Fresh from Christopher in Iraq:
Oz, Thought you might find these photos interesting. Three days before we graduated the first battalion of the New Iraqi Army, an OH-58 was patrolling several kilometers out from out compound. They use a pulsar flare to look not only into the night, but also down into the earth. They spotted a large object under what appeared to be a new digging of the earth. What the MPs found was a cache of about 80 rounds for the 120mm mortar. With the troops massing together with trainers and media from around the world, this was just the sort of catastrophy we were hoping to avoid. Obviously, a tense mood set in for graduation. The photos show French-made copies of the Russian 120mm round. They look like US munitions because the French use English and US-style markings for their exported munitions. The green rounds are actually Russian, and I believe the gray rounds are Hungarian. The Fedayeen MO is to drive out in a pickup just before sunset and drop a mortar tube and baseplate onto the ground. They fire about half a dozen or so rounds, throw the whole mortar into the back--if time permits, and drive off into a populated area. Mostly they drop 60mm or 82mm rounds. A 120mm with this many rounds would have put us in quite a bit of hurt. Nice catch, huh? The other photo is one of the "door guns" for the back two windows of the hummer. Pretty standard stuff for convoys. Christopher
|
Soooo .... the Frogs .. er, I mean the French has some explaining to do. Why would they make 120mm mortar round to look like US munition?? And, second, why the f**k did they sell it to Saddam in the first place ???
In the last pictures, Chris is holding the Type56 AKM as a "door gun" when out with a Humbee convoy. Notice the buttstock is missing ... several MODCC members have expressed their support to a project to send an OD or Desert Tan synthetic AK stock set either from KVAR or RobArms (if they have it) to Chris in Iraq as part of the care package. Anyone else wish to participate pls post here
www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=8&f=32&t=174797 or IM me. I just need to know how many members will support this idea.