Iraqi and Afgan ammo question.

[Kymasabe]

I was wondering the other day, Iraqi security forces (I've heard) are using AK's and I'm sure there are thousands of them in Afganistan as well. Question is...are they 47's or 74's?

And the next question is...who manufacturers the ammo for those weapons?

In Afgan, they may have left-over Russian AK-74's and may have a huge stockpile of surpluss ammo from the Russian's-there days.

 

[Al Thompson]

Iraq - AK-47s, ammo I saw (row after row of double stacked pallets) was Wolf.

 

[Sunray]

Most likely to be 47's. The Soviets didn't export their first line kit.
If there are Afghan tribesmen using 74's, they were likely captured. Ditto for the ammo. Mind you, a guy living in the mountains wouldn't want a rifle that isn't chambered in a cartridge he couldn't easily get.

 

[AR27]

i dont know about the russians but we leave nothing for the enemy, we blow up our outposts when were done with them

 

[hank327]

The vast majority of AKs in Afghanistan are 47s. The Russians armed the Afghans fighting on their side with 7.62x39mm 47s from their surplus stocks and not the recently adopted 74s. In Iraq it is 7.62x39mm AK47s as well. That was the primary arm of the Iraqi Army under Saddam and also what we gave them when we started reconstituting the Iraqi Army.

The only countries that I know of to adopt and use the AK74 and the 5.45x39mm round were the old Warsaw Pact countries of Eastern Europe. Any 74s found in Afghanistan were captured from the Russians during their war or perhaps a few smuggled in over the years. The Soviet Army would not have abandoned large stocks of munitions when the withdrew from Afghanistan. It was a orderly, phased withdrawal over a long time so they had plenty of time to remove any remaining stock. This is in regards to 5.45x39mm ammo. As for where the Muj get their 7.62x39mm ammo well there are many sources. In Iraq, the whole country was a veritable ammo dump. Shortly after the US invasion in March 03, dozens of ammo dumps were left unguarded and open to anyone who wanted to make off with not only small arms ammo but also artillery/mortar shells, aerial bombs, rockets, grenades, and every other type of ordnance imaginable. I'd be willing to bet good money that the vast majority of what's been used against us in Iraq originated from those unsecured Iraqi military munitions depots.

As for Afghanistan, the sources are much more variable. The New York Times had an article regarding the origins of the ammo used by the muj there. An examination of ammo taken from the magazines found on dead muj found ammo from a variety of sources. Disturbingly, some of the rounds were from what we gave to the Afghan National Army.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/world/asia/20ammo.html

 

[Shadow 7D]

remember that ammo shortage afew years ago in milsup, well the state department contracted the factories that produced it to make some for our new friends.

Um, as for those ammo dumps, well My unit was located next to one, it wasn't exactly unguarded, but, when you have a 30 mile
(It might have been larger) perimeter that you are told to 'keep an eye on, if you can' and your the only unit there, a aviation unit and you can't just shoot the looters

(they are a local police issue, the state dept and DOD had a pissing contest, and Iraq was looted clean, sorry but I was in the TAC more than a few times when higher up told us to 'contact the state department liaison as that is a local government police issue')

So yeah, I saw a lot of crap walk out of that place, and the pilots did their best, but after a while the locals learn that you won't shoot them, then we saw a lot of footage of impolite hand gestures as they loaded trucks and drove off.

 

[fireman 9731]

As for the friendlies, The US put in a huge order of Wolf to supply the Iraqi and Afghan armies. That was part of the huge ammo shortage a while back.