QBZ-191 service rifle family
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
I wouldn't quite say they're in the same position as the US in 2006 in terms of demands -- namely the US in 2006 was well into GWOT which arguably drove many of the advancements and procurement necessities for infantry of that era given the weight placed onto infantry for GWOT.
The PLA today doesn't have the sort of COIN focus like the US did for GWOT, so there's not going to be the prioritisation at scale for infantry to the same extent, even though they naturally have access to either complete products (or the industry and technology to produce products) that are superior to what the US had in 2006 obviously. Instead the PLA faces much higher geostrategic pressure in the other domains of warfare, and even in ground warfare there are higher order domains of focus for the kind of potential ground warfare that they might have to face, where investment into better infantry equipment at higher priority just yields lesser returns than other platforms or systems.
I'd agree with that generally for the regular army, but for elite troops like SOF and airborne assault, the equipment is lacklustre and could very well be improved. Especially for SOF, that yields much greater returns than giving regular infantry GPNVGs.
Another aspect is that when you train with other countries, if your infantry looks poor and terrible that does give very bad impressions. So given that infantry equipment is extremely cheap compared to naval or air assets, It's absolutely worthwhile to invest in equipment for SOF and etc.
Another aspect is that when you train with other countries, if your infantry looks poor and terrible that does give very bad impressions. So given that infantry equipment is extremely cheap compared to naval or air assets, It's absolutely worthwhile to invest in equipment for SOF and etc.
SOF isn't that important in the context of conventional warfare.The Russia-Ukraine War is showing how SOF aren't that important. Even the US recognizes this and is primarily focusing on their conventional arms. Based on what I heard and read, SOCOM units are getting reduced in size and funding. Your line of thinking is from the GWOT era and it is seriously out of date.
With that being said, I do think that at least the rapid-reaction units should get up-to-date gear since they can provide feedback and establish the necessary TTP's for the rest of the force to follow suit.
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As far as more modern, up to date gear goes, PAP units on average are a fair bit better equipped than the PLAGF, for mostly good reason, and can provide feedback and even be demonstrator/trials for equipment if the PLA wants to buy into them.
It actually makes sense given the PAP's mission versus the PLAGF's mission (let alone the PLA as a whole).
As for polati's suggestion of wanting to have infantry that looks better equipped for the purpose of "good impressions," there are other ways of doing so than actually buying high end equipment that would be a poor use of opportunity cost at the military level.
At the end of the day, everyone would benefit from internalizing and genuinely accepting within their heart and soul that for the PLA, and even for the PLAGF, that high end infantry gear and high end "capabilities" just isn't that high of a priority for them and rightly so.
Repeat after me: "omitting high end infantry capabilities for PLAGF is love; omitting high end infantry capabilities for PLAGF is life".
This confirms again that the adjustable gas block/control can be removed by the operator for routine cleaning.
If the PLA really wanted a full length handguard with continuous top rail (which the existing aftermarket free floated MLOK handguard is unable to do, due to the protruding rotating knob of the gas block requiring a cutout), then they could probably get the manufacturer to design a revised adjustable, lower profile gas block that will allow a full length top rail as part of a longer handguard, to be issued as part of an upgrade kit that should be able to be added to a QBZ-191 at the operator level.
Existing aftermarket market full length FF MLOK handguard:
It is not just the current war in Ukraine. Almost every single war since antiquity had the same theme. Elite units usually don't achieve much more than non-elite units despite consuming a lot more resources. Militaries are ultimately systems of systems, which is even more true nowadays. In like 99% of the cases it is a better idea to go for a lower kit but spread it force wide. Especially for the infantry, you run into point of diminishing returns really fast. Few extra degrees of FoV costs thousands of USDs at NVGs.
Some idiot is still going to say the gun keyholes.
