QTS-11 OICW. 5.8 mm Heavy and 20 mm Air Burst.

It would be interesting to see if this was just a training photo of the first frontline troops being trained up on the QTS11, or if this is how the PLA plans to field these weapons by issuing them to whole squads.

If this is just a training photo, and they deploy these as an additional special weapon to squads, then that is how the PLA sees these - as another niche special weapon.

But if they do issue them to all or most soldiers in a squad, then this might become an alternative standard issue primary weapon for top tier units.

The slow ROF of the bolt action grenade launcher could easily be compensated for by having nearly the whole squad equipped with them.

Why are these things so damn expensive though??

The XM29 is like, half it’s cost. And isn’t that one supposed to be bulkier and have multiple grenade shot mode?

It costs about as much as the rest of the soldier’s kit...

Biscuits said:

Why are these things so damn expensive though??

The XM29 is like, half it’s cost. And isn’t that one supposed to be bulkier and have multiple grenade shot mode?

It costs about as much as the rest of the soldier’s kit...

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I looks to me like someone put the comma on the wrong place. Especially if you consider the cost of the Korean K11 as well.

gelgoog said:

I looks to me like someone put the comma on the wrong place. Especially if you consider the cost of the Korean K11 as well.

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The “mistake” would be repeated in two different places and also the list order according to price would be wrong as well. That said, it the source is defunct and I can’t find any cost statement.

Maybe 78 000$ is the cost of everything including the gun. That would make more sense.

Biscuits said:

Why are these things so damn expensive though??

The XM29 is like, half it’s cost. And isn’t that one supposed to be bulkier and have multiple grenade shot mode?

It costs about as much as the rest of the soldier’s kit...

Click to expand...

First the known price tag was the XM25 not the XM29. Second XM25 was almost ready for full rate production when the whole thing was killed.

gelgoog said:

I looks to me like someone put the comma on the wrong place. Especially if you consider the cost of the Korean K11 as well.

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No the price listing is probably right and it would have been the decimal point not the coma.

The K11 price point is... questionable. It comes from a 2010 report claiming export of the system to the UAE. It was said that they were buying 40 of them yet it doesn't seem to have materialized. So take that price with a heavy grain of salt. Unless I am wrong I don't think they ever took delivery as no one has actually fielded K11 Yet in major numbers.

Biscuits said:

The “mistake” would be repeated in two different places and also the list order according to price would be wrong as well. That said, it the source is defunct and I can’t find any cost statement.

Maybe 78 000$ is the cost of everything including the gun. That would make more sense.

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That would depend on how many are built.
With any product the price point is based on overhead, R+D, materials and profit.
K11 is a hard one because sometimes a product intended to be offered for export will list it's 'objective' price not it's actual price. Objective prices being the estimate based on full rate of production reaching the military and OEM's goal.
Where as actual is where it sits now.
But that price point is normally based on full rate of production and hundreds of units.

If however you list an actual unit price for a product early on well it's more expensive as more time money and labor is involved. We see this with F35 as a perfect example. The Objective price is about 80million initial price was far higher but as more units enter production more issues are identified and worked out. More suppliers come online. The price drops.

The OTS11 rifle does come with a lit of equipment yes that includes sling, optics in 2 forms, magazines, cleaning kit and more in a rugged case. We know that images of it have been posted here.
However how many OST11 have been built? How many are actually usable vs test models and mockups? These can change the price point.

@TerraN_EmpirE

When I was talking about “everything” I meant the whole soldier’s kit cost 78 000 $ including the rifle, not the rifle’s kit costs 78 000 $ which would still be really overprice.

Regarding how many there are, it’s hard to tell exactly how many, but entire units use them. The PLA also rotates it’s kit between units-in-training and reserves and combat/foreign base forces.

Biscuits said:

Regarding how many there are, it’s hard to tell exactly how many, but entire units use them. The PLA also rotates it’s kit between units-in-training and reserves and combat/foreign base forces.

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There is only one foreign base.
And How many there are is still dubious right now the most we can confirm is a dozen or more. As we have only seen small numbers of them at any one time. Which again doesn't match full rate production or a final product yet.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

There is only one foreign base.
And How many there are is still dubious right now the most we can confirm is a dozen or more. As we have only seen small numbers of them at any one time. Which again doesn't match full rate production or a final product yet.

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Yeah but the embassies and marines add up.

According to Wikipedia (unsourced though) it’s 50 000x as of January last year.

The units in combat with terrorists would likely use them, but some of the initial batch would be reserved for training new units, not to mention spares for those in intensive combat, so the number of troops using them might be much smaller than 50 000.

What would be full rate production for such a weapon? It’s weight, despite being superior to equivalent weapons, is still a good deal heavier than a rifle. So it does not seem feasible to simply replace QBZ-95 with it.

Okay you are talking 'Units" I am talking individual rifles. Hence my doubts as yet outside of these at home photos we don't see anywhere near 50,000 Rifles if this type. Thus far has not been seen outside of tbe training areas of mainland China.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Okay you are talking 'Units" I am talking individual rifles. Hence my doubts as yet outside of these at home photos we don't see anywhere near 50,000 Rifles if this type. Thus far has not been seen outside of tbe training areas of mainland China.

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Lel pretty sure we’ve never seen anywhere near 100 million AK-47s in one place either.

These things get distributed to the relevant units the second they get finished.

I had no idea gulf of Aden was mainland China... or that the Indian border is a training area. And that’s just the public deployments.