Arm a developing country on the cheap

[leadcounsel]

When I made my recommendation I didn't read far enough into the OP question about no surplus. I think that's not realistic. Stigma associated with AKs and ARs? Look, you're arming a military force.... I think that's stigma alone... why not give them the best weapons for your budget. I would sooner trust battle proven surplus rifles than Keltecs etc.

I honestly think that you could do well in a modern army without select fire for the typical rifleman. While you do need some supressive full auto fire, well aimed shots are much more important the spray and pray - which is a reality of select fire by untrained Soldiers.

Select fire wastes ammunition due to spray and pray and decreased rifleman abilities in reliance on full auto. Wasted ammo comes in the form of wasted ammo down range and also wasted ammo left on the battlefield, and wasted resources in transporting larger amounts of ammo. 200 rounds in semi-auto lasts a LOT longer than on full auto.

And handguns are nearly worthless in combat and I wouldn't waste any money on them. I would buy remington 870's and saw them down to as short as possible for sidearms. $300. Or, again, with a surplus, saw down a Mosin Nagant to a large handgun.

 

[MD_Willington]

Call Norinco, order a lot of Type 56 AK's. They don't come cheaper than that.

+1 Norinco AK


We're already doing that with our money going to China..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7258059.stm

From 2003 to 2006 China sold over $55 million worth of small arms to Khartoum

 

[cluttonfred]

Hehe, thanks everyone for the input. I agree that the limitations are artificial, but the ideas was to provoke a conversation other than surplus weapons. Like I said earlier, without these conditions, SKS, Saiga, and lots of AK variants start to look very interesting. Personally, I am big believer in marksmanship, so ten rounds seems like plenty in most situations, and semi-auto fire is plenty if you've got a round more effective than .223.

ctdonath, I appreciate your comments and I LOVE the Heinlein quote.

leadcounsel and others, I agree with the limited usefulness of pistols, but I guess I was thinking of police use as well. And I love the suggestion of a sawed-off shotgun as a sidearm. I certainly wouldn't want to mess with anyone whose idea of a sidearm was a Serbu Super Shorty.

Keep those ideas coming!

 

[jlbraun]

Personally, I think that the idea of "police force" here is not needed. Everyone has a pistol, no police force necessary. Focus on the armed forces.

 

[buck00]

equip a national guard of 1,000 men and women which does double duty as police and army. That's 50 officers, 150 NCOs and 800 enlished men and women.

1,000 men and women? Not sure how big the country is, but that is barely enough to maintain law and order- forget about foreign threats.

I would envision this force like the Mexican military- designed purely for internal security (or the illusion of it), not a force that fights overseas or counters a real military invasion. They'd have to start with the basics until tourism (or the local dope trade) picked up and they could afford anything high tech.

So forget all the rifles and neat stuff- these guys would need basic police weapons, circa the 80's. Maybe you could get a bulk price on Taurus 9mm pistols to equip them all, spend the rest on pepper spray, fluorescent jackets, batons, and ammo.

 

[ilbob]

An interesting exercise.

I think I'd be inclined to stick to tried and true technology. You could almost certainly buy AKs for under $200 and 40cal Glocks for under $300 in those kind of quantities, that would include the necessary accessories.

Maybe 100 pump shotguns, a dozen sniper rifles of some sort, and a couple 50 caliber barrets and you are all set.

 

[Thernlund]

Having only breezed over other posts, AND I'm going to disregard some of your parameters, here's my ideas off the top of my head...

The "army" will be made up of the citizens, Swiss-style. FN 5.7 and a full-auto P90 for all militiamen. These would be purchased in bulk from FN under contract, as would the ammo, in order to secure discounts. Other weapons could be secured from FN as needed under the same contract.

Any militiamen volunteering for such assignment would also be trained as long range snipers and be issued a Remington 700 (or an FN-made equivalent). There would be a quota for snipers, and a limit as well to constrain costs.

Militia induction and training would be mandatory for men upon reaching 21 years of age, but any able-bodied citizen, male or female, could volunteer at age 18.

Training refreshers lasting 10 days would be mandatory each year to be conducted within a month either way of the one year anniversary of induction or the last training. After 10 years of service, the 10 day training is no longer required. One must only qualify and be recertified with their issue weapons.

At age 35, one may choose to retire from the militia. At age 45, a militiaman is automatically retired with the thanks of his country. Issue weapons may be purchased for a substantial discount, or returned to the armory where they are cleaned, inspected, and placed up for sale to the general public. Weapons will not be reissued.

Street cops get an FNP for duty.


-T.

 

[jlbraun]

I think we're completely neglecting RPGs here. They've been proven very effective in guerrilla wars and are necessary against a technologically superior enemy.

 

[Scratchy]

10/22's lots of them and some bricks of ammo. If all the can arm themselves with is small arms then get the most ammo possible because even if they all had .50 BMG's that is no match for a plane droping bombs or a tank or any kind of modern weapon.

 

[redbone]

Raise taxes!

 

[Feanaro]

The police and the military don't mix. You can have police for your military but not military as your police. I would assume they are under seperate budgets. In which case pistols are of limited use. Doesn't matter much anyways, all the money saved with a cheaper main weapon will get blown to satisfy jlbraun's addiction to RPGs.

 

[ARTiger]

I'd equip about 100 of them like a well armed special forces unit, SAW's TOW's - the works. Train them like SEALS, etc. Send the other 900 home.

 

[Wes Janson]

Simple. Spend the $1,000,000 on high-quality armament and equipment for a small team of well-armed, experienced soldiers. Have them conduct criminal smuggling/theft/blackmailing operations discreetly overseas. Use proceeds to arm and equip the rest of the military with real weapons, because I'd sooner issue Liberators than Hi-Points, which is realistically about the only weapon that sort of budget would allow for. $500,000 is not enough to properly arm a quarter of that number of soldiers.

 

[Sans Authoritas]

Heh. The Dominican Republic is a hoot. Drunk soldiers cleaning their M-16A1's, the 12 gauge is a staple, and a uniform is anything that resembles some form of camouflage, especially if it's woodland or 6-color desert camo from 15 to 20 years ago. Sidearms seemed to be comprised of whatever six-shooter they could lay their hands on. Taking them seriously is difficult, as it is in an inverse relationship to how seriously the police and military (and you can't really tell the two apart) take themselves. Except for the M-16 wielders who have been hitting the Presidentes too hard. They might hurt someone.

-Sans Authoritas

 

[Sans Authoritas]

jlbraun wrote:

Personally, I think that the idea of "police force" here is not needed. Everyone has a pistol, no police force necessary. Focus on the armed forces.

If everyone has a rifle, a separate "armed force" is unnecessary. Any military can bomb the tar out of any country, and can roll tanks through. But without boots on the ground going town to town and catching aimed fire from every angle, it will avail you nothing.

-Sans Authoritas

 

[Horsesense]

Arm all citizens over the age of 18 with liberator type pistols. Train 50 men and equip them with the latest and greatest including transportation. With the change, community training in the art of gorilla warfare.

 

[Infidel Cowboy]

I'll be the first to admit I know nothing of waging war, but if the island is small enough to have an "army" of only 1000 men, what type of fighting will they be doing? Surely defending against invasion which can only come from the sea. It seems to me, ignorant as I am, that by the time the invasion lands the war is lost. They need to be sinking landing boats at range, not CQB. I'm not sure that RPGs aren't such a bad idea. That and a couple bolt action .50s. Anyone know what some sea mines (is that what they're called) go for?

My $0.02

IC

 

[jrfoxx]

Excellent point Infidel Cowboy. The 1000 military would probly be best served with just anti air and anti ship weapons, and leave the rifles and pistols to the poplace to get and use whatever they choose, to mop up anything that makes it to land, and cause enough guerilla fighting loses to the enemy that make it in in any significant amount, reconsider wether or not it's worth it, or if its even possible to control the people when all are armed, and willing to wage an insurgency indefinitely. Unless the island is littered with tons of gold or diamonds, heaving losses trying to get an army on shore, coupled with a 100% armed populace willing to fight on guerilla style indefinitely, will make the island obviously not worth the cost fairly quick (unless its the U.S., Russia, or some other MAJOR power invading,in which case, the whole exercise is moot, as they could just bome the island into oblivion with b-52's and such and not have a single loss...)

for the cost, I'm thinking RPS for anti ship and maybe a handful of quad 50's or similar on AA mounts is likely all you could afford for the cost that has ANY hope of being effective though. Better hope you invader is Lichtenstein or some tiny pacific island with canoes and 100 guys equally poorly equipped....

 

[RNB65]

Simple. Spend the $1,000,000 on high-quality armament and equipment for a small team of well-armed, experienced soldiers.

I think Wes hit the nail on the head. Equip a small force with quality equipment and designate the other folks as reserves. Buy a few crates of surplus rifles and handguns for the reserves to train with. They'll have to wait until they move up to the A-team to play with the good stuff.

A mistake that a lot of folks are making is doing that math using current retail prices. Our mythical nation would be negotiating a military contract (albeit, a small one) and would pay far less per unit than retail.
-

 

[FourNineFoxtrot]

Interesting hypothetical. I'll do what I can to run with it.

First, as others have said, mixing police and army = Trouble

I don't know what the population, or pop density of this island is, but working with what we have, I would detail off about 500 of the force into permanent police duty. One of the OP's criteria was that this island has no gun culture, and has just been granted independence from a larger neighboring nation. I'm going to expand that to assume that they have been under an authoritarian (more or less) regime, that there is commensurate crime, and maybe some sort of internal friction. I'm thinking "Sri Lanka", only smaller. So there needs to be a police force until crime is brought under control, and we start embracing personal freedom as a culture. Or not, since I'm apparently the dictator of this little island.

So my 500 guys will be detailed to police precincts that I would be establishing. Probably I'd end up with 250 or so in the urban area, 50 in the rural areas, and 200 doing coast guard duties (it is an island, after all).

My 250 urban cops get broken up into five platoon-ish sized units, with four of these being responsible for sections of the city, patrolling, responding to calls, et cetera. My fifth unit is a mixture of SWAT, Aerial, and Vice. This unit may expand or contract as necessary. The beat cops get nightsticks and Kel-tec P11s. At 200 x $333 = $66,600 to arm. The other fifty would be armed as needed; aerial might not be armed at all. Vice would probably use seized weapons, to blend in with criminal armaments. SWAT would have appropriately modern armaments, including Remington 700s for sniping, (about $700 + 200 for glass, X 5 rifles total, = $4500), Remington 870s for breaching ($360 for 18-inch synthetic model, X 5 = $1800), and Kel-tec Su-16Ds for the shooters ($874 x 10 = $8740). Pistols for SWAT are optional (encouraged), paid for with their own salary.

Rural cops get Kel-tec Su-16As ($665 X 50 = $33250). Like SWAT, if they want a pistol, they can buy one.

Coasties are a bit of a problem. I'd probably have a lot on cutter-size vessels, and a lot on river/harbor patrol in motorboats, and maybe another aerial unit. For convenience' sake, I'll say I have to arm every other coastie, since the cutters would probably just have an armed boarding party among the crew. I'd arm them with a mixture of Kel-tec Su-16As and Remington 870s, at about a 9-1 ratio. (90 X $665 = $59850, 10 X $360 = $1800)


The other 500 is split into two groups. 250 or so get detailed to administrative and maintenance duties. Payroll, processing, quartermasters... motorpool duties for cop cars, boats, aerial. No armaments. They are, however, free to carry personal weapons at work.

The final 250 is the "army". 200 get silly uniforms and partisans (short pikes). Yes, they are my papal zouaves. They march around and look pretty. They stand impressively motionless outside of government offices, put on parades, man the gates at my enormous palace, serve as honor guards, and so on.

The remaining 50 are highly trained, very well armed, special forces teams. They do anything that needs doing, as long as it's violent and difficult. They would get whatever they need. Their weapons budget is $250,000, and they get access to automatic rifles, squad automatic weapons, RPGs, or whatever. I wouldn't mandate their armament in any way: They have a toolbox of weapons, as well as use of any government vehicles, and can modify the latter at need. These guys are my insurance. I pay them directly, and very well. Their job is to keep me in power, head off any home-grown coup, and deal with messy problems the cops can't handle. These guys are all volunteer, we accept foreign recruits (but keep the proportion low), and their psych profiles are vetted, backgrounds checked. If things go well, nobody even knows these guys exist.

So, my weapons budget comes to:
$176,540 for police and coast guard arms
$250,000 for my household of ruthless, fanatically loyal killers

The other $573,460 I use to buy LMGs, RPGs, explosives, and some small arms. These go into a armory underneath my palace. If we're invaded, I break these out and hand out small arms to my zouaves, and heavy weapons to the cops, so they can help "repel boarders". Despite being a despot, I encourage civilian firearm ownership, so that my people can also help defend their little island.

Personally, I think I could stay in power for a whole 3 or 4 days. Maybe even a week.

Edit: Forgot ammo. I guess I'd drop half of that remaining $500k or so into ammo. Maybe I should just make everyone pay for their own, though...

 

[sd]

thought i had a good idea and then above poster beat me to it. 1000 man self-defense force- break it down. 700-800 police-types with 9mm handguns, stoeger couger, bersa thunder, NEF pard pump 12 gauges and maybe a few mini-14, marlin lever 30-30 for rifles. Those that show skill, ect., get more militarized training and equipment. Maybe a small SWAT team, some recon-sniper-scout teams and a ranger company. Armed with SIG556 or Magpul Masada in a few months, remington or savage bolts with good scopes, Rem. 870's, springfield 1911 mil-spec if the 9mm cougar doesn't cut it. And Barrett .50's.

 

[ilbob]

A lot of the decisions depend on information we don't have so its kind of hard to come up with any definitive answers. Those who have pointed out the need for heavier weapons may have the right idea, but the OP seems to be talking mostly about personal weapons to arm the 1000 man force.

I am not a huge fan of the "get rid of most of them and spend the money on a seal team" idea. You still need lots of warm bodies to do the more mundane work.

I am also not convinced you can't combine the functions of the military and police into a single unit. Its unlikely you will be sending out expeditionary forces, and really, I would consider it more of a police force than a military force, so serious weaponry is not as big an issue.

A few things you might want to get in addition to the personal weapons:

A few 30 cal machine guns. maybe mount them on 4wd pickups as a mobile reserve.

I hadn't considered the need for a coast guard type unit, but obviously that is also important. A few cabin cruisers would probably be adequate for police work.

if you feel the need for anything heavier as far as weapons go, you start to get into a lot more money. RPGs, machine guns, mortars, etc are not cheap. You also need communications gear, logistical support, medical support and a lot of other things to have a functioning army that you really don't need as much for a police force.

 

[Kacerdias]

Quote:lets face it, select fire is a necessity for the military

Could you explain the rationale behind that? The last thing I'd want every man in my little island army doing is spraying bullets all over the place. Having a base of fire is certainly good, that's what squad MGs are for, but it is really necessary for every soldier to have full auto at their fingertips? Maybe I am overlooking something.

Perhaps not full auto, but 3 round burst would be good. Why? Because other militaries have them. Why do you think the AK was developed? Because Mr Kalashnikov saw too many Russian soldiers with bolt action Mosins being wiped out by machinegun fire. Put 5 guys with select fire weapons against 5 with bolt actions. My money is on the former. More bullets on target faster is a significant advantage. If an invading force were coming after you and you had a choice of weapon would it be a bolt action or something burstable?

 

[woerm]

+1 lead counsel w/ caveats

Simple -

1. Riflemen get SKS or WWII Mauser type or Swiss Bolt Action rifles for $100-200 each (bought in bulk).

2. The savings is spent on a squad level AK47(naah UZI).

3. Each platoon has a sniper bolt action rifle with a quality scope and a spotter with an SKS.

4. Each platoon also has a belt fed RPK (I'd go w/ RPD's thank you) or similar weapon.

I'd add at least a company sized group w/ sten/UZI (aka a grenadier unit)

I'd not mix the .mil and the constabulary at all.

two highly different things.
the police should *not* be affiliated w/ the .mil.

the only place of any size that doesn't have an army is Costa Rica and even they have a .mil function (eg a really oversized FBI)

I'm not a great fan of rpgs but defending an Island or island chain the rpgs give a squadie a highly portable artillery section.

I'd work in 81mm mortars and a section or two of self propelled guns (155 / excalibur munitons) but that is a capital investment

w/ the $1 million lead counsel's plan fits and would let you arm an active reserve section w/ lots of sten/UZI

the coast guard its 12 ga and RPD's boats are cigarette types not cabin cruisers.

training up the reservists would get top priority as you never know when the motherland might change it's mind on the issue (see War of 1812)

woerm

 

[Xzyl]

Could you explain the rationale behind that? The last thing I'd want every man in my little island army doing is spraying bullets all over the place. Having a base of fire is certainly good, that's what squad MGs are for, but it is really necessary for every soldier to have full auto at their fingertips? Maybe I am overlooking something.

What kind of squad MGs could they afford that would fit the parameters of the OP? An RPK would be the closest I could think of but since its AK based I am presuming that its off limits too.

Owlnmole does this island have any manufacturing capacity at all? Even something comparable to a high school shop class?