[QuarterBoreGunner]

Ok so it's probably just a reporter making a mistake, maybe the soldier in the picture is just checking out the AK (I know if I was a soldier in Iraq I'd want to see what the enemy was using) but on the off chance the reporter got the story correct, would this even be allowed by the soldiers CO?

http://www.swedcom.com/test_images/us_ak.jpg


I know this was covered in another thread but this is the first time I've seen it in print.

AND? What's a Air Force Lt. doing on the ground in an area where he'd be able to pick up an enemy weapon? FAC?

I'm so confused...

[Leatherneck]

I wondered about that when I saw it this morning, and I figured it was a Tac Air Control Party thing too. I know the dust and dirt are pretty bad over there right now, and I wonder if he preferred the much-acclaimed reliability of the AK in dirt enough to forgo the use of his issue weapon (M-16/M-4). Or maybe he was only "authorized" (What does that mean in a combat zone?:rolleyes: ) a pistol, and saw the advantage of gaining an AK.

TC
TFL Survivor

[John Forsyth]

I do not see a magazine. :what:

[Razor]

I do not see a magazine.

:confused: The one in his left hand? The caption does say he's reloading.

[Blackhawk]

A likely mistake is "U. S. Air Force" instead of "U.S. Army" in the caption.

[Kharn]

If I was over in Iraq and there was a nearby pile of surrendered weapons & ammo, you could bet the farm that I would be getting all the trigger time I could. I bet he was just plinking, and the reporter came up with a badly worded caption.

Kharn

[Destructo6]

If I could handle the extra weight, I'd pack around a captured AK until a higher up told me to dump it.

[Kristofer]

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong. I thought the geneva convention forbids using captures enemy weapons?

[Blackhawk]

I never heard that, but that doesn't mean anything.

[Marko Kloos]

Using enemy weapons has a time-honored tradition. US and Brit troops used captured German tanks on occasion in WWII, and Germans even had inventory designations for captured Allied small arms.

[Hard Charger]

He wasn't using it to save his ammo, that is just what he wanted them to believe.

He was using it because it is better.

[ambidextrous1]

I think you got it, Hard Charger.

Let me say, as an Air Force veteran, hats off to the Army, the Marines and the Navy for their respective roles in any & every conflict; that's undisputed! But hey, the Air Force occasionally gets a chance to fire a few righteous rounds of smallarms fire!

[voilsb]

ambidextrous1 said:
But hey, the Air Force occasionally gets a chance to fire a few righteous rounds of smallarms fire!at your annual rifle qual? :)

just teasin'
from knowing a few combat controllers and PJs, the air force gets into pretty hairy stuff sometimes.