Posted on 02/28/2013 2:17:12 PM PST by JerseyanExile
Nearly two years after the start of Syria's popular uprising, the conflict has evolved into a slow-moving, brutal civil war with many players and no clear end in sight. Multiple rebel groups across the country continue to fight President Bashar al-Assad's forces, using any weapons they can get their hands on. While the rebels are using many modern weapons, they've also come up with their own makeshift solutions. In these weapons workshops, anti-aircraft guns are welded to pickup trucks and armor shields are attached to machine guns and cars. Mortar shell nose cones are turned on lathes and explosives are mixed by hand. Homemade grenades are launched by jury-rigged shotguns or giant slingshots in the urban battlefields of Aleppo and Damascus. Gathered here are a few examples of the hand-built munitions.
Syrian rebels prepare to launch a bomb using a homemade slingshot in the northern city of Aleppo, on October 16, 2012.
A man works on an improvised mortar shell for the Free Syrian Army inside a factory which previously manufactured steel and iron in Aleppo, on February 18, 2013.
A Free Syrian Army member smokes a cigarette inside a factory producing improvised mortar shells.
A Free Syrian Army fighter places an improvised mortar shell inside a tube.
Free Syrian Army fighters battle with regime loyalist soldiers, using heavy machine gun, to dislodge a sniper from his position overlooking the two main roads in the neighborhood of Askar, in Aleppo, on October 24, 2012.
A Free Syrian Army fighter uses a catapult to fire a homemade grenade at Syrian Army soldiers during a fight in the Arabeen neighborhood of Damascus, on January 24, 2013.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
Coming soon to a town near you..........necessity is the mother of invention.........
Amazing how that beats MiG 29’s, T80 tanks and 100,000 soldiers.
As someone who is rooting for Israel in this conflict, while Israel is safe as long as this goes on, if Assad loses, my fear is that the alternative will be a lot worse.
Now that's just dirty. They're using secondhand smoke.
Something about that mortar shell series doesn’t make sense to me. It looks to me like they are making a mock-up of a shell.
ping
Ping for later.
/johnny
Take a look at the article. The many photographs show a compendium of improvised or quickly manufactured weapons both at shops and in use. It looks quite real to me, and an indication of what desperate fighters need to do in order to hold off and defeat the Syrian government.
I suspect they may have had some "help" from foreign governments or groups related to rocket propellants and explosive formulations. Their home-made rockets look like they have a pretty good propellant.
Note also the sophistication of the second armored machine gun platform -- it may be an RPV judging by the cameras on it and the photo of the remote control process.
These photos indicate the kind of weaponry that can be created by rebel groups in a moderately advanced country.
The guy looks like some Brit that has been in cryo-storage since the end of WWII
I've got one one of the sweaters (sans hand-grenade and vest). They are comfy warm when the snows fall, and take recoil nicely.
/johnny
years ago I was riding in a helicopter at Valle Nevada, in Chile.
The head of ski patrol, a dude named Bebe, from France, was doing avalanche patrol.
As the French are wont to do he was smoking and drinking coffee.
Next to him was a box of dynamite, used to start avalanches.
I asked him “Heh, Uhhhhh, LOL, that’s dynamite. Now, I don’t know about how do things down here but in America we don’t smoke around that stuff”.
He actually laughed and says back to me “Iz no problem. I show you how and you do one or some”.
So he picks up a stick and starts leaning over the edge of door, which is open. He spies an avalanche waiting to happen.
He pulls back inside the cabin, picks up a stick of dynamite and taking a long drag his cigarette, he lights the thing and is just holding it, while saying some crap to the pilot.
He gets where he needs to be and tosses the thing.
Boom! Shaka Laka! Boom! That’s what is sounds like as the dynamite exploded and the sound reverberated off the canyon walls.
Then Whoosh! Snow just slides down to the bottom.
So he turns to me and I must have been grinning pretty big. He tells me I will help with the next one and says “Grab a bomb”.
So I grab a stick still grinning but thinking “This could go bad but, what the heck!”
So he comes up on where the next avalanche is, turns to me, hands me his cigarette and tells the pilot to hover.
So the chopper comes to a halt and kinda sways back and forth, like when they stop above a cliff and you jump out at 15,000 feet.
Bebe smiles and tells me take a big drag on the cigarette to get it real hot. So I do and he says “Now, light the steek”.
So I light it and he doesn’t say anything.
I’m looking at this thing in my hand and thinking “Holeeeee”.
Finally, after a second or two he says grab hold of the side of the copter and “Throw it over there”.
I lob that thing like I’m a pitcher and watch it fall, shinning onto the snow and then Kaboom!
I yell and I’m like “Hell yeah!”
Bebe socks me in the shoulder, laughs “You can do some more. You’re my assistant today”.
“I usually work for food but, hell I’ll do this for free” I yell out.
We did one more and it was off to ride snowboards for the rest of the day.
That was crazy fun and capped off a week of Heli boarding. One of the best two weeks of my life.
Had the best time at Valle Nevada and then spent a few days in Santiago. Gorgeous city.
I’m going back this labor day.
Sure, smoking cigarettes, drinking coffee and throwing sticks out the door of a helicopter sounds cool years later..
Actually, that did have to be a lot of fun.
I'm not actually a jerk around modern stuff, but I've worked enough old stuff to have had bad headaches. That ain't so fun.
And playing stupid with #5 caps doesn't make Johnny a happy camper.
I have all of my fingers and toes. All of my external bits are there and what they are supposed to be.
Yes, I'm missing a kidney and spleen. That's not germain to the central issue.
Don't smoke around the improvised armory factory, please.
There's sure to be a break room nearby.
/johnny
LOL
I don’t think your a jerk.
I was scared S Hit less but, I was stuck.
I need thrills. Makes the air fresher.
I’m jumping out of a perfectly good plane for my birthday this year and if I like it I’m going back up a couple of times.
Just saw this chick that was pushed over a ledge in Utah at the end of a bunjee cord swing.
Looks awesome...Well, cept for the part where she broke up with her boyfriend.
He was kind of a dick to push her.
Falling sucks. Living through falling sucks worse.
I'm good with leaning back into a harness at 700 AGL and swapping out WISP equipment. I can snuggle up and sleep at that level with those winds.
But falling? Someone's gonna get hurt. And I'm never getting that hurt again. Dead is ok. Hurt is not.
/johnny
LOLOLOLOL!!!! as i raise my eyebrows....
It’s just for fun.
I don’t really care what the outcome is, just so long as I’m having fun or craping in my pants....which has to be even funner....
Nothing but love.
/johnny
Gonna happen to all of us baby!
Live like you were dying tomorrow.
Don’t take life so seriously. No one’s gettin out of this thing alive....
Which reminds me.....Gotta make it the bat caves of Pinnacles National Monument before they close it for the gestation period...
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