According to a recent piece of public procurement information from China’s “Military Weapons and Equipment Purchasing Information Network” about the purchase of “digital gun sights”, a new individual soldier firearm called “QBU-191 5.8mm precision rifle” seems to have become a part of the firearms equipment sequence of the People’s Liberation Army.
In fact, prior to this, there was no such thing as the so-called precision rifle in the series of individual firearms equipped by the Chinese Army, and the only thing that could be close to it was Type 88 sniper rifle, according to military analyst Junwu.
Type 88 sniper rifle is the second domestically produced sniper rifle developed by China. China ’s first domestically made sniper rifle is a Type 79/85 sniper rifle that mimics the former Soviet Union ’s SVD 7.62mm sniper rifle. Although the gun is powerful, it has a long body and a heavyweight, and China has later developed a new generation of Type 8 sniper rifle without support plates.
Compared with the previous Type 79/85 sniper rifle, Type 88 sniper rifle made great progress in many aspects. First, the body of the gun uses a large number of composite materials and adopts a non-supporting structure design, so lightweight and short gun body, it is more convenient for individual soldiers to carry.
Secondly, unlike the 7.62mm rifle bullets, Type 88 sniper rifle uses 5.8mm small-caliber rifle bullets, which can not only increase soldiers’ one-time ammunition carrying capacity, improve the continuous combat capability, but also help reduce the physical burden of individual soldiers.
However, due to the fact that when designing Type 88 sniper rifle, China still has a certain gap with its foreign counterparts in terms of sniper rifle design. Therefore, some performance aspects of Type 88 sniper rifle are unsatisfactory, such as due to emphasis on versatile ammunitions, Type 88 sniper rifle does not have special sniper bullets, which results in poor long-range accuracy. Its accuracy in effective range distance is only comparable to that of foreign precision shooter rifles and is poorer than a real dedicated sniper rifle.
In addition, the gun uses a semi-automatic principle and is generally equipped for use in infantry squads, and these performances are basically the same as those of foreign accurate shooter rifles. Therefore, in summary, Type 88 sniper rifle is more like a precision shooter rifle in positioning and use. Therefore, this is also the main reason why many military fans to define the 88 sniper rifle as a precision shooter rifle.
Of course, for most ordinary infantry squads, the significance of equipping them with precision shooter rifles/precision rifles is also very obvious. After all, for the application of general infantry squads, they do not perform sniper tasks like professional sniper squads. There is no need to equip very expensive special sniper rifles.
Therefore, “QBU-191 5.8mm precision rifle” appearing on the “All Arms Procurement Information Network” this time is likely to be a new generation of precision shooter rifle/precision rifle that replaces the current type 88 sniper rifle, although there are not many public reports about it – it was just regarded as the sniper version of QBZ-191 assault rifle based on its unveiled pictures.
However, it is inferred from general common sense that the “QBU-191 5.8 mm precision rifle” will generally be enhanced in terms of shooting accuracy, and it is likely to be equipped with a new generation of 5.8 mm special sniper shells, which can provide a lot of accuracies when shooting targets in long distances.
In addition, judging from the information released by the “Military Weapons and Equipment Procurement Information Network” this time, “QBU-191 5.8mm precision rifle” will be equipped with a “digital gunsight”. Compared with ordinary optical sights equipped with Type 88 sniper rifle, not only its aiming accuracy is higher, but also it is more conducive to use at night and other environments.
Especially the “digital gun sight” is also more convenient to use, and this is undoubtedly more advantageous for improving the shooting ability of ordinary soldiers, especially recruits. In addition, the information published from the “Military Weapons and Equipment Procurement Information Network” also specifically stated that the “digital gun sight” equipped on “QBU-191 5.8 mm precision rifle” also has functions such as day and night image acquisition and transmission. Undoubtedly, it also improves the information collection and reconnaissance capabilities of ordinary infantry squads under informationized multi-arms joint operations.
Therefore, in summary, after “QBU-191 5.8mm precision rifle” of the “digital gun sight” enters service in the future, the overall combat effectiveness of the Chinese army’s ordinary infantry squads, especially their long-range reconnaissance and sniper killing abilities will be greatly improved.
At the same time, this is also in line with the requirements of future high-tech local warfare against ordinary infantry teams and individual soldiers in the military. Therefore, no matter from which point of view, the significance of the appearance of “QBU-191 5.8mm precision rifle” equipped with “digital gun sight” is huge, said Junwu.