PLA News, Pics, and Discussion

TerraN_EmpirE said:

It's vanity camo. The PLA issues unique patterns to special "Elite" Units. 2nd Art wears mostly the woodland pattern, 38th Group Army was pctured in 09 sporting a unique woodland dubbed Type 07 Hunter Digital Camo, PLAAF sports a Urban pattern, on 60th national the 15th Airborne wore a digital Sky blue, green, greyish green and light greyish blue set unique to themselves, PAP has it's own camo pattern with Arid and a Tiger stripe variant to once again single out elites from the grunts.

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The PLA is not going to allow vanity to jeopardise operational effectiveness.

Some elites and special forces many get special issue camo patterns as a perk, but those are still camo patterns designed to work as camouflage first and foremost.

The US Navy and Marines also quite frequently uses blue camo combat uniforms, especially when serving about warships.

The choice of standard issue camo pattern actually betrays the roles and conditions the respective forces are primarily intended to serve, as well as their main expected combat theatre.

For the US marines, their mission is primarily one of expeditionary force. They are intended to face severely weakened enemy coastal defences, or to make unopposed landings.

Basically, getting ashore is assumed as almost a given, for the US marines and not where they expect the hardest fight to be.

OTOH, PLA marines are intended primarily to take Taiwan, and would face some of the most well defended beaches ever fought over.

In such a fight, their only mission would be to land, to take and secure a beachhead long enough for the PLA to deploy regular army troops and heavy armour.

As soon as PLA regulars and heavy armour get ashore in numbers, that's pretty much game set and match. The marines can put their feet up and enjoy the gratitude of a nation for a job well done.

And to be brutally honest, in most scenarios, even today, because of the extremely tight timeframe the PLA would be fighting under to try and not even give America the option of getting directly involved, they will not be able to spend anywhere close to as long as they would like softening up all the defences before they have to send the marines in.

Under such conditions, and against the defences arrayed against them, I do not think the PLA high command would expect enough marines to survive the taking and holding of the beachhead on Taiwan to be worth deploying them to the fight further inland.

plawolf said:

The US Navy and Marines also quite frequently uses blue camo combat uniforms, especially when serving about warships

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Sorry Wolf, only a third right.
The USMC doesn't issue the Blue camo set. It's unique to the USN. USMC wears only MARPAT patterns for desert or woodland terrain with additional sets of traditional woodland for special ops in Afghanistan and snow pattern for use in winter or arctic conditions.
The blue pattern you are discussing is unique to the United states Navy, and then its farther specifically for use by sailors who are deployed aboard ships. The Uniforms in question farther are not intended for infantry use but rather are worn as and designated as "Work uniforms". There color palette was selected based on the most prevalent paint colors aboard a USN war ship. There design was not optimized for wear with body armor but rather was based on a legacy BDU for utility.
In the event a Sailor is deployed ashore they wear a different uniform set. Either the conventional 3color desert, NWU type3 which is a woodland pattern uniform redesigned for wear with body armor as well as fire proofing, NWU type 2 which is a desert set ( only to Navy spec war due to wrangling between the Navy and Marines) or Multicam.
Ship board only camo uniforms have begun to become vogue the Australians now issue a blue Multicam uniform for there navy. But these are meant only for duty on ships. The color scheme and camouflage is meant to hide stains from paint, machine lubricants and the like. The uniforms offer little practical camouflage as there is no actual need. In the event of combat in their respective environment chances are they wouldn't even see the enemy with the naked eye or be on deck.

The next logical counter for your argument would be the USAF Airman battle uniform. However being preemptive I point out. 1) that uniform is pure vanity pattern and only issued for wear away from active combat.
2) in actual deployment the USAF issues either the Uniforms of the service the airmen is attached to or Multicam pattern. The ABU was only worn outside the wire for a short period of time after its introduction to service and was then more or less kept in the green zones.
Its again based on a modified BDU style intended for utility on base over combat.
This differs from the PLA who issue some type 07 to just specific divisions. Some of the vanity patterns do look like they might work in battle but the Airborne and Marines versions it seems are meant only for transition between parachute to ground or sea to shore.

I found a (kind of) old video showing the protective equipment of the peacekeepers deployed to South Sudan:

I said before it's not true Multicam but close.

On the combat uniform side a significant number of troops were wearing the new MultiCam-like camouflage pattern - ChinaCam seems like a sensible name for it until we learn its official designation - but close inspection reveals that although it appears to use broadly the same colour pallette as MultiCam (and UK MTP) the actual pattern is distinctly different with more 'jellybean' and 'twiglet' elements.

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Chinacam seems a bit... incendiary but lacking a better until the PRC starts calling it "Type 015 transitional" or whatever.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

I said before it's not true Multicam but close.

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Chinacam seems a bit... incendiary but lacking a better until the PRC starts calling it "Type 015 transitional" or whatever.

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Sinocam?

Falcon -2015 China-Mongolian joint anti-terror Special Forces training
"Falcon -2015" China-Mongolian joint anti-terror Special Forces training ceremony was held at Mongolia comprehensive training center on Oct. 12, 2015. The joint training, the first of such kind between the two countries, will last until October 17. Joint training is divided into three stages, namely individual soldier skills and team tactics training, segmented drills and combined drills. Soldiers from the two countries will participate in shooting, downhill helicopters, rescue hostages joint training courses as well recreational activities and cultural arrangements

I've never seen those vests in Chinese service before. Did PLASOF get new plate carriers?

This is definitely not the same carrier as the ones seen before. It's following the more modern western style as opposed to the Interceptor style. It's got a much lower profile with straps in the shoulder and a visible main plate. also note the Kangaroo style magazine pouches across the chest.
I was tempted to suggest western gear but the camo pattern is PLA Highland digital. That said the Gloves are Oakley... I recognized the logo The Iranians have been wearing them to. note the eye pro as well.

Funny how the Police (aka national guard) get this kind of equipment before the main army does.