and vice versa (exiting vehicles/entering buildings) can see your shiny optics fog up at crucial times; some optics reticules, especially red dots and holographics, can get lost if you are using them in bright conditions, especially against bright backgrounds (try sighting down your red dot at a wall outside on a sunny day and then rapidly swing up to target the sky just above the roof as if you were trying to draw a bead on a tango that just popped up on the roof - eye adjustment can easily cause you to loose your reticle at that crucial time and allow the tango to get his shot off first); battery requirements for non-etched glass optics adds to logistical burden, and can have devastating impact on combat effectiveness of troops if they run out of batteries for their optics and have no iron back ups handy etc.
The only things I regularly see battle hardened US troops use are optics, flashlights and sometimes grips. Can't even remember seeing many lasers after the first weeks of the start of combat operations in Iraq.
Flashlight and optics are already available for the 95, while the grip is not really essential, especially given the light recoil and good balance of the 95 design. Fully loaded, the centre of gravity falls pretty much spot-on on the pistol grip, and you can hold and even fire it quite comfortably single handed if you really wanted to.
The main criticism I have is with the overly high design of those integrated laser training optics the PLA have been pictured using. The whole thing could so easily have been designed much much better.
I would also really like to see a forward mounted red dot option that places the batteries in front of the front end of the carry handle, and the optics at around the position of the front handle brace to take advantage of the lower height there to remove the need to raise the sight lines when using the optics (front and rear irons would need to be made into flip-ups or totally redesigned to avoid cluttering the view when using the optics) while at the same time giving the soldier the room behind the optics to use flip-mounted magnification scopes and night vision goggles/scopes with their regular daytime optics.
The suggestion I mentioned before would keep the sight lines pretty much exactly as it is now, and pretty much at the same level as other modern rifles with optics, and at the same time retain the carry handle as well as the irons as back ups, be fully compatible with all existing 95s even without the implementation of flip irons (although that will be at the expense of clear field of view, but should still be an improvement over using purely irons).
I have a feeling those troops will have a massive change of tune if they ever had a go with some of the more common used western modern rifles.
The 95 might be more 'range friendly' compared to the 81 or 56/AK before that, but it's far less fussy compared to most other modern combat rifles, especially the other bullpumps mentioned earlier.
You can run it over with a truck, immerse it in mud for an hour and it will still be good to go after a quick shake to clear some of the mud away.
Other than the AK, I can think of no other rifle that can operate under that kind of abuse, and the AK is nowhere near as accurate as the 95.
The 95 did have some well publicised early ergonomic problems, most notably the safety/fire selector, but that has because to was rushed into service for the 97 HK hand over.
I think they should have stopped issuing them after the HK garrison and maybe a few trial units elsewhere, and waited for feedback and the improved 95-1 before issuing them en mass, but hindsight is a wonderfully useless thing.
To sum up, the 95 already have, or could very easily have all the bells and whistles most operationally relevant to a modern combat rifle. The only thing stopping it is $$$.
With unlimited funds, the PLA could order optics, and grip/laser/flashlight mounts for every 95 they have, which at several million copies, would instantly create a market just as large if not bigger than the entire western military and commercial weapons accessories markets.
But in reality, the PLA have far higher priority projects for their money, especially during peacetimes with no imminent threat of conflict in sight.
Given the high cost and export controlled natured of commercial high end optics, the PLA is never going to adapt them en mass, thus removing the primary benefit of using picatinny rails in their designs.
Given China's manufacturing prowess, the Chinese are very right to be confident that should the need ever arise, they can very quickly manufacture vast quantities of combat optics and other accessories for its frontline troops, so there is little need build up large inventories of them in peacetime.
In terms of pure combat training, I also think training with iron sights is better for the soldiers overall, because that is a harder discipline to master compared to optics.
A soldier trained to shoot with irons is like a driver who trained on a manual car, compared to optics that is like a car with automatic gearbox.
Someone who learnt to drive using a manual gearbox, can quickly adapt to using a car with automatic gearbox, while it is far harder to do the reverse. Same thing with irons compared to optics for shooting in my view.
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