However, after the beginning of China's 1979 border war with Vietnam, Chinese combat units found that the SKS carbine's capacity for long-range precision fire was of little use in the mountain jungles of the border region; as a result those units were hastily re-equipped with assault rifles. Rifles of the AK family (including both the Chinese army’s Type 56 auto and the Vietnamese army’s AK-47s and AKM) are for structural reasons relatively inaccurate, and because the Chinese army has historically favored precision fire (despite generally having firearms ill-suited to that task), the Sino-Vietnamese war directly hastened development of the PLA’s Type 81 assault rifle. By the time border conflict broke out again between China and Vietnam in 1983, the Chinese military had already been completely re-equipped with their more accurate, precise Type 81 assault rifle. However the Type 56 carbine still remains in service with Chinese militias and reserve forces. The Type 56 also is in front line use as a drill and ceremony rifle.