QBZ-191 service rifle family
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
I'm sure in a real war, that patch with the half-assed subdued colour scheme will be the first one to go. Either through common sense, or painful real-life experience.
Right now it's probably more of a garrison mindset, where they gotta rep their service branch ("we're the Air Force dammit! We have much higher requirement than those ground-pounders!" /s). But in a real two-way range, it's probably gonna be replaced with a subdued China flag patch, if anything at all.
This verticle grip should be issued along with the rifle. I don’t think it should had been an issue. Does every soldier have their own personal weapon or they are issued randomly from armory when they do training/deployment ?
plawolf
Lieutenant General
You not seeing the Russians and Ukrainians wear brightly coloured armbands/helmetbands and paint big white letters on their vehicles? Sometimes I think too many people have a far too academic and Hollywood idea of what real war looks like.
If you are flexing on goat herders, sure, be as tacticalKool as you want. But against peer or near-peer, often being able to avoid friendly fire is more important. Especially for specops who might be operating behind enemy lines frequently.
Issuing a vertical grip as standard is probably unnecessary. Regular rank and file infantry probably don't need it as standard.
Well, sure, but it still wouldn't be branch colour. After all, who cares if you are PLAAF airborne or PLAGF ground pounder? All it matters is to tell PLA and $ENEMY apart, which means big ol' Red Five Star Flag or August 1st Flag or simply a red armband to keep the cost down... or if anything at all.
Also I doubt China is using the exact same equipment as any potential adversaries nowadays, which is (I think) part of reason why the Russians opted for the invasion marking.
Anyway, back to rifles.
Well, it depends on what the potential fight looks like. If it's like an mid-range (100-300 m) open field fight, then it's pretty much useless. Maybe one can use it as a ersatz monopod, at least on some sort of barricade (because using the magazine as monopod like an M16/M4 is obviously no bueno with QBZ-19 family), but ehhh... In a built-up area, however, I can see some value with it. After all, while people can go full-Chris-Costa and C-clamp it, but it will tire them out pretty quickly. And there is no magwell to grip, so there really isn't much options left.
Of course, it all comes down to how much money is the already (relatively) cash-strapped PLAGF willing to drop on random bells and whistles for rifles.
Yes, but at the present the PLAGF is still very much a mechanized army for fighting in open areas and focusing on maneuver.
If they were doing CQB in urban environments, tidbits could be issued on an as needed basis, but the whole PLAGF is never going to be oriented for CQB in urban environments, so naturally they'll never be standard.
For QBZ-191s, I think the only equipment that will be "standard" for infantry that use it, will be some sort of scope -- either the QMK-171 3x fixed magnification scope, or the QMQ-171 holographic sight, or some sort of new standard scope in the near future....
But everything else would be optional and given on an as needed basis, such as:
- IR laser
- torch
- vertical foregrip
- magnifier (for QMQ-171)
- etc
I suppose maybe a sling would be standard, otherwise.