Bullet proof vests in the Chinese military

vesicles said:

YOu can go to the photo threads to see that PLA troops look very professional.

Also, I think it's a myth that every US soldier is equipped with body armor. Look at these reports:

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As the last piece indicates, in 2006, the US govn't was still scrambling and trying to get body armors into the hands of soldiers 3 years after the war started. even at that time in 2006, they were still trying to justify letting every soldier have body armor.

So don't blame China, which is not fighting anybody at the moment or in any foreseeable future, for not issuing body armor to its soldiers.

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Those are not front-line soldiers. I personally have not seen any pictures of frontline NATO soldiers in combat without vests. These days even most Afghan soldiers (not including grayish blue colored paramilitary police) have vests.

---------- Post added at 04:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:21 PM ----------

A lot of them are logistics personnel, including officers in offices, cooks, janitors, mechanics, and so on. The real hardcore front-line soldiers, those clearing the roads and shoot back at the enemies, they all have vests.

In fact most front-line NATO combatants have had ballistic vests since the first Gulf War.

Please compare apples to apples, not to oranges.

---------- Post added at 04:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:25 PM ----------

I have researched into the claim that artillery corps have ballistic vests. That is a misunderstanding. Those are not ballistic vests, rather something different. They are shock absorbers, absorbing the immense shockwaves created when howitzers are fired. They are made out of stuff similar to rubber and cotton, instead of kevlar and ceramic plated ballistic vests.

Vini_Vidi_Vici said:

Those are not front-line soldiers. I personally have not seen any pictures of frontline NATO soldiers in combat without vests. These days even most Afghan soldiers (not including grayish blue colored paramilitary police) have vests.

---------- Post added at 04:25 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:21 PM ----------

A lot of them are logistics personnel, including officers in offices, cooks, janitors, mechanics, and so on. The real hardcore front-line soldiers, those clearing the roads and shoot back at the enemies, they all have vests.

In fact most front-line NATO combatants have had ballistic vests since the first Gulf War.

Please compare apples to apples, not to oranges.

---------- Post added at 04:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:25 PM ----------

I have researched into the claim that artillery corps have ballistic vests. That is a misunderstanding. Those are not ballistic vests, rather something different. They are shock absorbers, absorbing the immense shockwaves created when howitzers are fired. They are made out of stuff similar to rubber and cotton, instead of kevlar and ceramic plated ballistic vests.

Click to expand...

Well, if only front-line soldiers are issued body armor, there would no need to issue any Chinese soldier body armor as none of them is on the front line.

Also, as the articles indicate, the troops are/ were spending thousands of bucks buying their own armor. And govn't is/was rushing armor to the locations. These facts, to me, suggest that both the soldiers and the govn't feel the need to protect these troops, which means they are facing enemy fire. That makes them front-line troops. Yet, they were deployed to the front line without armor. The article also describes cases where soldiers who were wounded while exchanging fire with enemy did not have armor. People were actually using the position of the wound to justify the need for body armor. It is apparent to me that many soldiers on the front line actually did not have armor and were desperately wanting one.

Additionally, if you want to compare apple to apple, please find evidence that PLA soldiers sent to the front line do not have armor. Comparing an army actually fighting a war to a peace time one is not apple to apple.

vesicles said:

Also, as the articles indicate, the troops are/ were spending thousands of bucks buying their own armor. And govn't is/was rushing armor to the locations. These facts, to me, suggest that both the soldiers and the govn't feel the need to protect these troops, which means they are facing enemy fire. That makes them front-line troops. Yet, they were deployed to the front line without armor. The article also describes cases where soldiers who were wounded while exchanging fire with enemy did not have armor. People were actually using the position of the wound to justify the need for body armor. It is apparent to me that many soldiers on the front line actually did not have armor and were desperately wanting one.

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Indeed, this tells me that before the Iraq war, the US military did not regard body armor as a top priority. That is most likely because they were geared more toward a war with USSR/Russia, than against insurgents with AKs. This goes back to the idea that the PLA does not have body armor as standard equipment because it's not part of their doctrine.

Conflict changes needs. A Army at peace may train for war but some things like say body armor will be more or less neglected. When in Conflict though things change, Priority's redirect and things like armor move up too the fore. the Us is but one nation who has placed a priority on armor most involved in fighting in Iraq and the Stan are armored. It's a matter of needs and troops.

So, as promissed, I'll post some evidence of the rather widespread use of personal bodyarmour for those who urgently need them in their daily routine in the PLA:


Here on these pages there are some examples, as well as the positive identified units being equipped with the Type-06 system:




Note that the first few posts of the second link's thread are talking about units identified with the Type 07 OTV, not the Type 06 armour vest - just scroll down to the 30. or so post to see them... You'll see, the 06 and older guardian god vests are issued mainly to artillery operators, combat engineers manning de-mining MRLS and scout troops (who are meanwhile classified as special forces in the PLA).

As the "Type 06" designation suggests, the ZTCD06 is in service since 2006 and reached its quoted service life of six years: Time for a new armour system to replace it, comparable with the US CIRAS OTV/Plate carrier:



And here; a very good overview about all deployed or developed chinese body armour:



As for hardplates; nothing goes without this link:



and this video:

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Conflict changes needs. A Army at peace may train for war but some things like say body armor will be more or less neglected. When in Conflict though things change, Priority's redirect and things like armor move up too the fore. the Us is but one nation who has placed a priority on armor most involved in fighting in Iraq and the Stan are armored. It's a matter of needs and troops.

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I actually think the PLA will begin to stack up considerable numbers of ballistic vests in the future but has not currently due to budgetary constraints. Only very recently has the PLA even began introducing non-corrosive primer in its cartridges. Perhaps it is in their doctrine to get its small arms to world standards first before body armour.

jobjed said:

I actually think the PLA will begin to stack up considerable numbers of ballistic vests in the future but has not currently due to budgetary constraints. Only very recently has the PLA even began introducing non-corrosive primer in its cartridges. Perhaps it is in their doctrine to get its small arms to world standards first before body armour.

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Actually it is a smart move, the technology keep improving and by buying just a small batch, next batch will be better and cheaper .. you don't really need a lot of ballistic vests in peacetime, PLA IS NOT at war with anybody. Would be different if PLA was at war

antiterror13 said:

Actually it is a smart move, the technology keep improving and by buying just a small batch, next batch will be better and cheaper .. you don't really need a lot of ballistic vests in peacetime, PLA IS NOT at war with anybody. Would be different if PLA was at war

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As of now, the PLA is buying NO batches not just a small batch. Perhaps a few thousand or so for its spec ops but that's it. I would expect them to have at least a stockpile of a few ten-hundred thousand in order to immediately equip their spearhead units and not having to wait weeks before the first vests get to the front lines. The only reason they are not I think is because of a limited budget.

they seriously need to fix it asap :headbangemote

like i said, at least equip the elite north GAs

Well, firstly, I don't think the PLA is quite as stingy as to only buy a few thousand sets of body armour. There is point in having so few and it's probably not very efficient as you won't be able to get as low a unit price as if you placed a larger order.

I think the PLA keeps a small, but useful sized cache of body armour, we are probably talking of tens of thousands of sets here - enough to equip front line elite units that will be the first to see real action if something flares up. That is the minimum requirement. There is no point in keeping body armour at all if there are not enough sets to do that.

I think the PLA keeps the newest sets in storage for real emergencies, whereas the old stock that has since gone past their shelf lives are the sets you see making the rounds during exercises. I would not be surprised if these sets are rotated throughout the PLA, so that all troopers get a chance to handle real vets to firstly know how to put them on and look after them, and also to get an idea of what it is like to wear and move in them.

That would explain why the vets we have seen on CCTV are so dated. But all you have to do is look at the sets being worn by the special forces guys when they do inspections or suspect speedboats or during the open houses to see the kind of stuff the PLA has stockpiled currently.

As has been pointed out already, unlike the USA that is fighting real wars, the PLA has no real enemies, as such there is little reason for the PLA to equip all it's soldiers with vests, especially when you consider how many soldiers the PLA has, howexpensive vests are, and how rapidly both vests and rounds are developing.

If you buy loads of vests, they will either expire or become obselete as new rounds and guns come online and you will just have ended up wasting a huge amount of money.

It should also be remember that Chinese companies manufacture and exports huge numbers of vests. Sometimes even to western customers.

With these export orders, there is even less reason for the PLA to make too large a purchase of vests as its not like the companies making them need government orders to keep them going. Thus China has the production capacity to pump out vast numbers of vests as well as whatever inventory the companies would normally hold during the course of doing business. Thus if the PLA really needed them, they could have all the vests they would need pretty soon after making the request.