Equipment used in Korea

WEN?

New Member
the M-16 was still in the reaserching days during the 1953 under the
'project salvo'. even the museums mainly have the M-1 grand ad the main gun on display.
 

Ender Wiggin

Junior Member
Its not that they were poor, it was more about the fact that China lacked alot of the industries and the infastructure needed to produce weapons and equipment, they could produce some of what they needed but still nevertheless needed what they could get their hands on.
 

rommel

Bow Seat
VIP Professional
Well, we can only say that China didn't really "upgraded" their weapon stock since World War 2. I think that T-U-P did have a point, China is using lot of bolt-action rifle when the ennemy have semi-automatic or automatic weapon... for exemple, the US have M1 Garand (Semi-automatic) and the USM2 Carbin (fully automatic) in standart issue...

Hum... It seem that the whole 39th army was having as much equipment than a german infantrie-division of 1939 on the paper...
 

Red Guard

Junior Member
rommel said:
Well, we can only say that China didn't really "upgraded" their weapon stock since World War 2. I think that T-U-P did have a point, China is using lot of bolt-action rifle when the ennemy have semi-automatic or automatic weapon... for exemple, the US have M1 Garand (Semi-automatic) and the USM2 Carbin (fully automatic) in standart issue...

Hum... It seem that the whole 39th army was having as much equipment than a german infantrie-division of 1939 on the paper...

98K is also a single shot rifle, it didn't stop it from becoming one of the best rifle in the war. and it didn't affect the killing rate. US soldiers had a great firing rate, but most time they shot blindly. chinese soldiers were training in combat for not wasting the bullets, since we had very limited of those. it did not matter that much in korean war about the single and semi auto firing rate.
 

darth sidious

Banned Idiot
only the us have semi-automatic every nation is useing boalt action as their main weapon( too few sks)

chinas weapon are mostly captured from WWII and left over aid by the americans to the nationalists

Rommel chinese "division" sometimes have as few as 5000 men

a army is about the size of a division by western stander
 
Last edited:

rommel

Bow Seat
VIP Professional
Well, I think that maybe chinese army have a different organisation than a US or british one... It's true that the Brits and Canadian and others countries have bolt-action rifle, but the use doctrine was different, they have a machine-gun for each fireteam, that mean that there's a machine gun for each 8-11 men... a western fireteam in this time have 2-4 SMG + 1 MG + 4-7 rifles... A platoon (around 40 men) have generally at least 4 machine-gun in this time...

the 98k became famous for his bolt system (which is marvelous) and it's stopping power (you can pierce 7mm of iron or 2mm of steel at 1800m...) still, those rifles was heavy + a heavy recoil... the slow firing rate can affect in combat, to shoot blindly lot of bullet have a morale effect on the opponent, military call this Suppressive Fire (it's to shoot on a area where the ennemy could be, not for killing, but mainly to affect the morale strengh, we do that with semi-auto weapon, automatic weapon and artillery). It forced the incomming ennemy to cover themself and can reduce the morale... You can't do much suppressive fire with a Mauser...

A army will be the size of a division ?? Well, western division was big in number, but only part of this was actually fighting personnel, about the 1/5 - 1/10 (depending of the army) are normally support personnel (command staff, logistic support, medical unit, drivers, cook,etc...) Anyway, I wouldn't understand why Chinese Army's Organisation was so small, a Russian or Allied Army was about the same strengh as a German WWII Korps, could China army be smaller... And with the number of weapon you give us, I'll say the Chinese army was at least maybe 25,000 - 30,000 men, a strengh that is pretty much the same for a western army...

I'm not criticizing the Chinese, only giving a infratryman's point of view.
 
Last edited:

darth sidious

Banned Idiot
rommel said:
Well, I think that maybe chinese army have a different organisation than a US or british one... It's true that the Brits and Canadian and others countries have bolt-action rifle, but the use doctrine was different, they have a machine-gun for each fireteam, that mean that there's a machine gun for each 8-11 men... a western fireteam in this time have 2-4 SMG + 1 MG + 4-7 rifles... A platoon (around 40 men) have generally at least 4 machine-gun in this time...

the 98k became famous for his bolt system (which is marvelous) and it's stopping power (you can pierce 7mm of iron or 2mm of steel at 1800m...) still, those rifles was heavy + a heavy recoil... the slow firing rate can affect in combat, to shoot blindly lot of bullet have a morale effect on the opponent, military call this Suppressive Fire (it's to shoot on a area where the ennemy could be, not for killing, but mainly to affect the morale strengh). It forced the incomming ennemy to cover themself and can reduce the morale... You can't do much suppressive fire with a Mauser...

A army will be the size of a division ?? Well, western division was big in number, but only part of this was actually fighting personnel, about the 1/5 - 1/10 (depending of the army) are normally support personnel (command staff, logistic support, medical unit, drivers, cook,etc...) Anyway, I wouldn't understand why Chinese Army's Organisation was so small, a Russian or Allied Army was about the same strengh as a German WWII Korps, could China army be smaller... And with the number of weapon you give us, I'll say the Chinese army was at least maybe 25,000 - 30,000 men, a strengh that is pretty much the same for a western army...

I'm not criticizing the Chinese, only giving a infratryman's point of view.

on the weapons the chinese army become quite skilled at the use of heavy machinegun to deter japanese during WWII in many korean war accounts you will find reference to it

the type 24 is quite good at this

during this time the best equipt units usuely have 1*zb-26(bren gun ) per squad and at lest one smg paltoon have atlest one heavy machine gun plus one" knee motar" or even a 92 paltoon cannon

as for the chinese being so samll its because at this point they are more along nationalist organization commander often kept the division under strength t keep the pay of the phantom solider "officaly" on the payrool

eventualy its found that smaller organization is easier to control in ballte and more moblie

the communist more heavily equipted then the nationalist counterpart usuely have about 8000 men as every one is trained to fight this is not such a big disadvangtage

like the japanese army the chinese army sees bayonet as the principle weapon in close combat so the lomg and heavy rifle is actualy an advantage
 

Red Guard

Junior Member
the reason chinese fancy 98K is because 98K is smaller and lighter, after wars since the beginning of the century, chinese population left with smaller and shorter men, who are not capable to carry heavy rifles. also because of the bullets producing and training, chinese fancy bayonet action in close combat which is not really an advantage of US soldiers, even though they are taller, stronger, and heavier. chinese soldiers are more fearless and smarter than chinese. according to some books, soldiers who fought in both pacific and korea quoted that the chinese is nothing like japanese, you could use machine gun to mow down the japanese as they banzai attacks, but chinese human waves are much smarter than that.

darth i think you meant SVT-40 instead of SKS, SKS came out almost at the end of the war.
 

rommel

Bow Seat
VIP Professional
darth sidious said:
during this time the best equipt units usuely have 1*zb-26(bren gun ) per squad and at lest one smg paltoon have atlest one heavy machine gun plus one" knee motar" or even a 92 paltoon cannon

as for the chinese being so samll its because at this point they are more along nationalist organization commander often kept the division under strength t keep the pay of the phantom solider "officaly" on the payrool

eventualy its found that smaller organization is easier to control in ballte and more moblie

the communist more heavily equipted then the nationalist counterpart usuely have about 8000 men as every one is trained to fight this is not such a big disadvangtage
Well, you only give 800 LMG for 12,000 rifles and 3,000 SMG, that's more than 1 MG for 18 men... Which is different than the western pattern... In fact, I don't think that each fireteam is gonna get a support weapon... Which mean that lot of team don't have a decent firepower... don't forget, the machine-gun is the most powerful weapon of you infantry section...

Well, you'll gonna be surprise of the size of western army organization, there are not so big, it's only we have so much support personnel that we seem big...

I will give the simplified order of battle of a typical infantry division by the West.

Infantry Fireteam have 11 men in this time,
4 fireteam per platoon = 44 men per platoon, + the command staff = 49-50 men per platoon,
a company generally have 3 platoon + command staff = 160 men.
4 Company = 1 battalion, so it's around 560 men for a battalion,
and a regiment = 3 battalion + command staff = around 1700men,
and a division have normally 3 regiment + 4 or 5 support battalion (like AA, medical, AT, etc...) + the command staff = around 8000 men...

Normally, a armored division and motorized have less men since each tank or is considered as a fireteam and there's always 3 regiments of 3 battalions each, a armored division is generallu 2 regiment with 2 battalion of tank + 1 battalion of infantry and 1 infantry regiment, while the motorized infantry is 2 regiment of 1 armor battalion and 2 battalion of infantry + 1 regiment of infantry

So a full size division will have around 10,000-12,000 men because we need lot of drivers, cooks, guy who do paperwork, mechanics, weapon technician (repare and clean the weapon) but there's only the 3/4 of this number that are combattants, all the rest are support...

BTW, the 98k was like 170g lighter and 15cm shorter than the G98, but it still was a hulky weapon... because the K98k was still 1,10m long and weight 4 kg....

In comparaison, my C7A1 (the same weapon than on my avatart) which is my service weapon, weight 3.9 loaded and is 1,0m long...
 
Last edited:
Top