Military FAQ thread

rommel

Bow Seat
VIP Professional
Welcome to the new thread of our forum. A few of us (mods) have come with the idea of a FAQ area when YOU, members can ask us questions and we will have to answer to your question. So, there will be a team (lead by the mods) who will be responsible to answer to those questions. You can ask us everything you want about defence, equipement, tactics and even military history. The answering team will asnwer all questions, tough we do have our limits so don't get too much offended if we simply don't know. Also the answering team do this purely voluntaric basis so hats off to them as they sacrifise their free time for additional work. This is the may reason why the answers may take a while, but sort of guaranty we try to keep the delay of the answer in no longer than one week

So this would not be for open debate over those questions, only those who are given permission to answer are allowed to do so. And be free to ask anything military related, even the most simple ones, and anyone making mockery about somebody elses lack of knowledge in this thread will get warning right away! Still, everyone can ask question here !!!!

So, are you ready to take this challenge ?
 
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Re: Military FAQ

This is AWESOME!!!! Thanks for getting a free form FAQ going!

Funny you mention the plasma stealth technology, because that reminds me of Jane's making the mistake a few years back of putting a plasma weapon story out and pretty much losing their credibility overnight. Who do you find to be some of the most reliable and/or most comprehensive commercial source of defence information out there? And not limited to English sources, though I wouldn't be able to read them even if you told me.
 

Obcession

Junior Member
Re: Military FAQ

What's the most accurate estimate of Chinese casualties in the Korean War? I'm doing a research project and I'm having trouble convincing my classmates that China suffered less than 1 million. My best guess is, 300-500 thousand PVA casualties.
 

chinawhite

Banned Idiot
Re: Military FAQ

Century china have a excellent FAQ about the korean war.

How many casualties did PVA suffer?

Western sources gave assertions such as "it seems reasonable to assume that China cannot have lost less than half a million men" , "China suffered at least 900,000 casualties", etc. However, such numbers were based on arbitrary estimates which were greatly inflated.

For example, US estimated that in the battle of Chosin reservoir, the Marines air power killed 10,000 Chinese and wounded 5,000, the numbers were artificially high and no evidence could be found to back up these claims. From western combat histories, PVA always cease the fighting at dawn and went to cover, and their white clothing made it very hard to detect even by the Marines at close distance let alone by aircrafts. US estimated that the Marines killed a total of 25,000 PVA troops and wounded 12,500 in the Chosin battle, one has to wonder that if the Marines alone could kill 20% and wound 10% of the entire PVA 9th Army Group, why did the X Corps have to abandon Task Force MacLean and put itself in such a vulnerable situation at the Hungnam beachhead, and then bug out North Korea. For another example, 2d division historian wrote that 2d division alone had "killed more than 65,000 enemy soldiers", this was based on figures from dividual regiments, such as 9th Infantry, which claimed "total enemy casualties to be 16505, of which 2200 were counted". In the "Wonju shoot" of February 14 1951, 2d division claimed killing 5000 PVA troops with artillery alone, and wounded 3 times more. For another example, Van Fleet claimed that UN had inflicted a communist casualty of 234,000 from August to October 1951 during which truce talks were in recess, such an estimate is considered "far too high" by western historians. There are a lot of such cases, when a western historian quoted communist casualty numbers, he had to qualify it with words such as "arbitrary", "far too high", etc.

From the overly inflated numbers, it seems that US generals are not accountable for their battle results, while in PLA, it is a serious misconduct to report false casualty numbers of either side, since such false reports would result in wrong calculations by the nation's leaders. On the US side, American statisticians calculated that in the 8 months ending June 25 1951, PVA suffered a casualty of 600,000 (which would imply that every PVA soldier entered Korea became a casualty), and UN suffered 290,000 (among which 78,800 were American), such gross miscalculations by Washington led to the illusion that US was winning and prolonged the war.

It is understandable that US could not get a accurate estimate of the communist casualties, UN forces were on the run for escape most of the time, they could not have the chance to count their kills.

From official Chinese sources, PVA casualty during the Korean war was 390,000. It breaks down as follows:
KIA: 110,400
DIED OF WOUNDS: 21,600
DIED OF SICKNESS: 13,000
CAPTURED & MISSING: 25,600
WOUNDED: 260,000

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ok this bit by Wikipedia.
As the PVA rotated about 2 million troops during the war. The casualties figure of most western sources seems too high. If the PVA suffed 500,000 casualties (1/4 of all troops rotated) or 1,000,000 casualties (1/2 of all troops rotated) the PVA would be so weaken that they would not be able to defend the line let alone mount any meaningful offensive. However, as the battle line hardly moved from 1951 to 1953 the high casualties figure should be greatly scrutinized.

Which cast dobut in the western myth

Regards,

Chinawhite
 

Gollevainen

Colonel
VIP Professional
Registered Member
Re: Military FAQ

Nice to get the thing started, but do remember not to enter conversation about these matters.

And as chinawhite invited himself to be part of the answering team, He is to be included it and should be obligated to help us when ever we need him. But from nowonwards, try to ask our promision to be conducted to the team. other members for that are Us mods, (at least I and Rommel) and Vip members.
 

Gollevainen

Colonel
VIP Professional
Registered Member
Re: Military FAQ

Yes, And we will get lot simpler ones, but please lets keep some order here. And now, no more chit chat but lets wait the next question!
 

MIGleader

Banned Idiot
Re: Military FAQ

ok mods...this is to test ur know-how. does china operate a PAR, and if it does, whats its name, on what platform, and what are its abilities?
 

rommel

Bow Seat
VIP Professional
Re: Military FAQ

Hey Mig, if you can give us what does PAR mean, it could help us, because in the air force, PAR mean Precision Approach Radar but it mean Phased-Array Radar for the Navy.
 

Gollevainen

Colonel
VIP Professional
Registered Member
Re: Military FAQ

well If you mean whit PAR, that Phased array radar of 052C, I would be happy to answer, but nobody really knows that systems orgin or function. Various guesses has been made, and some sources connect that system into Ukraina, But I wouldnt say anything more, cos I dont know for sure, and therefore I wish not to make a fool of myself.

Also if this thing eventually ends up just to test us, and the orginal function for being helpfull tool to the rest of us is forgotten, then we may have to reconsider the rules of this FAQ...
 
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