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Old September 17, 2004, 12:41 PM   #1
six 4 sure
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Small Arms in Iraq

I know it isn’t a shock to anyone to hear the vast number of weapons, but I was amazed to hear exactly what the Iraqis were turning in.

A couple of weeks ago I got to talk to the husband of a friend. He was stateside for a couple of weeks of R&R before heading back to Sader City. When he’s not getting shot at in his Bradley, he oversees a weapons buy back program, and being a fellow firearms enthusiast, he filled me in on what was being turned in. I was shocked.

I wasn’t surprised to hear about the various soviet arms, but was surprised to hear the number of mint surplus WW2 rifles that were showing up. Cases of Enfields, Garands, and Mosins were common. He had collected countless grease guns and the like. He had even run across a couple mint 1911A1’s. He said several of the weapons were of museum quality and would head back to the states, the rest will/are being destroyed.

The best story though was regarding RPG’s. The Iraqis are convinced the US has a “special” kind of radar that can affect the flight of their RPG’s. The Iraqis combat this by covering the nose of the rocket with duct tape. The duct tape defeats the “special” radar. However, it has a noticeable side effect. It makes them horribly inaccurate.


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Old September 17, 2004, 07:40 PM   #2
Jamie Young
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Quote:
I wasn’t surprised to hear about the various soviet arms, but was surprised to hear the number of mint surplus WW2 rifles that were showing up. Cases of Enfields, Garands, and Mosins were common.
That's where everything went after WWII.

I have a close family friend that owns a German Mauser with an Israeli star of David right next to the Waffen (sp?)stamp.

Pretty ironic.
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Old September 20, 2004, 09:58 AM   #3
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While we were buddying up to Iran, the USSR was getting cozy with Iraq. The USSR sent tons of small arms from the Great Patriotic War to Iraq, surplus and battlefield pick ups from GPW. Lots of stuff from China as well as domestic production.
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Old September 20, 2004, 11:04 AM   #4
Tallbill
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I just love the fact that my interpreter here (in Afghanistan) carries an ak with a folding stock and roughly 300 rounds. Now thats a frickin interpreter that I want in my truck.
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Old September 20, 2004, 02:43 PM   #5
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Report in Washington Times the other day about a Pentagon survey of Iraqi munitions. Apparently, Saddam stockpiled an arsenal in tonnage nearly equal to ours. 650,000 to 1,000.000 tons in Iraq as opposed to our 1.2 to 1.4 million tons.

Main contributors were Russia, Red China and France. During the war last year, two M1A1 tanks were knocked out by the latest in Russian anti-tank weaponry (Knornet). Between 500 to 1,000 of these weapons was shipped to Syria which in turn shipped some or all of them to Iraq. All of the above is a violation of U.N sanctions.

So, we have three permanent members of the U.N Security Council violating their own sanctions.

So far in Iraq 8,600 munitions dumps have been found. Some of the major 130 dumps are huge, covering many square miles.
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Old September 20, 2004, 09:46 PM   #6
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I have a family friend that just got back from Iraq and he was in charge of weapons buys and disposal.

Tom Greene (the movie/TV show guy) actually stayed with them for a few weeks and helped blow up the stuff.

I wonder if ArmySon has met any famous people over there? Besides himself.

I personally would have a hard time blowing that stuff up. I know I'd defanitely would be trash picking.
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Old September 20, 2004, 09:55 PM   #7
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I also know a guy that was part of the "disposal" teams. He said he's actualy gotten to fire a few of them before the were destroyed...said it was pretty cool to shoot weapons he probably will never have the chance to handle again, but like stated already...he said it was heart breaking to have to destroy some of the realy nice pieces...
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