PLA Night Warfare Capabilities

So-called Rare Earth's are cause for concern only in large scale manufacturing of consumer goods. For small scale manufacturing of Night Vision for military purposes, there is no shortage.

Night Vision optics vary widely in quality and development. The advantage of Night Vision, whether it be photon amplification based, thermal based, or fused, is stealth. Passive target acquisition and successful engagement will favor the force that has the highest quality and most sensitive equipment.

The US government strictly guards critical Night Vision technology as witnessed in the following links:

Maggern said:

Rare eart minerals are abundant, though spread thinly, around the globe. The reason China produce so much is that they have the most dense fields, making them the few remaining viable to be mined. The US surely could produce some more, but the infrastructue and resources required to mine miniscule amounts would be massive.

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Correct ... same analogy as oil and gas, they are also so abundant everwhere, but most of them are not viable to mined .i.e high cost and technology ... but if oil price reach $200 ... surely most of those would be viable

Well, just because you have thermo goggles doesn't mean you have a great night fighting capability. For example, Standard Russian NVGs are 2 or 2+ Generation. Standard American NVGs are 3rd Generation. We are also planning on advancing it to the 4th Generation. High generation NVGs means a longer detection range against a human.

IronsightSniper said:

Well, just because you have thermo goggles doesn't mean you have a great night fighting capability. For example, Standard Russian NVGs are 2 or 2+ Generation. Standard American NVGs are 3rd Generation. We are also planning on advancing it to the 4th Generation. High generation NVGs means a longer detection range against a human.

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during the siege of Khe sang in 68',US army uses gen-1 NVG for there snipper rifle.according to one reccon.they could actually see NV regular digging trench and taking there break.
NVG,even gen-1. is still consider effective against insurgent.

True, but if you had the choice between Generation 1 over Generation 3, I'd choose Gen 3 NVGs, provides a couple hundred meters longer range compared to Gen 1 sights.

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