See YouTube video of battle on Haifa Street (Sunni insurgent stronghold located 1.5 miles from the Green Zone).
You can see one soldier hold the AK-47 steadily, and the other soldier's AK-47 would jump a lot in his hands. Interesting.
i
M14's are in strong demand over there from what I've read.
Wes
HOLY CRAP! You too can OWN the big .50 cal shown knocking the walls down.... be the first kid on your block to have one.
LLB
I heard that in Afganistan the round from a M-16 would penetrate the 6 layers of rugs the enemy was wearing at the high altitudes, but it would not drop them. They could still return fire after being hit. . . . .Also, when the US Army female (Jessica ?) was captured in Iraq, what happened was her unit managed to put up a good defense, and then all their M-16' started to jam. . . . .I wonder if the bottom liners ever figured out how much it cost to have our troops continually cleaning their weapons, at every chance they get?
No - the AK is now commonly used there by some American military units, due to its superior reliability under the area conditions and its superior stopping power. Some units more or less informally adopted it unitwide - and some American soldiers use it on a "pick-up" individual basis there.
No $4 to park! No $6 admission!
It seemed to me that the soldier who shot the AK well (held it steady) was an American, and the one who shot badly was an Iraqi. It was kind of hard to tell, but I heard some foreign words close to the end.
i
As I understand it, it's not so nearly as much to do with the differences in terminal ballistics as it is with the fact that it sounds like one of the locals shooting, when used in the urban environs. Keeps the local sympathisers from coming out of the woodwork, so to speak, when there is an encounter. For the ranges and accuracy required, they work OK.
Cheers Trevor Jones
The dudes with the AK's were probably Iraqi Army troops. Dave
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It has everything to do with the terminal ballistics. Tangos hit with the .223 keep coming. People hit with the 7.62 go down and stay down.
Baloney. US troops hang their .223's over their shoulder and use the AK47 for the good work it does. They would probably ditch the .223's altogether if they could get away with it.
OK? They're winning the war in Iraq.
Didn't they have exactly that problem 40 years ago in Vietnam, with M16's? Has someone learned anything?
Yea check out that 50 caliber rifle i bet you could shoot down an airplane with that gun and the rate of fire! almost two rounds per minute if the army was to make fully automatic 50 caliber rifles and put 4 of them together they could shoot down all kinds of planes
- oh wait - the army already did that and they don't use machine guns to shoot down airplanes anymore somebody needs to tell the VPC
-JC
be the first kid on your block to have one.
Since the Barrett .50s were first designed, built, and sold to the civilian market, that's not crap, that's cool! :)
All you need is a several thousand bucks for the rifle and a couple bucks or so a shot. It's gotta be fun, though, to shoot a rifle capable of hitting a 2X2' or smaller target at a mile and a half.
Now if I could only do it -- even if I had one. :)
Sometimes the Army knows a good idea when it sees one.
"The United States Army named the Barrett M107 as one of the Top Ten Greatest Inventions of 2005."
I'm going off reports coming out of our soldiers in Afganistan. They reference similar reasons given by US soldiers. That's what is being said, so thats what I quote.
As far as the OK comment, there are a pile of guys that seem to think the only gun worth having is one that can drop round after round on top of each other at lots of yards. The AK and it's ammo are not that, but they work for what they are used for, sub 300 yard ranges, and accurate enough to hit the target.
Knowing the number of lawyers involved in command level decisions, I see little likleyhood that the use of the AK is anything but an authorised useage. That is to say, someone in the JAG staff has given the commanders authority or clearance to authorise their troops to use these. I would bet that there are at least one set of rules or orders that lays out the procedure for using them, quite in excess of simply picking it up. All in aid of avoiding accusations of Geneva convention violations and the court cases that go with.
I am a little surprised at the number of silencers I am seeing in the film footage that is out there, too. Seems that the official line has swung in their favor again.
Cheers Trevor Jones
Silencers/sound-suppressors only work on subsonic ammo. Other than that, you still have the supersonic *crack* of the bullet's shockwave. So maybe it saves some ears, but the bullet is traveling faster than Mach 1, so the enemy is _down_ before they ever hear anything.
As to using the enemy's armaments, it goes without saying. They are doing the same thing to us with our high-explosives that they stole at the beginning of the war. Many IED's are made out of American munitions.
War is the dirties of businesses to be in. I don't think that *rules* should supercede one's survival. I know what I would do if my own life was in jeopardy. Anything and everything.
Lg
Once upon a time, a guy from the Soviet Union booked with a Mig 25. We had heard things about it and thought it must be something greatly advanced since it flew fast and high and could get our high altitude bombers.
It was just a big engine on an airframe that was going to haul ass, make a shot and land using ground control. It started rusting on the flightline in Japan.
We figured it had to be a multi-mission aircraft like our F-series aircraft. The Soviets had one goal for that airplane and it met it.
The same thinking goes for the M16. We want light weight, lots of ammo, accuracy, ect. Soviets wanted something easy to carry, fair amount of ammo and it would kill someone in the near vicinity after being dropped in mud and maintained by a conscript.
I think the Soviets made the better battle rifle. My collection includes the 1903, M1, various mausers, MAS's, Manlicher-Styre (spelling) straight pulls, jap bolt actions, sks's and Swiss K-31's.
While I've always wanted a AR-15, it never really got me to the point of laying out cash since I think it is fairly useless except for shooting highpower where ammo costs could make an arguement for it.
Wes
Yep, I remember that. The guy's name was Viktor Belenko. John Barron wrote a book about him, called "MiG Pilot". I have a copy. It's a good read.
Sweet! MUCH better than my latest:
-- Robert Sturgeon Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
No it wasn't the "same" problem. The problem in 'Nam was that thanks to greed and political influence the gummint "decided" to specify a gunpowder (made by only one manufacturer... surprise, surprise) that caused the M16s to jam like mad! Who cares about the war and GIs dying when there is a tidy profit to be made! Eventually embarrassments like soldiers writing home to mom BEGGING for them to send them guns that worked exposed the whole scam.
That problem has not occurred since. I'm sure the current jams are just normal things that occur with normal gun use and maintenance. The M16 isn't all that bad a mechanism, though I personally think something along the lines of the NATO German H&K is somewhat more reliable. (They do mash hell out of brass though!)
I find little surprise that soldiers are using AK-47s in that it is what the Iraqi army uses and we are there training them. I presume that means lots are around and our soldiers are expected to be proficient with them. They are no magic piece. Bullet diameter is large but velocity is low. This gives them short range advantage but that isn't everything as someone already noted.
That wasn't the only problem. I had a colt AR15 that misfired so often that I gave it back! It couldn't whack the primer hard enough to set the rounds off. It misfired/non-fired so often I took it in to the gun shop and said give me my f*ing money back. This this is a piece of shit.
Since that experience, I will never feel 100% *safe* with that weapon.
Lg
I was a little late for Vietnam (early '80s) but the M-16 was still a piece of shit.
There was still a few originals left, even then (without the "forward assist", only in boot camp) but as I remember it the A1 version could still bind up with the bolt open.
I'm not saying they bind up every time, they can keep cycling when the gas tube is good and yellow, but I never had to trust my life to one and for that I'm happy.
I read that the first were offered as low maintenance, came without tools for cleaning. Imagine the surprise of the poor f****rs who got that story.
John
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