Michael Cessna is a former Active Duty United States Marine, a long-time personal protection specialist, security and defense analyst, military subjects instructor, general information researcher and amateur historian. He has been contributing security and defense writing since 2015.
In our first installment of this series, we talked about the FN FAL, as one of the “other” assault rifles of the world, post-World War 2. Today, we will talk about the next one in line. (Also, there will be a Part 3 to this story, coming later.)
In the aftermath of World War 2, Germany was a shambles: it had been heavily bombed, many millions of its civilians, as well as the bulk of its professional armed forces, had been killed or displaced, and the country itself had been occupied and partitioned off between the victorious Allied powers, and its industry was severely restricted in what it was allowed to manufacture. (We are not here to discuss the morality of those actions; that is another conversation, entirely.) For Germany’s many weaponsmiths, they had to either find something else to make, or they had to leave the country for other nations, nations in need of innovative weapons designers.
German soldiers armed with HK G3 rifles exiting a Marder IFV
The world of 1946 was not “standardized“, as we would think of the term, now. There were few industries that even attempted to design to internationally accepted standards. As of 1946, a quick (and thoroughly unscientific) glance shows that there were some ten or eleven different rifle calibers in “widespread” use in the world, minimum, depending upon how one describes “widespread” and “rifle caliber“.
Spain – still recovering from a brutal civil war in the mid-1930’s, as well as a grain blight and a recovering agriculture industry that caused severe food shortages during WW2 – had largelysat out the war, but had had paid careful attention to its course and the technological developments emerging from it. After the war was over, Spain decided that it needed to catch up to the other major powers, beginning by revamping its pre-war small arms inventory.
The design is rugged, robust, reliable and adaptable. As well, it is a relatively simple system to manufacture, making great use of stamped-steel construction, rivaling (almost) even the AK-47 in its simplicity. It is also highly modular, able to swap major components between various models, in a manner only approached (but not equaled) by the AR-15/M-16/M4 series.
MP5 A3. This is the retractable buttstock version of the MP5
The G3 rifle and its many legendary derivatives – the H&K MP-5, HK21, HK33, SG-1, and PSG-1 – would go on to be adopted by over 40 nations and anyone else who could lay hands on them, and with manufacturing licenses being sold to some 18 countries, there were – and are – plenty to go around.
HK21 Light Machine Gun
The G3 and it’s descendants have fought – and continue to fight – in virtually every theater of conflict in the world, today. Whatever conflict zone you might find yourself in, you will likely find G3’s in abundance; knowing how they – and other major small arms – operate is in your own best interest.
The goal of this column is to present news from around the world that is not often – if ever – covered by more mainstream entities, using local sources wherever possible, but occasionally using news aggregators not used, again, by the mainstream media. Also, please note that we do use links to Wikipedia; while Wikipedia is well-known as a largely-useless site for any kind of serious research, it does serve as a launch-pad for further inquiry, in addition to being generally free of malicious ads. As with anything from Wikipedia, always verify their sources before making any conclusions based on their pages.
This column will cover the preceding week of news.
To make it easier for readers to follow story source links: anytime you see a bracketed number marked in green – [1] – those are the source links relating to that story.
North America
Leading off in North America, a series of three “homemade bombs” were detonated along a two-mile long area of Vista, California over a 3-hour period on Thursday. The explosions occurred in open areas and parking lots. No injuries or property damage was reported, although two small fires were quickly extinguished. The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office said that there was no obvious target or motivation for the bombs, and that no threat had been received. However, it should be kept in mind that Vista is also a “bedroom community” for the nearby US Marine base at Camp Pendleton and the attached extension of the Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station in nearby Fallbrook, and is home to numerous married personnel and their families. [1]
Elsewhere in the nation, bomb threats targeting schools continued unabated this week, although – as we reported last week – there is a perceptible shift occurring, as more threats are coming in the form of physical notes and social media, the last being especially odd, given the ease of tracking posters. [2]-[8]
In Burkina Faso‘s northern region, a total of eleven soldiers were killed in two separate incidents on Thursday and Friday; nine people were reportedly wounded, while the military claims to have killed at least twenty suspected islamist jihadis in turn. Burkina Faso has been fighting various jihadist groups since 2015; operations continue to grind onwards. [1]
In Nigeria, fighting continued steadily across the nation, as military and police forces worked to counter the tide of attacks by groups such as Boko Haram and the “Islamic State – West Africa Province (ISWAP)” in their continuing offensives to collapse the government and create their varying versions of Islamist rule. [2]-[7]
Meanwhile, in neighboring Cameroon, separatists from the Ambazonia Defence Forces, an armed wing of the breakaway “Federal Republic of Ambazonia” kidnapped Regina Mundi, a Senator of the country’s ruling “Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement” and her driver on the 2nd. “Ambazonia“, also known as the “Southern Cameroons” are an English-speaking region in northwest Cameroon, bordering Nigeria. When Cameroon became independent in 1961, the English-speaking areas agreed via plebiscite to join the French-speaking side of the colony in a federal union. However, tensions over the years finally boiled over in 2016, resulting in what is now termed the “Anglophone Crisis”, or the “Ambazonia War”. The issue is messy and complicated – as most of the colonial independence breakups were – because the french-speaking side of Cameroon is supported by Nigeria, because factions of the Ambazonians and the Ibo people of Nigeria – still agitating for an independent Biafran state – actively support each other. [8]-[10]
The Middle East remained surprisingly (and refreshingly) quiet this week, with few incidents of note making their way onto the news wires. Chief among these, the ceasefire in Yemen continues to hold, albeit shakily, as the Houthi side of the conflict claimed to have launched a drone attack on a Saudi command center, and in turn, shot down a Saudi drone in a separate incident. [1][2]
In Israel, meanwhile, at least three people were killed and another nine were injured in a terrorist attack in the city of Elad, on Thursday. Police have arrested the attackers, 19-year-old As’sad al-Rafai and 20-year-old Emad Subhi Abu Shqeir, who carried out their attack with hand axes, according to witnesses. [3]-[5]
On Friday, CPRF and officers from other security agencies arrested two suspected members of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group, in Northern Kashmir’s Baramulla district, recovering some light arms. Also on Friday, security forces killed Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist “Commander” Ashraf Molvi along with two other terrorists in an encounter in Kashmir’s Anantnag district. Molvi was at the top of the MHA (Ministry of Home Affairs) “Most Wanted” list. [2][3]
Apparently taking a page from both North Korean and Mexican Drug Cartel operations, India’s “Border Security Force (BSF)” discovered a 150 meter-long tunnel, shored up with sandbags, in an area under the Chak Faquira outpost in Samba on Wednesday evening, according to BSF officials. The tunnel is still being cleared at press time. [4]
On the opposite side of the country, in the state of Mizoram, units of the Assam Rifles seized massive caches of explosives in two separate incidents. The finds are believed to be related to the ongoing violence in Myanmar, just over the border from Mizoram, following the 2021 military coup d’état in that country. [5][6] In neighboring Manipur, the state capitol of Imphal saw two IED attacks in a 24-hour period, on May 5th and 6th. [7] Meanwhile, troops of the 14th Battalion of the Rajput Regiment discovered a small cache of weapons in the Changlang area of the far-northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh. [8]
Northeastern India has been plagued by low-level insurgency groups for decades.
These days, a (rational) person within the United States who hears the term “assault rifle” will likely think automatically of one of two weapons: the AR-15 or the AK-47 or one of those weapons derivatives. Both are, in fact, not “technically” assault rifles, as the models the vast majority of Americans can access are not capable of selective fire, but humans are visual creatures, so that’s an issue we can leave aside for the time being.
There are, obviously, a vast array of “other” assault rifles that have been made since World War 2, but the vast majority of those were either based in some fashion on the AR- or AK- platforms, or never really achieved widespread adoption. Today, we’ll look at one that did…and still does.
This article is the first of two parts.
British Army patrol crossing a stream during the Mau Mau rebellion, armed with Belgian-made 7.62mm FN FAL’s (1st and 2nd soldiers from right)
The first “assault rifle” (or “battle rifle”, if you prefer that term) to come along after World War 2 was the “FAL” (Fusil Automatique Léger), known simply as the “FAL“, made by Fabrique Nationale Herstal, Belgium, and was designed primarily by Dieudonné Saive, one-time assistant to legendary arms designer John Browning. Introduced in 1951 and completed in 1953, the FAL rapidly became one of the baseline standards of Western and Western-aligned military forces, so much so, that it became known as the “Right Hand of the Free World“, eventually being adopted at some level by some 90 nations (recall that the number of recognized nations as of press time is 216).
Members of the Eastern Caribbean Defense Force in Operation URGENT FURY, 1983, armed with Belgian-made 7.62mm FN FAL rifles
Using a short-stroke gas piston system, the FAL offered a soldier twenty rounds of “full power” 7.62x51mm ammunition in a reasonably lightweight (for the time) package. Despite some reliability issues in desert and arctic climates, the FAL was a serious contender against what became the M-14 rifle in the US military’s service rifle trials of the mid-1950’s; that rather shoddy affair is the subject for a later rant. (The other contender in that trial, the AR-10, was the father of the AR-15/M-16.)
Despite the United States not adopting it, the FAL went on to be adopted by so many countries, it ended up on both (or all) sides in conflicts all over the world, most notably in the Falklands War of 1982.
British troops armed with L1A1 (L), and piles of captured Argentine FALs (R), Falklands, 1982
A fighter of the Siddiq Battalions fire a scoped FN FAL at Syrian government forces
Although now approaching its 70th year, the FAL remains in action around the world, fighting on
A Bolivian soldier armed with a Belgian-designed 7.62 FN FAL
battlefields as diverse as Syria and Bolivia. This is one of those tools that humanity has made that, for good or ill, will not go quietly into the night…nor should it.
Rifles are tools – nothing more. They are no different from hammers or saws…or computers and pencils. They are just tools. It is what is done with those tools that defines “good” or “evil”, “right” or “wrong”. Learn about these tools, even if you never have need or cause to use them. They are important. They matter.
Depiction of sixteenth century cannon placements, with gabion baskets in front of them, from “Le diverse et artificiose machine del capitano Agostino Ramelli”
First deployed in 1991 by the British firm HESCO Bastion, Ltd, the HESCO Barrier is a modern-day gabion originally developed for flood and coastal erosion control in the late 1980’s. However, as soon as the British military’s Royal Engineers saw it, they instantly recognized its military potential.
In the hoary old days of “pre-Gulf War 1“, the fastest way to create a fortified camp in the wilderness was sandbags. These are extremely labor-intensive, and not terribly efficient (although they certainly do* offer real protection* at a cheap price). It was also a waste of manpower, as troops who should have been briefing, resting or patrolling were out shovel-filling sandbags by hand, instead. There is really very little that can be done to automate the process of filling sandbags, given their size and flimsiness. But, in the absence of a better alternative, sandbags were the only alternative.
HESCO barriers changed that landscape overnight.
The prefabricated gabion system is easily deployable either by hand, or by being laid from a truck-dragged container. The company’s containerized “RAID” system can deploy a gabion wall, approximately 1,000 feet long, in under one minute. At that point, front-end loaders begin dumping bucket-loads of dirt into the gabions, and a barrier wall that would have taken days, if not weeks, to build with sandbags and shovels, is built in a few hours, using fill scooped out from what become perimeter trenches.
A crew of workers using skid loaders to fill Hesco bastions around the University of Iowa’s Advanced Technology Laboratories, in preparation for flood defense along the Iowa River
The company’s product line has expanded, based on their products wide-ranging success in war and natural disaster zones around the world. The company is now expanding rapidly into the oil and gas market, with the deployable gabions acting as blast containment walls to limit blast damage from accidents, as well as spills.
The goal of this column is to present news from around the world that is not often – if ever – covered by more mainstream entities, using local sources wherever possible, but occasionally using news aggregators not used, again, by the mainstream media. Also, please note that we do use links to Wikipedia; while Wikipedia is well-known as a largely-useless site for any kind of serious research, it does serve as a launch-pad for further inquiry, in addition to being generally free of malicious ads. As with anything from Wikipedia, always verify their sources before making any conclusions based on their pages.
This column will cover the preceding week of news.
To make it easier for readers to follow story source links: anytime you see a bracketed number marked in green – [1] – those are the source links relating to that story.
North America
While the wave of bomb threats made against schools across the country continued this week, including to multiple schools in the state of Maine [1][2], there seems to be a shift underway, as fat more calls were phoned in, apparently by live people, with some arrests being made. [3]-[11] It is important to understand that stupid, bored people sometimes call in bomb threats for what they think is a “laugh”; that has been happening for a very long time. But in the case of the last several years, the number of these hoax-threats has been steadily increasing…and this week, we have seen at least two cases on the East Coast of actual, physical notes [12][13] being left on bathroom mirrors in student lavatories. This may be nothing — or it could indicate the possibility of some sort of “Slender Man“-style “creepypasta” being weaponized by some internet-based Fagin character, luring children into something that could result in a deliberate “Slender Man Stabbing“-style campaign.
Keep in mind, not all of these are hoaxes. On Wednesday the 27th, police in Porter County, Indiana arrested and charged a middle-school student [14] who was discovered to be carrying two IED’s in their backpack.
Turning to Europe, we have another wave of emailed bomb threats swamping over two dozens schools in the nations of Serbia and Montenegro. This has been an increasing issue within Europe over the last couple of years, similar to the waves of similar threats within the United States, as well as several other nations since at least 2015.
In Mali, five Malian Army soldiers were killed when their truck triggered an IED, during their pursuit of a hijacked tanker truck. Also, the Al Qaeda-linked terror group JNIM claimed to have captured an unspecified number of Russian “security contractors” from the “Wagner Group“, a PMC linked to the Russian government. Mali has been effectively left to its own devices in its decade-long war against Islamic terror groups, following its break with European and African nations after it announced delays in transitioning back to civilian rule, following a series of coups d’état that began in 2020. [1][2]
In Nigeria, steady attacks, including assassinations and arson attacks, continue throughout the country, as fighting against the Boko Haram group spilled over the border into neighboring Cameroon. [3]-[7]
Despite the seemingly numerous incidents listed as sources, this is actually a downward trend over the last several week. This may be related to the fighting in Ukraine, as Russian air units may be in the process of shuffling between the Middle East and the Ukrainian fronts.
In Afghanistan [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan], tensions continue to boil, as multiple bombing attacks against Muslim minorities and laborers continue, threatening to tear apart the fragile coalition of the Taliban [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban]. [1][2][3]
In Pakistan, meanwhile, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) have doubled down in the aftermath of its suicide attack on Karachi University, which killed three visiting teachers from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and their Pakistani driver. The Balochi group warned that attacks against Chinese workers in the country. The Balochi are not alone, as multiple terror groups in Pakistan have staged attacks against Chinese citizens in recent years, in numbers that are increasing. The PRC has been increasing its “footprint” in Pakistan, as part of its neocolonialist “Belt and Road Initiative“, [4][5]
Elsewhere in Pakistan, multiple attacks killed and wounded several police officers, soldiers, and terrorists. [6][7][8]
In India’s conflict-ridden northern state of Jammu & Kashmir, scattered incidents continued this week, with IED attacks on vehicles and an attempted attack on a hospital, and a pepper attack on security forces personnel, in an apparent attempt to grab the soldier’s weapon. [9]-[14]
In the eastern state of Manipur, an IED attack damaged several road construction vehicles in the Thoubal District. Police investigations continue, but at press time, it remains unclear if this was an act by an insurgent group, or some sort of labor dispute. [15]
In the central part of the nation, the Red Corridor was largely quiet this week, with four Naxals being arrested in two separate incidents, and one incicent of Naxals burning a charter bus, although no injuries were reported to police. [16]-[18]
Finally, 4 NPA guerrilla’s were killed in two separate incidents in the Pacificarchipelagic nation’s long war against the Communist rebels. Elsewhere, three suspected NPA guerrilla’s were arrested and arms were seized in two incidents in the country.
“Military Stuff” is a wide, deep, and vast canyon of a subject. Most people – even within established militaries – try to impart as deep a knowledge of military items and terms to their troops – not only about their own items but also about as many foreign weapons as they can realistically report on – as quickly as possible. This is, however, frequently a spotty and haphazard process, and seldom takes a firm hold in memory for any but the most commonly-used items and terms.
This is a much greater problem when civilians, or even military veterans, try to catch up on short notice because of “Situation X” has happened “suddenly”, and people watching the TV or news websites have no idea of the terminology being casually thrown around by professional presenters — who are also largely clueless about the terms they just dropped…
The results are misleading and frustrating, to say nothing of alarming and potentially very damaging, as people who may not trust their government or news agencies very much, don’t know how to make sound judgements based upon what they are seeing.
As a result, we need to correct some mistakes of terminology. This should not be understood as pointless doting, as confused terminology results in all of the evils above. This will almost certainly not be a complete list, and we will likely make this into a multi-part series.
With that out of the way — let’s get started.
RPG, LAWS or AT-4?
RPG-7 ammunitionAn Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier fires a RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launcher
“RPG” is a generic term for a man-portable, rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
This can cover a wide variety of weapons, but it is also the specific designation of a Soviet-designed weapon of extraordinary utility and longevity: the legendary RPG-7 series. To avoid confusion, the term “RPG-7” should be used only when referring to that specific weapon.
U.S. Marine training with AT-4 anti-tank weaponU.S. Marines train with M-72 LAWS
In contrast, the US-designed M72 “LAWS” and the Swedish-designed “AT-4” weapons,
and their many foreign copies or equivalents, are also RPG-like devices, and perform similar functions.
“Rifle” vs. “Gun”
A rifle is not a gun, and a gun is not a rifle.
Piles of Japanese weapons and equipment surrendered to the 25th Indian Division at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
A ‘rifle’ is a small arm designed to be carried and fired by one
View looking down the barrel of a Type 99 Arisaka rifle with the bolt removed
person.
“Rifling” is a descriptive term denoting the spiral grooves cut into a barrel to impart centrifugal spin to a projectile, increasing accuracy.
A ‘gun’ is a very large, “crew-served” weapon, sometimes also called a ‘cannon’, which fires a very large (1 inch+ diameter) projectile, usually explosive-filled. Guns are either towed like a trailer behind a vehicle, or are mounted on vehicles in their own right.
Soldiers of the Royal Artillery are pictured firing 105mm Light Guns during an exercise
Magazine, Clip and Charger
These are NOT the same things!
In infantry parlance, a “magazine” is a detachable box containing a number of cartridges [q.v.] under spring tension, used as a component to the rifle’s feed system. Outside of the infantry spectrum, it can refer to both a storage facility for land and naval artillery ammunition, and as an archaic term for a general supply depot.
A “clip” is a small piece of sheet metal that holds a fixed number of cartridges in the fixed, internal magazine of a weapon.
A “charger” is a small piece of sheet metal holding a fixed number of cartridges for loading into an internal magazine by being manually pushed off of the charger.
EXAMPLES:
US Marine, reloading an M16 rifle (with attached M203 grenade launcher), Djibouti, AfricaA man aiming a Romanian built AK type rifle at an outdoor shooting range in NevadaEn Bloc Clip for M1 Garand (8 rounds) and Strip Clip for SKS Rifle (10 rounds)A U.S. soldier holding a captured M1 Garand rifle in Western Muqdadiyah, Iraq
Modern Rifles for military use. From top Snider-Enfield, SKS, M16A2, Type 56, Steyr AUG
Bullet vs. Cartridge vs. Round
Cartridge cross section
A “round” is a complete projectile/propellant/case combination containing both projectile and propellant in a metal case.
A “bullet” (or “shell” if filled with explosives) is the projectile fired by any weapon that leaves the barrel at the muzzle.
A “cartridge” is a container used to hold bullets and propellants firmly in a more or less watertight environment.
Tank vs. APC vs. “Armored Car”
This is one of the single most misunderstood terminology conflicts out there, and is one of the most important conflicts to resolve.
Leopard 2 Main Battle Tank
A “tank” is a large, heavily armored combat vehicle, capable of carrying and firing an artillery-grade weapon, usually from a rotating turret. Although there are several classes of tank (light, medium, heavy and assault), and some tanks are designed without turrets, the cue is the massive cannon they carry.
M113 Armored Personnel Carrier of the Argentine Army
In contrast, while an APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) may resemble a tank in many respects, it is most certainly not a tank. One of the earliest APC’s, the M113, have been made in such numbers (well in excess of 80,000, and remained in production from 1960 to 2014, although parts are still made in many countries), it is the “gold standard” for the class.
APC’s, or “Armored Personnel Carriers,” are used to transport infantry troops to support and protect tanks. APC’s are usually very lightly armored, compared to tanks, and usually do not possess weapons that can engage tanks successfully, although some do carry one or two anti-tank guided missile launchers. Note that APC’s and armored cars do sometimes have turrets, and relatively heavy guns; this does not make them tanks, due to their extremely thin armor (compared to that of tanks).
BMP Infantry Fighting Vehicle, Iraq
Closely related to the APC (and developed from it), is the “Infantry Fighting Vehicle”, or IFV. This vehicle class is largely responsible for all the confusion regarding the differences between tanks and everything else. IFV’s tend to carry small infantry units, but are also armed with significantly heavier weaponry than APC’s. The Soviet-designed BMP-1 was the first IFV ever designed, and still soldiers on, all over the world.
Armored SUV used by the French GIGN counter-terrorist unit
Cadillac Gage Commando, Osan Air Base (1980)
An “armored car” is just that: essentially a large truck or “Sport Utility Vehicle” (SUV)
that has been plated in armor of some kind to make it proof (more or less) against rifle/machine-gun fire and artillery shrapnel. These vehicles are correctly employed only for security and convoy escorts, where their opponents will mainly be light infantry, who are very susceptible to the armored cars’ onboard machineguns.
“Rifle” vs. “Machinegun”
There is great confusion engendered by a heavily-politicized media establishment, either by incompetence or design, over small arms types. As described above, a ‘rifle’ is a small arm, intended to be carried and fired by one person.
Jordan Border Guard Force Soldiers manning an M2HB machine gun
In contrast, a machine-gun is a sustained-fire (meaning that it is intended to fire in automatic mode [q.v.] for extended periods), crew-served (meaning that it requires more than one person to operate) weapon intended to support infantry units.
Although some rifles may fire like machine guns, they are simply rifles with an automatic-fire function.
“Automatic” vs. “Semi-automatic” vs. “Selective Fire” vs. “Runaway Fire”
“Automatic” means that once the trigger is pulled, a weapon will continue to fire until either the trigger is released, or the weapon runs out of ammunition.
“Semi-automatic” means that when the trigger is pulled and the weapon fires, the weapon cycles the next round into the chamber with no input from the shooter, who must pull the trigger again to fire.
“Selective fire” means that a rifle can be easily transitioned back and forth between Automatic and Semi-Automatic by the operator.
A “runaway” is what happens when something goes wrong inside a semi-automatic firearm, and it begins firing in a fully-automatic state until it runs out of ammunition. This is the result of either operator error (for example, if the weapon is reassembled improperly), or parts breakage. All shooters dread a runaway condition, because it is unexpected, and very hard to control.
Cover vs. Concealment
“Cover” (as in “taking cover“) refers to any material or structure that can act as a shield or stop against direct small arms fires and light, hand grenade-sized fragments. Some structures, commonly called “bunkers“, are built to withstand fire from artillery shells and missiles.
“Concealment” refers to any material or structure that will conceal, or hide, the unit from observation by the enemy. Concealment typically offers little to no cover or protection.
Finally, there are a truly vast number of free resources online for anyone wanting to learn about the “nuts and bolts” of military systems. While a site like Wikipedia is fine – as long as one knows how to use it – it has a significant number of errors; the Freedomist doesn’t use Wikipedia because it is necessarily accurate, but because it is a fast and clean interface. Nothing at Wikipedia should be taken wholly at face value – it is a starting point, nothing more.
Other “clearing house” sites – such as MilitaryFactory, or Gary’s Olive Drab Page – are also fine, more or less, but in addition to having some accuracy issues, a user has to have a rather specific idea of what they are looking for. Below, are some free resource sites with good generalized pages…
Federation of American Scientists (FAS): The FAS does have a currently functioning and updated website, but they no longer update the pages listed below. These older pages are deliberately kept online – albeit with no further updating – because they do provide solid information to the general public about military affairs. The following links are specifically for “Land Systems” (military equipment used on land), and is very comprehensive. These links cover all sorts of vehicles and weapons, and is one of the best sites to scroll through if you are looking for something you don’t recognize; once you find it, you can use the FAS data to search Google for more information…
A “clearing house” site, Olive Drab has one of the most extensive libraries of entries on military equipment, albeit primarily US equipment. It is listed here, because it is so in-depth of a resource, its entries are frequently used by Wikipedia…
Finally, we come to the ODIN “World Equipment Guide”. This is the official – and unclassified – site that the US Army uses as a training resource. In addition to multiple wargaming environments, ODIN maintains a series of databases that cover non-US military equipment, including data on improvised combat vehicles, such as Technicals…
To paraphrase Christopher Hitchens, You may not be interested in war – but War is definitely interested in YOU.
To quote someone far more educated and experienced than Hitchens: “Sun Tzu said: War is a matter of vital importance to the State; the province of life or death; the road to survival or ruin. It is mandatory that it be thoroughly studied.” (The first line in Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’, c.500BC)
These things are paid for – both in cash, as well as in blood – by you, the Reader. You need to learn this stuff, whether or not you are carrying a rifle or making decisions about sending someone else’s children out to go and do these things.
Megacities, Musketry, Physics and Why the Intermediate Cartridge Needs to Disappear
“Megacity” is not a term in the general lexicon of most people. It is typically defined as any metropolitan area with a population of 10million or more. It is often that eyes simply glaze over when reading dry figures, though, so some perspective is useful, for the purposes of scale.
Tokyocurrently has a population in excess of 37,000,000 – or, approximately the same population as the state of California
Delhiis currently in excess of 29,000,000, roughly equal to the entire population of the state of Texas
Shanghaicomes in third, with over 26,000,000 people
Those three cities easily fall within the category of the “First World” – comparatively wealthy and reasonably peaceful. However, there are other megacities that do not fall into this category:
This second group of megacities are in extremely unstable environments. Indeed, the issue of civil crime control in Rio is an ongoing nightmare, frequently compared to low-intensity military conflict. As a result, the US Military’s Special Operations community is justifiably concerned that it will find itself operating in such an environment in very near future.
It also knows that it is not ready to do so:
Megacities Urban Future, the Emerging Complexity, Pentagon Video
Unlike certain shrill commentaries, one of the fundamental facts of military operations in the Twenty-First Century is that winning the population is far more important than winning arbitrary physical space. As of this writing, fully half the world’s populations can be considered to live in urban environments. That figure is expected to increase to c.65% by 2050 – less than thirty years away – with an estimated 90% of that growth being concentrated in Africa and Asia…and fully half of those populations will be of “fighting age” (not in the conventional, legal terminology, but in terms of reality), between 14 and 30.
Operations in large urban areas are complicated by the very infrastructure that make those cities possible: the US military had serious issues operating against insurgents in Baghdad (with a comparatively small population of c.8million) because the city was so large, it was nearly impossible to control vehicular movements to protect civilians, much less impede guerrilla’s. Likewise, even fighting in a moderately large city, such as Grozny, reveals the dangers of engaging in high-intensity operations, even when civilians are treated as an afterthought.
This is not simply a “4th Gen” problem. There are many reasons short of active, intentional conflict that could cause a military force to deploy into a megacity. From naturaldisasters, to criminal activity, to pan-national, extra-national and post-national activity, military forces around the world cannot avoid megacities, nor the concerns that accompany them.
Simply put, armies are going to have to fight in megacities. This is an absolute: whether the battle begins tomorrow, or five years from now, it will happen. Some group or groups will force a real infantry battle inside a megacity.
And the militaries of the 2020’s and beyond are neither equipped nor trained to deal with it – the US military is right to be concerned. However, in trying to identify concerns, in order to address them, the US military has a serious blind spot that they do not want to address, a proverbial “Emperor with no clothes“…That problem, seemingly easy to fix, is a fundamental question of small arms.
Captured rifles in Iraq, 2004
Since the end of the 1960’s, the US military has been fixated on the intermediate caliber class of rifle. For completely different – and frankly, rather shabby – reasons than the Soviet Union‘s adoption of an intermediatecaliber, the US military has used the 5.56x45mm round for both its primary infantry combat weapon, as well as its Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW) since the early-to-mid 1960’s. Pundits who should know better, take the fact that the 5.56×45 cartridge has been deployed in combat by the US for around fifty years as a sign that it must be superior.
Based in part on data from the URBAN WARRIOR exercise series – conducted prior to 9-11 – the US Marine Corps’ Warfighting Laboratoryconstructed an outdoor laboratory to test the effects of various cartridges against commonly-encountered structural environments. The results are telling:
Urban environments are…well, “urban”: they are constructed of a variety of materials of changing density, offering considerable opportunities for concealment (i.e., materials that a person can hide behind, to avoid observation), but a wide array of material densities make for rapidly changing levels of “cover” (a barrier that offers some level of protection against various kinds of projectiles). Many of these materials are proof against lighter projectiles.
US Paratrooper in Fallujah, Iraq, c.2004, armed with an M4 CarbineM249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW)
The modern M16/M4 rifle and M249 SAW projectiles are 62 grains in weight. Even the most aggressive load commonly issued, the SS109, tops out at 3,100 feet per second (fps) in velocity. This delievers about 1,300 foot-lbs of energy onto a target.
M240 Machine Gun
In contrast, the 7.62x51mm M80 round used by the standard medium machine gun, the M240, weighs in at 147 grains, and comes out of the barrel at about 2,700fps, while delivering almost twice the energy in foot-lbs (c.2,400). Obviously, not every soldier can run around with a comparatively heavy machine gun…however, the 7.62x51mm round was – and is – used by rifles.
M21/M14 Sniper Rifle
Although now used almost exclusively by dedicated snipers, the round was used not only by the M14, with the M16-series replaced, but was the standard rifle cartridge of NATO forces for nearly thirty years. While these rifles were and are demonstrably heavier and longer than their smaller rivals, the need to batter through effective cover is a consideration that becomes increasingly important in an urban environment.
This is not a case of technical nitpicking — using lighter projectiles in an urban environment means that more rounds need to be fired to overcome barricades. And, when the only firearms that can effectively batter through such materials are fired by weapons that used to be considered a form of light artillery, it should be obvious that this is not conducive to a positive image before the ever-present, all-seeing eyes of news cameras and the ubiquitous camera-phone.
While it would be understandable if this were a simple case of “Oops! We got it wrong!“, this is not the case, as instructors at West Point, the primary officer academy of the US Army, were teaching this in the early 1980’s:
Nor is this a question of engagement ranges. The original work that created the intermediate cartridge, begun in the spring of 1918 with a report from Hauptmann (Captain) Piderit, part of the “Gewehrprüfungskommission (Small Arms Proofing Committee)” of the German General Staff in Berlin, was based on the flawed logic that since infantry combat ranges were usually well under 800m, a smaller, lighter projectile would save on materials and costs, as well as allowing for significant improvements to rifles.
While this might have been true on its face, it ignored the consideration of cover. The result has been rifles that perform well enough on rifle ranges and in open environments (although some would disagree), but are far less effective in built-up areas…which is precisely where they are about to find themselves, to say nothing of longerranges.
The US Army “solution” to the problem was announced on April 19, 2022 – the Army’s (and thus, the US military’s) new weapon would be….the SIG SauerXM5 Rifle, a derivative of the company’s “MCX SPEAR“, and its associated light machine gun, the XM250. (Certainly a feather for SIG’s plume, considering the US military already having bought their handguns.)
Technical Review Sig Sauer Next Generation Squad Weapon NGSW-R XM5 rifle NGSW-AR XM250 machine gun
Rifle cartridges – L to R: .50 BMG, 300 Win Mag, .308 Winchester, 7.62x39mm, 5.56 NATO, .22 LR
While the XM250 is, indeed, lighter than what it replacing – the M249 SAW – the XM5 is heavier than the M4 carbine it replaces. The discrepancy in rifle weights is odd, until it is realized that the 6.8x51mm “SIG FURY” round has a chamber pressure – in normal loads – of c.80,000psi, a staggering figure fully 25% higher than that of the venerable 7.62x51mm M80 cartridge, and a minimum 35% higher than the original 5.56x45mm M198 used by the M-16; it is even more than 30% higher than that generated by a .50BMGSaboted Light Armor Penetrator round. This is not “fun with numbers“: when you start dealing with this level of pressures, the measures to contain them are critical…and heavy, in the extreme. One seriously wonders if the US Army is planning on fighting flying saucers.
While “newer” is often seen as “better”, this is far more than necessary. While poorly-made barrels will certainly burst, increasing the pressure by c.30%, minimum, is dangerous enough to be irresponsible. Weaponsusing the older 7.62x51mm M80, while no lightweights, were more than sufficient for a broad range of combat tasks. Lighter weapons, firing lighter cartridges, simply had less range, poorer performance, and less utility…and, speaking from experience, the rifles weren’t all that light.
Physics do not lie, and the lighter rifles were not that much lighter.
The goal of this column is to present news from around the world that is not often – if ever – covered by more mainstream entities, using local sources wherever possible, but occasionally using news aggregators not used, again, by the mainstream media. Also, please note that we do use links to Wikipedia; while Wikipedia is well-known as a largely-useless site for any kind of serious research, it does serve as a launch-pad for further inquiry, in addition to being generally free of malicious ads. As with anything from Wikipedia, always verify their sources before making any conclusions based on their pages.
This column will cover the preceding week of news.
Additionally, we are implementing a new way to make it easier for readers to follow story source links: anytime you see a bracketed number marked in green – [1] – those are the source links relating to that story.
North America
Robocall bomb threats caused police in the LouisianaParishes of Bossier, Caddo and DeSoto to close four separate schools this week. Police noted that the calls were automated voice threats, coming from a VOIPIP address from “outside the United States“, and indicated that they may be related to last week’s robocall threats in North Carolina. [1][2] Similarly, school districts in Minnesota were also evacuated, and local police there related that the threats were “a recording and repetitious“, the schools were evacuated “out of an abundance of caution.” [3][4] In Elyria, Ohio‘s Lorain County Community College (LCCC), meanwhile, the college dealt with yet another bomb threat, after being hit by three bomb threats in the week between March 24 and March 29.[5] Additional threats were made against schools in Florida and Maryland.[6][7][8]
The purpose of these recurring waves of robo-threats – now in at least their 7th year – remain unclear, but they remain an issue throughout the country, as well as various parts of the world.
Turning to the nation’s capital, Washington, DC, US Secret Service officers responding to an emergency call of a “burglary in progress” shot and killed 19-year old Gordon Casey, of Germantown, MD after Casey broke into the Residence of the Ambassador of Peru, career diplomat Oswaldo de Rivero on April 20th. After Casey refused to comply with orders to drop his weapon, described as “a metal stake“, the responding agents attempted to subdue Casey with “less-than-lethal” Taser weapons; when those devices failed, the agents engaged Casey with their conventional sidearms, killing him. Although some members of the ambassador’s family and staff were present at the time of the attack, no injuries were reported. The responding agents were checked for injuries at local hospitals, and released.
The reason behind the attack remains unclear, but the possibility does exist that it may be connected to the ongoing protests in Peru.
Turning to Europe, shopping centers in Croatia, Hungary, and Serbia all received bomb threats via email this week, forcing the commercial centers to close. [1][2][3]
This comes as the military junta that has been ruling Mali since taking power in a coup d’état in 2020 announced that it was closing its borders and recalling several of its ambassadors to ECOWAS after those states imposed sanctions on the country following the junta’s announcement that it was “postponing” transitional elections for four years; France – the former European colonial power, withdrew its military forces from the country in February, following the expulsion of the French Ambassador. Mali has been seen as moving closer to Russia as a result.
To the southeast, Nigeria continues to burn, as continual attacks, arson, raids, kidnappings and assassinations continue, as ISWAP and Boko Haram forces continue their relentless terror campaign across the face of the beleaguered nation.
One bright spark, however, was the rescue of six women who had been kidnapped by ISWAP in an operation conducted by the Multinational Joint Task Force near Lake Chad, killing five terrorist from both groups, while losing one soldier killed and several wounded.
In Somalia, at least six people are dead and seven more wounded, following a bomb attack on a popular seaside restaurant in the capital of Mogadishu frequented by security and government personnel. The Al Qaeda-aligned Al Shabaab terror group claimed responsibility for the attack, part of its ongoingwar in an attempt to seize control of the Horn of Africa region. [1]
In related news, Ethiopian authorities announced the arrest of some 34 accused members of Al Shabaab, saying that the suspects were plotting a terror offensive in the country to coincide with both the Islamic Ramadan and Orthodox Christian Easter observances. The Ethiopian NISSintelligence service also said that it had seized weapons and “bank account documents” during the raids. [2]
In Israel, multiple rocket attacks were launched from Palestinian Gaza this week, but either caused no damage, or were intercepted by the Iron Dome missile defense system.
Aside from scattered minor skirmishes in Syria and Iraq, the Levant was otherwise quiet, this week.
Turning to India’sJammu & Kashmir, scattered attacks by and shootouts with various militant groups left four reported militants dead, with no reported casualties among security forces, although several arrests were made this week in the long-running conflict. [1][2][3][4][5][6]
In Central India’s Chhattisgarh State – part of the Red Corridor, center of the long-running Maoist insurgency – Maoist guerilla’s reportedly murdered a 30-year-old man, fired at a security camp in Bijapur (wounding four troops) and torched four road construction vehicles at a village in the Bijapur-Dantewada, while five more alleged-Maoists were arrested with explosives and detonators stolen from a construction site, in separate incidents this week. [7][8][9]
Finally, Government forces reported killing a total of six New People’s Army (NPA)Communist guerilla’s, including a purported “medical officer”, in three separate incidents on the islands of Luzon and Mindanao. Security forces reported recovering assorted military arms and munitions, including hand grenades.
The NPA has been fighting the Philippine government in an insurgency that began in 1969. Although the NPA’s numbers have reportedly fallen to less than 4,000 fighters, the die-hard core hangs on, continuing to hope against hope that shooting at people will eventually make them agree with you.
Guns are sexy. It’s a known fact that linking firearms (as well as many other odd things) to sex increases sales. That’s what keeps good-looking models, both male and female, working.
However, as anyone who has dealt with any kind of military force understands, there is a very great deal of other, non-firearm equipment out there, and most of it can only be sexualized in the grossest of manners. As a result, the ‘zhush‘ tends to get lost in the shuffle when people think about “things military”.
Roof-high shelves of military equipment at the Australian War Memorial’s Treloar Technology Centre, 2012
What do I mean by ‘zhush‘? Simply, the “other stuff”: uniforms and boots, personal load-bearing gear, helmets, gas masks, tools, computers, desks, engineering vehicles…in short, virtually everything you could find in all of an office complex, a clothing outlet, and a construction company, you will find in the organizational table of a light infantry or military police battalion.
The problem for supply officers around the world, especially those serving in armies below the top tier, is how to get at that gear and equipment on a razor-thin budget. Psychologically speaking, it is humiliating for a formally-organized armed force – which relies on the concepts of duty, honor and pride to function reliably and effectively – to accept hand-me-downs from wealthier states, except in the most dire of circumstances; the Free French and other remnants of European forces overrun by Nazi Germany that escaped to Britain after the evacuation at Dunkirk, France, in 1940 come to mind. At the same time, there may well be no real domestic industrial base for an army to draw upon in a small country. Doubly damaging for a small state’s force, is the idea of buying second-, third- or even fourth-hand surplus, and having to mark over the originating nation’s identifying marks from the gear.
A Bolivian soldier armed with a Belgian-designed 7.62 FN FAL rifle, wearing an OG-107 uniform from the United States
For decades, this was the conundrum – small, poorly funded armies had to either swallow their pride and accept handouts, or look like a street gang until either domestic production came online, or money was let from their (often horrifyingly corrupt) governments to contract out production to foreign companies to produce basic equipment to their specifications.
Globalization and the rise of the Internet, however, have radically revolutionized the small-state military supply problem…and leading that charge is the Chinese clearinghouse known as the AlibabaGroup (although Vietnamese competition is coming on strong).
While shopping sites such as Amazon cater to the individual buyer, sites like Alibaba have a far more extensive wholesale section, where buyers can take advantage of the mass production capacities of several dozen Chinese companies, giving them access to at least “good enough” military equipment, as well as expendable supplies and tools that would have been prohibitively expensive for a small army to purchase before about 1999.
The only items not available via Alibaba and other suppliers are actual firearms and larger military weapons, ammunition, explosives and drugs; however, those items are not overly difficultto get with an End User Certificate, even for non-state actors. While a disadvantage for the military buyer, the ability to equip everything else more than makes up for the lack of military-grade weapons on the site.
Unidentified rebel fighters during the Second Liberian Civil War, c.2004
This is an advantage that cannot be overstated. While a rifle, three magazines, a cheap water bottle and a box of breakfast cereal might seem like a workable equipping plan for supplying and army, especially if that force is bereft of money, it is most definitely not. The ability to equip a relatively capable military force for comparative peanuts leaves no excuses for anyone with pretensions of logistical competence – if you have access to the internet and a credit card, there is no excuse for sticking with the abysmal state of the past.
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Guns are sexy. It’s a known fact that linking firearms (as well as many other odd things) to sex increases sales. That’s what keeps good-looking models, both male and female, working.
top tier, is how to get at that gear and equipment on a razor-thin budget. Psychologically speaking, it is humiliating for a formally-organized armed force – which relies on the concepts of duty, honor and pride to function reliably and effectively – to accept hand-me-downs from wealthier states, except in the most dire of circumstances; the 
While shopping sites such as 
