The Lowly SKS

[Targan]

MP44. Surprisingly, getting ammo wasn't impossible. Difficult mind, but I kept it fed for almost a month.

Wow, kickin' it ole skool!

[Panther Al]

You've no idea: I talked about in another thread 'lo ago, but when they took our tanks away we started doing dismounted patrols. Since the M1 only has two rifles, its interesting to decide who gets to walk about with a pistol (OK, we dismounted the 240's, but the point remains).

Did a raid in the Fallujah weapons market, and scooped up all sorts of things - usual AK and sov bits of kit, plus a sterling, and a pair of beat up MP5's - that was more beat up then the prize of the raid. The prize was the pair of MP44's and an Iranian MG3.

Since we already scored a MP40, and we did have fritz helmets...


When higher found out about what my tank crew was walking about with, shitting a brick is a bit of understatement. God, that first year of Iraq was a ton of fun before the PC crap started and everybody went mickey mouse with a vengeance.

[Targan]

I remember when you talked about it a while ago. If higher up forced you guys to patrol on foot why didn't they just issue you extra rifles?

[Panther Al]

Same reason they wouldn't issue more ammo, or let us carry grenades: The commander didn't want us to get too aggressive and upset the locals.

Only 40mm ammo I scored was by stealing it from an MP unit, and *all* of our 5.56 and 9mm resupply came from buying or seizing it from the locals.

Actually came *this* close to getting an Article 15 because of this: the HQ unit I was attached to was hoarding some 5.56 tracer, and the scout platoons was down to about 60rds a man. So I 'accidentally' gave them a couple of cases. My Chain was about to throw the book at me till the platoon sergeants pointed out to the commander that he would have fun trying to explain to higher - for they would make sure I pushed it the max - just why I felt it was needed to steal ammo to get it to a line platoon.

[B.T.]

MP44

*Taking this a little more OT - hope you don't mind!*

Hi Panther Al,

I have heard (and read) million-zillion rumours about the reliability and the actual handling of the MP44, but I never met someone, who had live experiences with it. So, can you say something about the rifle and how it worked? Very interested in this.

[Panther Al]

Well, considering they was older than dirt, and hadn't lived in an arms room in quite a long time, rather well. Fed nicely - reasonably accurate once I tuned them in, and once they was given a good going over, reasonably reliable. Nothing world beating mind: Not as reliable as an AK, not as accurate as the M4's, but all things considered, not too bad. Honestly, I think most of the issues, minor that they was, was more age related.

There was a serious concern if they was going to be safe to fire in the first place, but - and I shit you not here - since I actually downloaded a lot of interesting things to my laptop figuring I would have lots of downtime to fiddle about with things, I had the engineering drawings of the MP44 and by using those and basic common sense knowledge I was able to make reasonably sure they would be.


And, if anyone wants copies of those drawings, let me know. I don't think its frowned on to have them as long as you don't use them?

[ArmySGT.]

Heh, buying ammo from the locals.

My MP unit bought a few RPG-7s and rockets from the locals. Using an AT-4 was going to need special permission from god.

There was talk of using them if it came down to raid and resistance was heavy.

Fortunately we never encountered heavy resistance during a raid. We always worked over 4 or more villages like we were planning raids, so the bad guys couldn't figure out where to concentrate.

I was able to scrounge quite a bit of ammo from the clearing barrels. Officers and Senior NCOs seem to get embarrassed that a live round was ejected and seldom pick them up. The other Support troops seemed to be terrified of being found with more ammunition.

From April 03-April 04 I had three (found) magazines filled with 5.56. and another 20 or so loose rounds of 9mmP.

Check points yielded every sort of AK imaginable but occasionally a Sterling or a Beretta model 12 and a Beretta M9 lost by a ARNG unit attached to our BN.

[Panther Al]

Yeah - a lot of the ammo that we didn't get form the locals was found by the clearing barrels.

Kinda sad when you think about it that front line units was forced to act in such a way just to get enough ammo that we could go out with at least one mag.

[Tegyrius]

Hell, I woulda mailed you guys some in a care package if I'd known, but there were a couple of years when Lake City was running three shifts and you still couldn't get 5.56 on the civilian market for love or money.

(Actually, I wouldn't have. ATF has enough of a file on me as it is. But it's the sentiment that counts, right? )

- C.

[Webstral]

Not upsetting the locals. I'm glad to see policy was not all tore up just for my rotation.

There are things you do that upset the locals that actually make them happy, and there are things you do that genuinely upset them. We really struggle to differentiate between the two. For instance, there's the presence of foreign troops in the host nation. Yes, that upsets the locals. It surely does. But when given the choice of foreign troops and anarchy, the locals will choose the foreign troops 99% of the time.

The locals want a strong police presence. Most people in a bad neighborhood wants a strong, effective police presence. The ones who don't want a strong police presence are making their living from a weak police presence. Do we care how they feel?

My NG unit had an amnesty for M16 magazines right after I joined. It was pointed out that guys were going out short of mags and ammunition. No questions would be asked when soldiers came in with magazines. One NCO brought in a duffel bag and emptied it into the bin being used to collect magazines. I just happened to be there at the time. I have to confess I was very curious to see what would happen, because the first sergeant was standing in the doorway while the duffel disgorged its considerable contents into the bin. All eyes went to the first sergeant. All he said to the soldier in question was: "Thanks for bringing those back, sergeant."

I never saw an SKS while I was in Iraq. I saw a lot of very interesting variants of the AK, but no SKS. One guy came through with a stainless steel AK-47 that had been cut down to machine pistol size and given considerable bling. I wondered how he would control the recoil once the shooting started. Still, a very sweet-looking piece.

[DigTw0Grav3s]

Maybe I'm being a stupid civvie, but why would mags for an issued rifle be contraband? Over the issued limit, or something?

[ArmySGT.]

Maybe I'm being a stupid civvie, but why would mags for an issued rifle be contraband? Over the issued limit, or something?

There not considered an expendable item. A Unit is required to have so many on hand. Now Day to Day in Garrison, or to an FTX not a big deal. No one is going to need to draw their 7 mag issue. However not every magazine gets turned in after an FTX.

Going to War. The Commander has all his pre-inspections to do and the Armory Officer will have to come up with the required number for a complete issue to a unit.

I have never been in a Unit that couldn't pull together 100% after such a call for magazines; and still NCOs and some smart E4s still came up with extras.

[Panther Al]

There not considered an expendable item. A Unit is required to have so many on hand. Now Day to Day in Garrison, or to an FTX not a big deal. No one is going to need to draw their 7 mag issue. However not every magazine gets turned in after an FTX.

Going to War. The Commander has all his pre-inspections to do and the Armory Officer will have to come up with the required number for a complete issue to a unit.

I have never been in a Unit that couldn't pull together 100% after such a call for magazines; and still NCOs and some smart E4s still came up with extras.

Same here: The only reason I think we came up 100% before our deployment is that our supply sergeant did a drug deal to have a couple of hundred mags 'appear' in his supply room.

By and large, a lot of us bought our own mags: they was generally better. Then, that wasn't a big deal. But over the last year they are cracking down hard on personally purchased equipment - and banning anything that didn't come out of the supply room according to my friends that are still in. They are not too happy about that as the stuff they buy from Ranger Joe's, Magpul, or US Cav is typically a *lot* better than issue stuff. This is damned if you do, damned if you don't: By having Joe buy his own shit, the unit saves money that could be spent on other things: however, if things worked the way they should, Joe shouldn't have too... so... *shrugs*


(No, thats not a For Real Drug Deal: its slang for doing side deals with others to get things on the down low- so higher doesn't have to know about it - and they usually don't want to!)

[HorseSoldier]

I was in theater when they announced that Magpul PMags were now banned, along with anything else that wasn't USGI. This was kind of a pain for me, since all I was using were my PMags I either bought or got issued to me when I was SOF support and a Surefire 60 rounder. A lot of guys in my unit (probably about half the NCOs and E-4s who'd been around a little while) were in the same boat, to one extent or another, and we just kind of ignored it.

We got away with that while the "ban" was in effect by virtue of being about as remote from flagpoles as you could get in A'stan and still be affiliated with Big Army. It would not surprise me at all if the flew in extra sergeants major to BAF and KAF to stand outside DFACs and MWR computer/phone centers to check people for non-issue mags.

I say ban in quotes because apparently whoever announced it got slapped down after a couple weeks and it went away. It was kind of a dumb idea, since all sorts of conventional and cool kid units have purchasing mags with unit funds for a while now and some of the banned magazines (at least PMags) have a NSN assigned to them and can be ordered through the system.

Edit to Add: The above mentioned ban is the official, Big Army one. No representation is made about any unit-level regulation invention, (mis)interpretation, etc., that individuals may be subject to. Being old enough to remember the days before universal reflective belt use, nothing can really surprise me anymore along those lines.

[James Langham]

One of the commonest tricks to acquire magazines is a thorough check of bivi areas after other units have been through. On field exercises I always used to get my advance party to do a thorough check to see what had been left behind. A couple spare always came in useful at the end of an ex when you had lost some.

Shooting competitions were another one where we seemed to end up with extra - most units wanted to get away quick (especially when it rained), we used to be the last to leave and check around again. For some reason we were never ever down magazines (having someone with OCD as your storeman is another good tip - especially when you don't tell cadets how many of the item you started with, only when they have enough to return them!).

When the SA80A2s came in, one of my ex cadets did me a favour and turned up with a carrier bag of the old A1 mags that guys in his (regular) unit no longer needed and wanted to find me a good home for until we changed to L98A2s (with A2 magazines).

Not bad knowing all these tricks and being an officer... really I just know to trust my senior NCOs to look after me!