Posted on 06/30/2005 12:12:26 PM PDT by Ramonan
MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP PENDLETON, Calif.(June 30, 2005) -- Even after discovering and processing mounds of enemy weapons caches during their recent deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom last fall, many Marines with 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment had never pulled the trigger on an AK-47.
These Marines got the chance to gauge the effectiveness of the enemy's weapon of choice during a live-fire exercise with the AK-47 assault rifle here June 23.
"Learning a new weapons system is just like learning a new language. The more you practice it, the better off you will be in battle when your weapon system goes down or malfunctions, and you have to pick up an enemy's weapon and put it to use," said Cpl. Tim Egnoski, a squad leader with 3rd Bn., 1st Marines.
Before the Marines sent rounds downrange, they first learned the basics of the weapon by practicing loading and unloading it and learning how to activate the safety lever.
The AK-47 is quite different from the M-16A2 service rifle -- the weapon all Marines become intimately acquainted with from the day they enter the Marine Corps.
The weapon's full name is the Avtomat Kalashnikova, 1947. The automatic weapon was developed by the famed Kalashnikov gun works in 1947, at the dawn of the Cold War. The world knows it by its initials the AK-47.
Simple to use and deadly efficient, the AK-47 is one of the most influential guns of the 20th century.
"Almost all the enemy fighters I saw in Iraq were using the AK-47," said Lance Cpl. Daniel O'Brien, a machinegunner with the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment. "We got to fire a few of them in Iraq, but we weren't able to actually spend some time to learn just how accurate it is compared to our weapons system. Having familiarity with different equipment makes Marines more useful on the battlefield. If you have to, you pick up another one and get back into the fight and that is what is important."
I was issued one of those puppies in 1986 while at the 5th ID. Loved it.
Polish AKs will be or are already standardized as 5.56mm ones so they sound similar when fired.
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