QBZ-191 service rifle family

Blitzo said:

Right, but... is that it?

There's a difference between the idea that the stock could benefit from a sling mounting position in the stock, versus saying that they should have gone for a M4 stock -- which as we all know has the standard military issue version versus the vast aftermarket industry available (and given this is the PLA we are talking about it's not like they would bother tapping into the aftermarket industry anyhow, especially given there isn't a civilian arms market in China anyway)

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I don't think it's as much of an issue with the stock itself, but rather the proprietary mounting system on the buffer tube essentially closing off the option to mount already existing aftermarket options if needed. It's overall a minor nitpick. A similar but more extreme situation would be with helmet mounts and night vision, where they had multiple incompatible proprietary helmet mounts (W15, 1224) entering service alongside aftermarket clones. Resulting in situations where NODs are worn with skull-crushers or helmet straps, despite the helmet already having a mount present.

AZaz09dude said:

I don't think it's as much of an issue with the stock itself, but rather the proprietary mounting system on the buffer tube essentially closing off the option to mount already existing aftermarket options if needed. It's overall a minor nitpick. A similar but more extreme situation would be with helmet mounts and night vision, where they had multiple proprietary helmet mounts (W15, 1224) entering service alongside aftermarket clones. Resulting in situations where NODs are worn with skull-crushers or helmet straps, despite the helmet already having a mount present.

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If the issue is wanting access to the M4 aftermarket stocks, I find that to not be very persuasive (even if it's a minor quibble).

This is the PLA we are talking about, they're not going to sign off on those sort of after market products anyhow for domestic use, and it's not like there is an existing domestic market for it to begin with.

And if they were willing to sign off on aftermarket products or producers, it's not like manufacturers couldn't simply design stocks for the QBZ-191s own interface, which given the PLA existing as a fairly large customer base will not be hard to do.


Ultimately the situation with NODs (and their mounts) and with stocks (and alternative stocks) and with handguards (and free floating alternatives) is all downstream from whether the PLA wants to issue them at scale or not.


QBZ-191 has a picatinny top on the receiver which is a firm mounting position, exactly because they were willing to proliferate glass to their troops more widely.
Things like NOD mounts, alternative stocks, and FF handguards, won't proliferate until they actually want to proliferate NODs, custom ergonomics, and IR lasers (respectively) in a similar fashion.

Blitzo said:

If the issue is wanting access to the M4 aftermarket stocks, I find that to not be very persuasive (even if it's a minor quibble).

This is the PLA we are talking about, they're not going to sign off on those sort of after market products anyhow for domestic use, and it's not like there is an existing domestic market for it to begin with.

And if they were willing to sign off on aftermarket products or producers, it's not like manufacturers couldn't simply design stocks for the QBZ-191s own interface, which given the PLA existing as a fairly large customer base will not be hard to do.


Ultimately the situation with NODs (and their mounts) and with stocks (and alternative stocks) and with handguards (and free floating alternatives) is all downstream from whether the PLA wants to issue them at scale or not.


QBZ-191 has a picatinny top on the receiver which is a firm mounting position, exactly because they were willing to proliferate glass to their troops more widely.
Things like NOD mounts, alternative stocks, and FF handguards, won't proliferate until they actually want to proliferate NODs, custom ergonomics, and IR lasers (respectively) in a similar fashion.

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The trend with procurement in this realm overall is that it doesn't really point to any cohesive plan for future modernization. Proprietary mounting standards objectively limits and complicates options for future end users that wants to move past the issued 80% solutions, while not providing any real benefit. Smarter options could have been chosen at little to no extra cost.

AZaz09dude said:

The trend with procurement in this realm overall is that it doesn't really point to any cohesive plan for future modernization. Proprietary mounting standards objectively limits and complicates options for future end users that wants to move past the issued 80% solutions, while not providing any real benefit. Smarter options could have been chosen at little to no extra cost.

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For the QBZ-191 itself, I would actually say that it has quite a lot of options for modernization.
They could quite comfortably issue a new handguard that was free floated and a drop in replacement stock and it would basically solve most of the problems one describe with it, and this is first assuming the PLA even want to give such options available to line infantry.
Not issuing free floated handguards as standard option is likely deliberate for both cost reasons as well as knowing that most line infantry won't ever receive the IR lasers and NODs needed to use them.

As for helmets and NOD mounts, imo that just points to how distant into the future the idea of widespread NOD proliferation is overall.


I suppose what I'm saying is that describing these characteristics as limiting for future modernization is somewhat optimistic in the first place because it makes it sound like infantry with this equipment will even be in line to receive those high cost hardware to begin with.


The fact that it's not uncommon for QBZ-191 users to sport an optic of some kind in say, half of the photos that we see, is already fairly forward looking for PLA infantry standards.
Like, there's your cohesive modernization, what else can one reasonably expect for the PLA at this stage?

All of which harkens back to the same debate about the role of infantry in warfare overall and best allocation of resources, etc.

I would argue that having the majority of your infantry force being incapable of modern night fighting is in fact a critical shortcoming that should be urgently addressed by modernization efforts lol

Blitzo said:

Right, but... is that it?

There's a difference between the idea that the stock could benefit from a sling mounting position in the stock, versus saying that they should have gone for a M4 stock -- which as we all know has the standard military issue version versus the vast aftermarket industry available (and given this is the PLA we are talking about it's not like they would bother tapping into the aftermarket industry anyhow, especially given there isn't a civilian arms market in China anyway)

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At the same time we can go the other way, given that they already produce the CQ-A, it means they already have the tooling needed to produce mil-spec buffer tubes, so why bother creating a new one to begin with when reusing the buffer tube might have been better, aside from being proprietary for the sake of being proprietary? Especially since the pistol grip does seem to be a standard AR-15 mount pattern

AZaz09dude said:

I would argue that having the majority of your infantry force being incapable of modern night fighting is in fact a critical shortcoming that should be urgently addressed by modernization efforts lol

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It should be telling from history that noone lost a conventional infantry war due to lack of NVG. If serious night fighting starts, conventional militaries fire flares and illuminate the area.

The attackers also will rely on smoke grenades regardless of if its night or not.

The biggest game changer in infantry fighting is drone warfare now, and advanced fighting robots in the future.

PLA should focus on that

AZaz09dude said:

Lack of a proper sling mounting option is minor flaw that quickly comes to mind

For all the talk about units that require a proper handguard buying aftermarket, there's very few examples of it actually happening to be honest. In constrast, we see many examples of units with night fighting requirements mounting LAMs on the proprietary plastic handguard. And the truth is the few special units that have real needs due to real fighting don't seem to have much use for QBZ191/2 anyways due to mission requirements (domestic AR clones or even genuine foreign weapons are made available for them.) MPS SWAT has yet to formally adopt QBZ191 either, so we're likely still years away from seeing a demand from the wealthier cities.

As a sidenote, haven't seen anything on the 191 but HKPF feedback on mainland pistols and SMG is rumored to be not great lol...

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I wouldn't be surprised, for some bizarre reason norinco seems reluctant to just make a straightforward glock clone, while I haven't fired one I don't see what makes the QSZ92 so good that it's better than just making a half decent glock clone, especially since it clearly can be very cheap, just look at the Arex Delta and PSA Dagger

Clango said:

At the same time we can go the other way, given that they already produce the CQ-A, it means they already have the tooling needed to produce mil-spec buffer tubes, so why bother creating a new one to begin with when reusing the buffer tube might have been better, aside from being proprietary for the sake of being proprietary? Especially since the pistol grip does seem to be a standard AR-15 mount pattern

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I don't think that actually changes the prior argument; the question is not about how difficult or easy it is to adopt a stock design that was consistent with that of the M4, the question is more why would they want to, if they had no intent to permit or enable after market options to begin with?

There may also be more nitty gritty engineering aspects we aren't aware of (I wouldn't be surprised if there's a paper somewhere floating the stock geometry they have versus that of M4 and other options).
Finally there is also the nature that as a service rifle, there is a degree of identity that accompanies it, and being easily cross compatible with a foreign adversary option was not deemed desirable, on top of prior factors.


But going back to first principles, if one views the stock of QBZ-191 as deficient or undesirable versus that of an M4 due to the latter having more aftermarket options that exist, imo that is not a good argument to make because those aftermarket options are not likely viable for the PLA to begin with.

Blitzo said:

I don't think that actually changes the prior argument; the question is not about how difficult or easy it is to adopt a stock design that was consistent with that of the M4, the question is more why would they want to, if they had no intent to permit or enable after market options to begin with?

There may also be more nitty gritty engineering aspects we aren't aware of (I wouldn't be surprised if there's a paper somewhere floating the stock geometry they have versus that of M4 and other options).
Finally there is also the nature that as a service rifle, there is a degree of identity that accompanies it, and being easily cross compatible with a foreign adversary option was not deemed desirable, on top of prior factors.


But going back to first principles, if one views the stock of QBZ-191 as deficient or undesirable versus that of an M4 due to the latter having more aftermarket options that exist, imo that is not a good argument to make because those aftermarket options are not likely viable for the PLA to begin with.

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I just hope they'd at the very least just finally put sling QD cups or something into that stock, seeing them having to fuck around with 3 point slings hurt me