Awesome Chinese website

[Woodard]

www.plapic.com.cn/lib/00003/200010.htm

Yes, I know it's in Chinese, I can't read much of it either. Use google translate or something similar. This is an archive of Chinese pictures from various period picture magazines. This page is divided into the first through fifth campaign, each campaign is divided into pages with 20~30 pictures per page. I personally think some of them may be out of order/staged/ect. There is one famous picture from Chosin that they show as being a few weeks later. And all the pics have like a proofmark, four see-through characters in the middle.


Chinese troops playing with SCR-586's (2nd Campaign)


Weapons cleaning (2nd Campaign)


3rd campaign defense


3rd campaign hero unit


4th Campaign guy with cool belt


Bringing up rice bandoleers


Marksmanship instruction


field problem in training

[yalu]

It seems the PVA is as ate up as the US as far as having multiple cold weather uniforms, and at this point no real explanation on what is going on.
Great site, did see what appears to be a white sausage suit.
Surprized to see the amount of US weapons being used, must of made ammo resupply fun.
Tommy gun .45 cal, carbine .30 cal winchester, M1919A4 .30 cal 03.

[Woodard]

Yea, a lot of that stuff was either WW2 or US aid to the nationalists, but they did seem to be picking stuff up off the battlefield. Several pics of 3.5 rocket launchers, which must have been picked up on the go, since they were a new item for Korea. Units would try to standardize bolt rifles with either US or Japanese, but for SMG's and LMG's it was a free for all, I even saw a Bren gun (Yes I know a Bren from a ZB) that had a straight mag, meaning it fired a non-rimmed catridge. I've heard of STENs in 7.62x25 soviet as well.
As far as uniforms, I'm thinking that units may have gotten different stuff, pics of groups of prisoners often have the same uniforms. I have some pics of a group of prisoners from Chosin, those guys have a completely different winter uniform I've never seen anywhere else.

[foxholetom]

On the Bren gun, I was reading up on the rt66 Korean War weapons site, that Canada started making Bren Guns for the Nationalists, in 7.92mm. Now, a ZB26 is in 7.92mm, but has several distinct features, notably a finned barrel. I guess they figured that 7.92mm was a better caliber for the Nationalists, since they already used a lot of Kraut stuff. I also saw a reference to the Chinese making Bren's in their own workshops. As an MG to make, its not a bad choice at all. Anyway, a 7.92mm Bren would have had a straight magazine, just like the ZB26 had. Later, the Chinese would recaliber these to 7.62x39, some of which ended up in Indochina.

[Woodard]

7.62x39 or by 54?