PLA's Body Armor
- Thread starter Su-27 Pilot
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MIGleader said:
mig, I agree with Red Guard, the body armor is not a question of advanced technology but of utility and idea. Every technical object,e.g. tank, IFV, firearms are easier to built because it's technical than pratical. Body armor and webbing for exemple, are not very high tech, it's only a matter of how to use it and when to use, maybe chinese army didn't see the need to protect the soldier like every western country do. Westerner give lot more importance to life than Easterner, some Chinese are ready to die for cause, most of the westerner will never.
MIGleader
Banned Idiot
hmmm...i dont know why westerners think chinese are readyt to sacrifice themselves and dont care about protection. its a bad-jap stereotype. pla officers care very much about their troops. armor is being issued now. we just know the chinese are a bit behind the west in such things.
PLA has a long story, which people die for the corp( sounds like USMC..), A LOT during war time. And today's high command are bunch of old person who many of their comrades, or brothers in arms died in the war. Therefore, their mind, mostly still stay around WWII and Korean war, and some of the new generals were promoted from wars with viet nam during 80s. Soldiers never had any webbing (ammo punch doesn't count) and armour (some flak were issued to truck driver during korean war and viet nam war with US, also artillery). And we still won the war. chinese soldiers consider more about fast movement than protection. As during korean war, the famous line :"our feet are faster than the wheels of the western". and also in viet nam, soldiers in platoons fast move to the rear of the enemy with their feet. if they were ever issued boots and armour, they can't move that fast. therefore, boots and armour are the products under the western way of thinking and western way of warfare. PLA had been going with the "people's warfare" for the last 50 years, and today we try to adopt the new way of thinking, by protecting our soldiers. it takes time, i believe in the next 20 years, and news say in 2007, new uniform along with boots and armour will be issuing to all troops. i hope so.
rommel said:
As Migleader said, the officers care very much about the troops.
But you can say, to a degree, that the troops don't care much about themselves, because since grade 2 (I have the text book) LA, they were taught war stories of sacrifices, like a story that went something as such: a bridge, sitting on a dry river bed, was made into an enemy machine gun nest, protected by a brick wall with only a firing slit showing, who were mowing down many of the PLA's men, who were trying to get to the HQ which the machine gun nest was guarding. The PLA troops were pinned down, so 2 men asked their officer the permission to charge and blow the bridge. One man carried a sack of grenades, another carried a bag of explosives. They then crawled slowly toward the bridge, the guy with the grenades was hit and down, so the guy with the explosives charged under the bridge, he tried to put the explosive on the shallow river's side, but it was concrete and too slippery, he tried various things after that, but the explosive won't stay. Then the PLA's charging horn sounded, and the PLA charged, with many men dieing, again, from the fire of the machine gun nest. He couldn't stand watching his comrades dieing, so he took his explosive, used his arms to hold the explosive in place, and lit it. The lesson was, he sacrificed himself for the cause and for his men.
It could also be that the older generations of Chinese grew up in Mao's days, and were still thinking like that, like someone else said previously.
So to a degree, saying that these troops are willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause is right.
ayaya....no offence guys, but it's very funny for me to see how you guys talk in the western mind......
okay, i never served in the military, but i know, something on the battlefield, you just have to sacrifice a few men's lives to save the others. anyone ever watched "thin red line", US officers sent two men at the front to see if the japanese are there, and two were killed, as japanese exposed their firing point. that's the point. from my point of view, the hero, obviously, you guys odn't knwo the name, was only thinking about how to stop the machine gun from firing, so he just did that...maybe he was blanked out, all he thought was blowing up the bridge. and i believe every soldier at that point would do the same thing, it's just propaganda. we have LOTS of soldiers like that. we have soldiers stopped machine gun fire with his chest in korean war, we have a soldier who was burnt to death without making one sound. and in movies, we have a soldier who would direct the artillery fire to himself as US soldiers are just 2 meters away from him. it's normal, to any army, we just slightly ...braver than the others, different culture. AND chinese officers don't really care about the soldiers that much nowadays. they beat the soldiers.....
i heard one line the other day. some officer of US from korean said :"at first, i would tell the soldiers, let's go guys, all we need to do is put a bullet on the chinese that's not dead. then we realize, you can't just kill a chinese, because when you are in their trenches, they are already dead". i translated from chinese, but that totally shows the spirit of chinese army. whichhhhhhhhhh is off topic.
okay, i never served in the military, but i know, something on the battlefield, you just have to sacrifice a few men's lives to save the others. anyone ever watched "thin red line", US officers sent two men at the front to see if the japanese are there, and two were killed, as japanese exposed their firing point. that's the point. from my point of view, the hero, obviously, you guys odn't knwo the name, was only thinking about how to stop the machine gun from firing, so he just did that...maybe he was blanked out, all he thought was blowing up the bridge. and i believe every soldier at that point would do the same thing, it's just propaganda. we have LOTS of soldiers like that. we have soldiers stopped machine gun fire with his chest in korean war, we have a soldier who was burnt to death without making one sound. and in movies, we have a soldier who would direct the artillery fire to himself as US soldiers are just 2 meters away from him. it's normal, to any army, we just slightly ...braver than the others, different culture. AND chinese officers don't really care about the soldiers that much nowadays. they beat the soldiers.....
i heard one line the other day. some officer of US from korean said :"at first, i would tell the soldiers, let's go guys, all we need to do is put a bullet on the chinese that's not dead. then we realize, you can't just kill a chinese, because when you are in their trenches, they are already dead". i translated from chinese, but that totally shows the spirit of chinese army. whichhhhhhhhhh is off topic.