Type 88 GPMG

ive been meaning to post somthing about this for a while and ive finally got around to it
im wondering if the 5.8mm round can truly make an effective GPMG round or should china stick with or possibly develope a new 7.62mm weapon
i would love to hear youre opinion on this because so far i am sceptical about its effectivness at longer ranges and at 12 kg it is too heavy to be an effective SAW

just wondering where did you get the weight from, a chinese light mg like the type-81 is ~5.35kg and type 95 is ~3.92kg

this isnt on the ground forces page anymore but still on the site map so its hard to find if you dont know where to look
did some more research and it sounds like that includes the tripod with out the tripod the wieght is said to be 7.6kg

ah you mean, this MG, but the name is an HMG. No one know the reliabilty of the round except the soldiers. Eventhough the thing is heavy, chinese squad have 2 people operating on one mg. It may be that the tripod weight in included

here is a tranlated version where i found the wieght without the tripod and it includes some good pictures

The 5.8 round used by the GPMG is a heavier round, different from the standard round used by assault rifles. There's already a thread discussing the 5.8m round somewhere.

Why on earth would the Chinese swap Vehicle mounted 12.7MM and 7.62MM HMG's for the Type 88 and it's 5.8MM round? It would make a good infantry-level LMG or MMG, but I dont know about an HMG unless you go by the old WW2 standard of an HMG.

Pardon me if I get something wrong here.

They are? That would be news to me. Do you have a source? If anything I would imagine switching 7.62 vehicle HMGs to the new 12.7 HMG.

Well, that's what they say back in the site.
I too am surprised to hear that it will replace the 12.7 also.
There is no way a 5.8 can have the firepower of a 12.7, let alone its range.

If they use the steel core round, then maybe it can do the range, but the damage? No way!

Site:

The 5.8 mm QJY-88 is PLA's next generation heavy machine gun to replace the 12.7 mm and 7.62 mm heavy machine guns currently in service.

Click to expand...

The gun in my opinion is nevertheless China's Negev....

I also have to state that the vague nature of the article and the utter lack of information irritates me. Has any new information come along that could help elaborate? Especialy on the reasons as to why China wants to replace the larger-calliber machine guns and vehicle mounted machine-guns.