The Chinese People's Liberation Army

Introduction:

I'm going to start a short series of posts over the next couple of weeks, looking at some of the equipment used by some of the other large military forces other than the US. This week is going to be the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China, but I'm planning to also look at Russia, Iran, and North Korea. I'm going to go over the basic equipment that is used by individual soldiers, as well as some of the vehicles such as armored personnel carriers, main battle tanks, and infantry fighting vehicles. The scope of the blog for the next couple weeks is going to be a bit bigger than just a particular gun or type of gun, but I'll get back to my regular stuff soon. I was also thinking of switching off between the big-picture stuff and the more nuanced stuff every other week. Comment and let me know which you'd prefer!

Individual Soldier:

The PLA ground forces consist of about 1 million active personnel and is the largest component of the PLA. Despite being one of the largest economies in the world, China spends less than half on its military as the United States. This, combined with the fact that China has a million person army, means that compared to other military forces, PLA soldiers are pretty lightly equipped. Each individual soldier is equipped with approximately $1,523 USD word of equipment, with 45% of this going to the cost of the soldier's rifle. This leaves only around 800 or so USD to be spent on protective equipment for the soldier and any other equipment such as optics. This pales in comparison to the US, that equips each soldier with approximately $20,000 USD worth of equipment.

The QBZ-95 is the standard-issue rifle for the PLA. It fires a unique, 5.8x42mm cartridge, designed to be comparable to the Russian 5.45 and the American 5.56. The rifle is actually pretty simple despite its futuristic looks. It has actually similar in lockup to an AK variant, but uses a linear hammer system instead of a normal hammer or striker-fired system. Because this rifle makes up a large portion of the budget allocated to each soldier, the PLA makes sacrifices in individual protective equipment.

PLA soldiers are issued a Kevlar helmet and a flak jacket. While the helmet is comparable to what is seen in the West, the flak jacket offers significantly less protection than plate carriers that are issues in many Western militaries. Flak jackets are not particularly effective against anything more powerful than pistol rounds or shrapnel, whereas American SAPI plates can stop certain armor piercing rifle cartridges. China will occasionally distribute plate carriers and plates in limited quantities depending on the role of the soldier, but plates and plate carriers are not standard. 

Vehicles:

The PLA puts a large emphasis are armored and mechanized infantry, so APCs, IFVs and MBTs are a core component of the PLA. The PLA employs two primary MBTs, the Type 96 and Type 99. The Type 96 is most comparable to the Russian T-80, a fairly modern, formidable tank. The Type 99 is the most modern iteration of PLA tank, but due to budgetary constraints, the Type 96 remains that standard MBT for the PLA.

The Type 96 and 99 typically employ tungsten-core APFSDS ammunition for armor-piercing applications, but they are also able to use Soviet and Russian ammunition that uses a depleted uranium penetrator and is much more effective. Like its Russian counterparts, the Type 96 and 99 are also able to fire anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs). 

Much like the PLA tanks, PLA IFV's take ques from Russian designs, namely, the BMP series of vehicles. 

The PLA's ZBD-04 takes after the Russian BMP-3. Like the BMP, the ZBD-04 is equipped with both a 100mm gun and a 30mm cannon, and is able to be equipped with ATGMs. This makes the vehicle capable multi-role infantry support vehicle. Also like the BMP, the ZBD is completely amphibious. This is useful for China's applications because the country has a large area with many rivers. Because mechanized infantry in emphasized in the PLA, the ability to carry personnel is important for the ZBD. The ZBD can carry 7 fully equipped soldiers in addition to the vehicle crew. The PLA has various other APC and IFV types that are reminiscent of Russian designs such as various generations of BTRs and BMPs. These vary in age but many remain in use in various elements of the PLA.

Conclusion:

The PLA is a modern military that works well with the budget that it has. Because China does not have near the amount of combat experience as the US or other Western forces, it remains to be seen as to how effective the PLA can be as a fighting force. If we're going on the dollars invested in its troops, a PLA soldier is vastly under-equipped compared to his Western counterparts.