“It (AK-47) is a means of securing peace. I feel sad when I hear about its misuse.” – General Mikhail Kalashnikov
Sandstorms in the middle of a war are a bitch, especially when you have to depend on an M-16.
To be more specific, I’m talking about a Colt M-16, which is the American made weapon most of our troops are using against the Iraqis.
Not long ago, I had the pleasure of shooting the very same M-16.
And before you set your gun-control harange ready to fire, let me also state that while I believe wholeheartedly in the 2nd Amendment, I do not genuflect to gun owners who disingenuously tout that federal registration and regulation is against the 2nd Amendment, which is patently paranoid. (Also include mandatory gun show background checks and safety locks to the litany of paranoid positions anti-gun control people tout as dangerous to gun owners.)
Anyway…
My new husband, who also happens to be a gun expert, owned all the weapons I shot, which included, besides the M-16, the German HK-223.
What a rush.
Bullets coming out one end.
Spent cartridges coming out the other.
And dirt kicking up everywhere.
By the way, it takes only three and one-half seconds to go through thirtyrounds.
Count it: one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three.
Get it?
Good.
(As an aside, the pistol I’m looking at right now, as a sort of wish weapon, is the HK-USP compact, 40 caliber. What a beauty.)
In the old days, Colt came out with “The Peacemaker,” which was the six shot revolver. And then, as legend has it, the advertising slogan that made history was rolled out as well: “God made man. Samuel Colt made them equal.”
Ask many women who live alone, or who have ever been in danger and had to protect themselves, and we would agree that there is nothing like a warm gun to keep you safe when evil encroaches on your reality.
Of course, when I shot the M-16 with my friend, though I was out in the middle of nowhere, I made the mistake of shooting this powerful weapon without head gear on.
The sound just about knocked me out of my boots.
However, to my astonishment, the kick was minimal, even on the fully automatic setting.
The power was unmistakable.
But what I learned recently about the M-16 really surprised me.
First, a little history…
Though I’m only a student of the military, not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, in Vietnam, when the M-16 was first given to our troops the powder used in the bullets clogged the guns up and they ended up jamming at the worst times. In fact, there is a famous story about a combat group whose guns jammed during an engagement in Vietnam, rendering our troops helpless in a battle that ended up costing them their lives.
There have been improvements made over the years, obviously, but the same trouble still exists, especially in the desert. In fact, my gun friend said that one particular soldier in Desert Storm mentioned to him that the mechanism of the M-16 gun structure has such a close fitting that sand and the fine dust of the desert would often cause the gun to jam.
The Arabian desert may turn out to be a bigger problem for our soldiers than the jungles of Vietnam.
This same Desert Storm soldier also told my friend that he personally wrapped the action of his M-16, the part of the gun that moves during firing, in plastic to keep the sand from clogging up the mechanisms.
In addition, the soldiers are obviously cautioned and trained to clean their guns daily, no matter what. Their lives may depend on it.
By the way, remember those stories we’ve all seen in movies… where a service man runs around the compound reciting “this is my gun, this is my rifle,” referring to the inherent differences in his genitals and
his M-16, respectively? To a military soldier, man or woman, the M-16 is not a gun, it is a rifle.
Anyway… Considering the above reality, imagine what our troops must have been going through yesterday in the middle of the Iraqi desert as the sandstorm kicked up to over 60 m.p.h.
It’s one thing to keep your mouth and nose free so you can breathe.
It’s quite another to keep your rifle cleared of all sand so you can stay alive.
It brought me back to that day when I fired the M-16 on full auto… the power… the majesty of this weapon.
Yet, upon learning of its temperamental nature, I couldn’t imagine the stress involved with the responsibility of a weapon in wartime on desert terrain.
The real beauty of the weapon that I had the pleasure, and it was an extreme pleasure, of shooting was that it was the M4 variation, which is what the Special Forces use in combat.
Here are the specs: 14 and one-half inch barrel and retracting stock, which is about 2.5 pounds lighter than the standard issue It also has a 20 inch barrel and fixed stock.
Again, the biggest difference between the M4 variation that I fired and the conventional weapon used by the regular military is around 2.5 pounds.
This is a huge weight differential, especially when you’re carrying this weapon, gear and everything else over desert terrain overdays and days or weeks and months of fighting.
Though the M-16 is an amazing piece of machinery that is far more accurate than other weapons, to reiterate, it is also more temperamental when it gets dirty.
However, our troops are trained in basic training to dismantle their weapon and put it back together blind folded, in the dark, or at night, which is coming in very handy right now.
Enter the Iraqi desert.
Our enemies in this conflict are carrying the Russian made AK-47, which was designed by General Mikhail Kalashnikov.
The difference between the Iraqi’s Russian designed AK-47, and the American made Colt M-16, is that the AK-47 was designed to fire with very loose mechanical tolerances. This means that dirt can still get into the mechanism, but they can continually use it without it malfunctioning.
It’s interesting to note that the Russians knew and planned ahead of time that when they designed the AK-47 they would be supplying third world countries with the weapon. The recipients would be unlikely to have cleaning solvents and materials to keep the weapon clean, thus the very loose mechanical tolerances that allows the AK-47 to be so forgiving in inhospitable climates.
Another aside, even the Israelis use a refined, third generation version of the AK-47, which is known as the IMI Galil, adapting all the good points of the AK-47, especially its reliability.
Our soldiers have a bit more of a challenge, however.
The American military’s M-16, when used in the Iraqi desert in the middle of a sandstorm, can cause the type of situation you get, for instance, when you experience a piece of sand landing in your eye. It causes you to immediately stop and get the piece of sand out NOW, or else you’re left blind, immobile and in pain. The M-16 is a terrific technical tool, but if the Iraqi desert dirt and sand gets inside the mechanism it can make for a very bad encounter, unless the soldier cleans it immediately.
The other factor that is important to note as the battle for Baghdad engages, is that our military is the best in the world, bar none, especially in conventional warfare. However, that’s not what we’re currently fighting, which is something that military expert Bill Arkin spoke about yesterday on MSNBC’s Hardball.
See, the thing about technology is that it’s great when used for its specific purpose, but when you take it into renegade situations, a lesser weapon can often match the superlative nature of our hyper technical combat tools, rendering the battle field equal in guerrilla or close combat.
An AK-47 may not be as accurate or as technically sophisticated as an M-16, but at 150 yards it still packs a powerful punch.
Case in point, the Apache helicopter that was presumably downed by small arms fire. An Apache group was quickly dispatched to rescue the two pilots, who were taken prisoner, but even they were turned back by the Iraqi’s AK-47 barrage of bullets.
The AK-47 is one bad ass weapon at close range.
Sure, the military command could send in a jet and bomb the enemy to smithereens, but in this conflict that wouldn’t do the political situation, which is going from bad to worse, any good.
It just goes to prove that when the military is sent in by the politicians it really helps if their mission is seen by everyone as just. Because our soldiers are doing what their told, even when the political policy that sent them in isn’t worth the paper on which it was written. And when they can’t use full force all out, it can put our soldiers in jeopardy through military tactics that must be adopted to make up for the political unpopularity of a war.
So, it was odd yesterday to sit here comfortably in the U.S. and watch television, seeing the sand rain down on our troops, especially knowing the impact of the weather and that the only thing standing between life and death for the American military in the Iraqi desert is often their rifle.
It also makes me reiterate, on this page as well as on radio stations around the country, how important it is for Americans to reevaluate our foreign policy, thinking hard about the Republican right’s new Bush doctrine of preemption, which came on a promise of quick surrender, easy battles and quick victory that has rarely been the case in any war at any time in the history of the world.
