You can't win a war with small arms...

[johnwilliamson062]

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2...rebels/100461/

Turns out you can improvise the rest. I don't think there is a lot here than hasn't been done elsewhere. Maybe orienting tubes with an Iphone or using a PS controller to control a turret.
When do you think the related PS game will be coming out for that one?

The trebuchet is a bit odd. The use of a ?wheel? instead of a straight arm on the weight may increase power significantly though. Seems to me like their ratios are off a bit though.

[DaleA]

Wow. Just...wow.

[Ben Towe]

Pretty slick aren't they? Imagine what they could do with some more modern equipment.

[Hunterpeaks]

Looks like welding, machining skills and a lathe are pretty darn important things to have.

[Strafer Gott]

Anybody still doubt the indomitable human spirit? You might destroy these guys, but you're not going to break their will.

[UtopiaTexasG19]

Those that are alive after the end of the fighting will be free.....and have no ear drums left.

[mag1911]

I saw a similar "vehicle" in Copenhagen used by the Danish Resistance in WWII. It takes brave men to fight in those things against real tanks.

[SPEMack618]

Eh, it's not a matter of fighting the tanks. Using one of those technicals against a convoy of soft skin fuel truck will take more tanks out of the fight than any anti-tank platoon ever good.

Amazing.

In a similar vain, and it goes along with our discussion on resistance to tryanny and the 2nd Amendment, I suggest everyone read this:

http://chrishernandezauthor.com/2013...eapons-of-war/

[johnwilliamson062]

Using them to bring up reinforcements in urban firefights would be my use.

I'm not sure how many tanks they are bringing into cities. They are pretty vulnerable in narrow streets. Not everyone gets an Abrams. The T-72M is the best they have and it has pretty outdated armor.

[TXAZ]

And we're griping about ammo prices going up.....

Wow.

[SHE3PDOG]

The Syrian Liberation Army definitely has some tricks up their sleeves. That "Sham" vehicle is freaking sweet!

[Tickling]

^ I would not want to be the person inside of it.. looks like its only good for small arms fire.

[Dr Big Bird PhD]

One can only imagine what would happen on our home front in a similar environment

[mag1911]

I suspect the Syrian regulars bring tanks (arty, acft) to bear on the rebels and their vehicles at every opportunity.

[FoghornLeghorn]

Looks like Clint Eastwood's bus in "The Gauntlet."

[lcpiper]

That armor they are using looks to be good for maybe up too 7.62mm or so, but something like a .50cal would cut right through it.

Still, if you are careful in where and how you employ them then they can be great assets.

If these guys are truely fighting for their freedom I don't understand why we aren't helping them more. Are they the "other guys" freedom fighters? Or is America too tired to be America right now?

[Dr Big Bird PhD]

While I do not know anything about the Syrian civil war or the politics associated with it, I must say I am fervently against US supporting either side in such altercations. Interventionism at any level needs to be phased out.

[lcpiper]

Interventionism at any level needs to be phased out.

That's just what a whole lot of people were saying in the good years leading up to and into WWI. In the histroty books we called it Isolationism. It didn't work out very well, we still got into a fight, and we still had many families hurt.

You can't stick your head in the sand, you can't be the bully on the corner or the world's policeman either.

But you can get your intel people out into the world, keep them watching and looking for real threats and when one shows it's head, cut it off quick, clean, leave nothing but suspicion and no one to point a dirty finger at.

[Ambishot]

These fighters clearly think outside of the box.

The photojournalism coverage of the syrian conflict has also focused on the urban sniper tactics implemented by the free syrian army. Here is a slideshow from reuters that depicts some of the sniper tactics. One that I found interesting was the use of sheets being strung up between buildings to provide concealment from government snipers.

http://in.reuters.com/news/pictures/...NRTR3BJAH#a=19

[Patriot86]

I am wary of what I see in the news in regards to either side. I remember reading an article in the daily mail about an elite "black widow" type sniper, a woman who took up the cause after the Regime killed her husband and children.

She was supposed to be some sort of expert sniper now, equipped with a scoped FAL. The problem is almost every photo of her "set up" waiting for the Syrian army broke every rule in the book, like standing right IN a window, barrel of the rifle sticking fully out the window for all to see. I doubt if she was even an actual sniper that she lasted long.


On the flip side though this is a story this is an example of how you cannot easily destroy the will of a determined enemy. You have guys in technical and guys with trebuchets going up against T-72’s, BMP’s and Hind helicopters.

[Dr Big Bird PhD]

That's just what a whole lot of people were saying in the good years leading up to and into WWI. In the history books we called it Isolationism. It didn't work out very well, we still got into a fight, and we still had many families hurt.

Isolationism =/= Non-Interventionism
And that's probably because the history books like to make us look like the good guys that is everyone's older brother that needs to clean Europe's mess up. While I am not very educated on WWI, I must say that our "interventionism" and poor handling of post-WWI politics *directly* caused the rise of Hitler and WWII.

You can't stick your head in the sand, you can't be the bully on the corner or the world's policeman either.

Why do we have to be the world's police? Hmmm? Why can't it be Sweden, or Australia? Or better yet why don't we practice a level of decency and assume people can handle themselves and keep their own self-interests in order. We can't even fund our own domestic programs and problems, and you want to police the world like we're the Romans?

But you can get your intel people out into the world, keep them watching and looking for real threats and when one shows it's head, cut it off quick, clean, leave nothing but suspicion and no one to point a dirty finger at.

Idk about you but this sounds a lot like a "Secret Police" that sentences non-US citizens to the death penalty pre-preemptively and without trial. Many people call this FASCISM.

[SPEMack618]

Eh, everybody bumbled the post WWI peace process. Some French Marshall correctly summed it up when he decried Versailles as a 20 year cease fire, not a peace treaty.

The rebels seem to be holding there own, and have a few pieces of armor from what I've read. Looked like T-55s and T-62s.

They adoing what every insurgency ever has done, not fighting to win, fighting just to not loose.

Them boys got a lot of heart.

[scrubcedar]

I've said over and over again on this very forum, it's not about the weapon. If you take away (insert type of gun here) then something else will be used.

I've even had old veterans here treat lightly the idea that whatever gets banned will simply mean something is used in it's place.
The next time you talk to an anti "assault weapon" hunter or skeet shooter ask them this question.
"How long do you think it will be after a truly effective "assault weapons ban" kicks in that the first mass murderer uses (insert hunting rifle or double barrel shotgun whichever is appropriate here) and then they come after your weapon of choice?"

A shooter armed with what the press would call a "military sniper rifle" could pick off quite a few people in any city before being stopped. Make sure to mention your hunting buddy would call the same thing his favorite deer hunting rifle.

How about asking your skeet buddy how many people could be killed with 00 buck, his weapon, twenty minutes, and a helpless bunch of students in locked classrooms. Then ask him how long after the incident he figured it would be before his over under was put on the banned list by name and model.
Violence is like water, it has to go somewhere, dam the stream here, it will find a way around or over the top.

[RonR6]

wow no ATF over there

[Newton24b]

so intervention is always good?

cia create alqeada because it was messing up the soviet system, look at how well that worked out for us.

look at eqypt, instead of a democracy as planned/predicted, its becom run by a fundamental islamic group