U.S. SOLDIERS USING IRAQI GUNS

G.I.s in Iraq have a new weapon of choice: Iraqi AK-47s.

“The sol­diers (of the 4th Infantry Dvision) based around Baqouba (Iraq) are from an armor bat­tal­ion, which means they have tanks, Humvees and armored per­son­nel car­ri­ers. But they are short on rifles,” the Associated Press reports.
A four-man tank crew is issued two M4 assault rifles and four 9mm pis­tols, rely­ing mostly on the tank’s fire­power for pro­tec­tion.
But now they are engaged in guer­rilla war­fare, patrolling nar­row roads and goat trails where tanks are less effec­tive. Troops often find them­selves dis­mount­ing to patrol in smaller vehi­cles, mak­ing rifles essen­tial.
“We just do not have enough rifles to equip all of our sol­diers. So in cer­tain cir­cum­stances we allow sol­diers to have an AK-47. They have to demon­strate some pro­fi­ciency with the weapon … demon­strate an abil­ity to use it,” said Lt. Col. Mark Young, com­man­der of the 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. 

It’s great that our sol­diers have been able to adapt them­selves to the situ­aiton they’ve found them­selves in. But there couldn’t be a clearer exam­ple of how poorly their Pentagon bosses pre­pared for the Iraqi after­war.
THERE’S MORE: “I don’t think it’s fair to call the use of the AK by dis­mounted mech­a­nized forces in Iraq poor plan­ning by the Pentagon. Armor crews have always been under-gunned in the US mil­i­tary,” writes Defense Tech pal Wyatt Earp. “The Army needs to do what the Marines do, which is give every­one an M-16 (rifle) as well as sup­ply more M-203s (grenade lanuch­ers) to the units and start hand­ing out MP-5s (sub­ma­chine guns) and more Combat Shotguns.”
AND MORE: “The sur­pris­ing — shock­ing? — part of this arti­cle is that highly trained tankers are being dis­mounted to patrol on foot and in humvees. What bet­ter tes­ti­mony to the US Army’s need for constabulary-type units, maybe mod­eled on the US Constabulary formed in 1946 to police the occu­pa­tion of Germany,” replies one mem­ber of the JO Forum.
AND MORE: “It’s not just the rifles,” Phil Carter adds. “Let’s think of all the things that a reg­u­lar civil­ian police force would have — hand-held radios, shot­guns, flex­cuffs, hand­cuffs, batons, shields, etc. Then let’s com­pare that to what an armor bat­tal­ion has — less than one M16 per sol­dier. These units are hav­ing to buy tons and tons of equip­ment to become more like cops.”
AND MORE: Maybe it’s just a coin­ci­dence, but the Army has just announced that it’s speed­ing up the devel­op­ment of a poten­tial replace­ment of its assault weapons.

August 26th, 2003 | War Update | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.