PLA's Body Armor

magantosh

Just Hatched
Registered Member
lots of chinese police equiped with body armor, but never saw any soldiers equip with these stuff.



chinese police equiped with body armor? maybe in TV, actually the normal police never equiped with armor except some dangerous mission~
 

RedMercury

Junior Member
PAP/swat are equipped, at least in many publicity photos. Civilian Street cops in general don't have them. I don't think all of them carry guns either.
 

kunmingren

Junior Member
yea, thats true. most street cops dont have body armor or guns. Only people who do are pap swats, and even then it looks more like ammo pounches than actual protection. My cousin is currently a police officer officer over there, and their equipment seems very antiquated.
 

RedMercury

Junior Member
The private security firms that do armored car deliveries for banks have their boys all decked out in body armor. Quite a sight to see one standing there with a tactical 12-gauge. In a no-gun society, guns+body armor is like, heh. But I suppose they're not protecting from the common petty criminals with their knives, but the organized crime, who are indeed armed. Their armored cars though, don't inspire confidence. Too light to be protected from anything above pistol rounds, I suspect.
 

kunmingren

Junior Member
Yeah, that reminded me, I was in China last August, and i saw cash delievery vans on several different occasions. I actually thought that they were some sort of special police unit. thanks for clearfy that. yea, they do look pretty mean in their steel helmet, kevlar and submachine gun.
 

kovona

New Member
Did anyone check the made in china site? Just type in bullet-proof vest, and a whole list comes up with these companies that make ballistic grade body armor, the funny thing is some of these companies use to be sex toy makers, HAHA. Oh, on a side note, the site also features vehicle armor. Oh, this is also open bulk bazaar (kind of like costco), so if yu have the money, yu can buy anything here.
 

RedMercury

Junior Member
Body armor have expiration dates, so (like almost every kind of equipment) it's not a one time purchase. Example: if the vest is rated for 10 years, equipping vests (in peace time) will cost 1/10th its full cost per year.
The 500 USD figure is rather vague, but probably for something with higher than level III protection, since the article says 500 USD at maximum.

Again the reason wheter body armor is issued has to do not only with cost, but with doctrine. Perhaps the soldier is better served by carrying more of something else, or just carrying less in general. Or perhaps the PLA isn't satisfied with current designs and wishes to wait just a bit more. Another possibility is that the cost of improving small arms to defeat body armor is far less expensive than improving the body armor, so it may not be perceived as a cost-effective route at the current state of materials science.

Westerner give lot more importance to life than Easterner, some Chinese are ready to die for cause, most of the westerner will never.

Aspiring to be like Westmoreland huh?
 
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