PLA Ground Forces news, pics and videos

superdog

Junior Member
There is a history of people cutting corners NOT a history of poor quality of military equipment. I think the example is befitting. Therefore it wouldn't be such a surprise to learn the manufacturer of the armour plates are using substandard grades of steel. I've been dealing with this issue at work for a while with some Chinese contractors who do everything right for the sample batches and then proceed to slowly degrade the quality over time. One particular example with regards to steel as well, a Chinese manufacturer slowly left out vital metal working processes in some nuts they manufacture which led to sudden catastrophic failure and upon months of investigations (because the failure left over $10M in damages to equipment) it was discovered the factory foreman was skipping steps in hardening the material. The reason for that was to save the factory a measly sum of money.

Get your heads out of the sand. You can start by growing a thicker skin. I'm not even one of those FLG trolls and vehemently pro-China pro-CCP and there's no need to make such a drama out of a small, and accidental criticism. I stand corrected on this particular piece of news but there is definitely an underlying problem or at least a former problem that immediately made me assume the news was true. It being in Chinese added to the trustworthiness and since my Chinese is far from ideal, correcting me I think should have been enough. In any case, I hope cutting corners becomes increasingly rare in China and it seems to be traveling in that direction.
Perhaps you mixed up my reply with somebody else's. I'm not making a drama out of anything, I didn't mention anything about FLG or pro-CCP, I'm simply asking if you have better examples than a food safety incident in 2008 to support your speculation that "it's so common" for Chinese(-made) military gears to be of poor quality?

"There is a history of people cutting corners NOT a history of poor quality of military equipment"

Sorry but that statement makes no sense. Cutting corners implied poor quality. An armored vehicle getting easily penetrated due to using shitty steel (if you believe that happened) is by definition a showcase of poor quality. If they had a habit of cutting corners but magically maintained good quality in their products, that would be called optimization.

Anyway, if I understand you correctly, the second example you're giving now is that you've met some corner cutting Chinese contractors at work. But again, how is that supposed to be generalized into the practice of Chinese equipment suppliers for the PLA?

I am doubting this logic because from what I saw and personally experienced, China today is a manufacturing hub for the world and is steadily supplying tons of good quality products/components for foreign and domestic brands alike. This includes ships, cars, trains and cranes, all of which uses steel heavily. Of course you can still find corner cutting contractors if you cut corner on cost or have poor supply chain management, but it doesn't mean you can take a few bad examples and then assume it is common practice for all, especially for the military sector.

It'd be more relevant if we can see that PLA suffers more equipment failures than its rivals (or whatever you consider as "world standard"), but I'm not seeing that trend.
 
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plawolf

Lieutenant General
Indeed, it is a common misconception that Chinese somehow cannot do QC or build high quality products, with shoddy Walmart products or fringe examples cited as what is the norm.

There is a thing call the China price, and China speed, where China can make things faster and cheaper than anyone else at the same quality. But even China cannot do magic. If you want a product at a stupidly low price point, of course you are not going to be premium quality.

What most westerners and those who grow up in the west don’t realise is that Walmart products are of shit quality because that’s what Walmart wanted and specified to be made. It makes simple good business sense for Walmart to be willing to accept higher defect and returns if the extra margin they make on all products sold is a lot more.

There is a reputation problem in China with general consumer products in that there are so many fakes that it is sometimes hard to get what you wanted, but even than that’s really only a problem if you as a consumer is trying to penny pinch and buys from questionable sources to try to save some money.

If you are willing to pay fair market prices, you can absolutely get high quality products made in China. It’s what major companies around the world do.

There is also an added level of protection for the likes of the PLA when they make procurement orders because they are the state. You have to be mad to try to cheat the PLA, as the full force of Chinese law enforcement will come after you if you do.

The only way you can get poor quality products into the PLA is if you had seriously high corrupt connections, but thankfully that is also a thing of the past now, as no one is powerful enough to get away with that these days. It’s just not worth the risk anymore.
 

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
Perhaps you mixed up my reply with somebody else's. I'm not making a drama out of anything, I didn't mention anything about FLG or pro-CCP, I'm simply asking if you have better examples than a food safety incident in 2008 to support your speculation that "it's so common" for Chinese(-made) military gears to be of poor quality?

"There is a history of people cutting corners NOT a history of poor quality of military equipment"

Sorry but that statement makes no sense. Cutting corners implied poor quality. An armored vehicle getting easily penetrated due to using shitty steel (if you believe that happened) is by definition a showcase of poor quality. If they had a habit of cutting corners but magically maintained good quality in their products, that would be called optimization.

Anyway, if I understand you correctly, the second example you're giving now is that you've met some corner cutting Chinese contractors at work. But again, how is that supposed to be generalized into the practice of Chinese equipment suppliers for the PLA?

I am doubting this logic because from what I saw and personally experienced, China today is a manufacturing hub for the world and is steadily supplying tons of good quality products/components for foreign and domestic brands alike. This includes ships, cars, trains and cranes, all of which uses steel heavily. Of course you can still find corner cutting contractors if you cut corner on cost or have poor supply chain management, but it doesn't mean you can take a few bad examples and then assume it is common practice for all, especially for the military sector.

It'd be more relevant if we can see that PLA suffers more equipment failures than its rivals (or whatever you consider as "world standard"), but I'm not seeing that trend.

It's really quite simple. Cutting corners in China exists (some examples given) and while it also exists elsewhere, we're talking about China. Your counter example of China being the industrial hub of the world doesn't prove there aren't cases of cost cutting. Since there obviously were, therefore it's reasonable for someone to have imagined the "fakes" news of the manufacturer using substandard steel, to have been genuine. No thought crime has been committed here relax.
 

ougoah

Brigadier
Registered Member
Indeed, it is a common misconception that Chinese somehow cannot do QC or build high quality products, with shoddy Walmart products or fringe examples cited as what is the norm.

There is a thing call the China price, and China speed, where China can make things faster and cheaper than anyone else at the same quality. But even China cannot do magic. If you want a product at a stupidly low price point, of course you are not going to be premium quality.

What most westerners and those who grow up in the west don’t realise is that Walmart products are of shit quality because that’s what Walmart wanted and specified to be made. It makes simple good business sense for Walmart to be willing to accept higher defect and returns if the extra margin they make on all products sold is a lot more.

There is a reputation problem in China with general consumer products in that there are so many fakes that it is sometimes hard to get what you wanted, but even than that’s really only a problem if you as a consumer is trying to penny pinch and buys from questionable sources to try to save some money.

If you are willing to pay fair market prices, you can absolutely get high quality products made in China. It’s what major companies around the world do.

There is also an added level of protection for the likes of the PLA when they make procurement orders because they are the state. You have to be mad to try to cheat the PLA, as the full force of Chinese law enforcement will come after you if you do.

The only way you can get poor quality products into the PLA is if you had seriously high corrupt connections, but thankfully that is also a thing of the past now, as no one is powerful enough to get away with that these days. It’s just not worth the risk anymore.

Dude you are basically arguing no bad eggs exists because look at all the good eggs. Can we seriously stop being Indian bhakt levels of defensive and sensitive. I'm not doubting any of the above FFS. I'm done trying to make the point.
 

Figaro

Senior Member
Registered Member
Netizen arrested due to online rumor-mongering on military vehicle
Source
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Editor Li Wei Time 2020-08-06 17:17:15
1.jpeg
Apology letter written by the netizen​

BEIJING, August 6 -- Recently, a netizen surnamed Zhou was arrested by the police in accordance with the law, because he spread the rumors online by saying that “the poor quality of military vehicles supplied by the Dongfeng Off-road Vehicle Co., Ltd. (hereafter referred to as Dongfeng) has caused the death of Chinese soldiers during the China-India border clash”.

On August 3, after learning via the Internet that online-user Zhou had posted rumors on his WeChat Moments by claiming that internal corruption of the Dongfeng Company had led to the poor quality of the its military vehicles, which resulted in the casualties of Chinese soldiers on the China-India border, the Dongfeng Company immediately reported to the local police and established a special working group to investigate and verify the case.

At about 18:00 on August 4, Zhou was arrested by local police. He confessed to his crime of rumor-mongering, showed remorse, and wrote a sincere apology letter.

The Dongfeng company has been engaged in the R&D and manufacturing of high-mobility off-road vehicles for military operations for a long time, being considered as China’s top military vehicles manufacturer.

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plawolf

Lieutenant General
Dude you are basically arguing no bad eggs exists because look at all the good eggs. Can we seriously stop being Indian bhakt levels of defensive and sensitive. I'm not doubting any of the above FFS. I'm done trying to make the point.

What kind of lame strawman is that? We need to meekly accept your outdated (and frankly that is being extremely generous, as even ‘back in the day’ things were never anywhere like as bad as what you are suggesting) idea that the Chinese military is rife with corruption and shoddy equipment, or we are all mindless rabble rousers? :rolleyes:

If you don’t want people to criticise you personally for your views, then maybe you should also apply that to yourself and just argue the points instead of making insulting sweeping generalisation about others simply because we don’t agree with your suggestions because they don’t tally with our actual first hand everyday experiences and even basic common sense.
 

superdog

Junior Member
It's really quite simple. Cutting corners in China exists (some examples given) and while it also exists elsewhere, we're talking about China. Your counter example of China being the industrial hub of the world doesn't prove there aren't cases of cost cutting. Since there obviously were, therefore it's reasonable for someone to have imagined the "fakes" news of the manufacturer using substandard steel, to have been genuine. No thought crime has been committed here relax.
Nobody was making the ridiculous claim that corner cutting does not exist anywhere in China.

It's about disagreeing with your assertion that this is common practice in China, that it's normal to expect PLA combat vehicles to be made of shitty steel/fake armor.

If you can't see the difference then there won't be a meaningful discussion.
 

by78

General
The new amphibious bridging vehicle in operation.

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