Poland bids to supply Kalashnikovs to Iraqi army

Reuters | Friday, August 8, 2003

[JohnHuang2]

Poland bids to supply Kalashnikovs to Iraqi army

WARSAW, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Poland, a U.S. ally in the war to oust Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, wants to sell Soviet-designed assault rifles to a new Iraqi army, a Polish arms trader said on Friday.

The U.S.-led transitional administration in Iraq is considering equipping Iraq's reconstituted army with AK-47s because Iraqis are familiar with the weapon.

"We have placed a bid to supply 34,000 AK-47 rifles to Iraq," Roma Sarzewska, spokeswoman for arms trader PHZ Bumar, told Reuters. She declined to give more details.

Poland hopes to win the order because it is the staunchest Washington ally among the countries manufacturing the machinegun, designed in the 1940s by Mikhail Kalashnikov and still widely used in third-world countries.

An industry source said the rifles would be made by Polish gun-maker Radom Lucznik, a major arms supplier of the defunct Warsaw Pact before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Poland, which joined the NATO military alliance in 1999, is to take command of a multi-national stabilisation force to keep the peace in a zone of central-southern Iraq on September 1.

[JohnHuang2]

Friday, August 8, 2003

Quote of the Day by genghis

[FreedomPoster]

My impression is that there are plenty of them in-country. Did I miss something?

[stevio]

Pictures! We need pictures!

[montomike]

Huh...What? I thought that Iraq was swimming in AK-47's?

[Enterprise]

LOL!!! The U.S. has destroyed tens of thousands of them, and some of them were brand new! Shaking my head here.

[Poodlebrain]

I support this program since Poland will need to standardize its weapons with NATO's 5.56mm ammunition it will need to get rid of its old Soviet equipment, and the new Iraqi Army is as good a customer for the weapons as any.

[Aaron0617]

LOL!!! The U.S. has destroyed tens of thousands of them, and some of them were brand new! Shaking my head here.

Well U.S. taxpayer money will rebuy them all. Now the money will go to some Polish company.

[nerdwithamachinegun]

Not all AKs are created equal. There are plenty of parts that don't interchange between variants made in different countries.

The vast majority of the AKs in Iraq are the awful folding stock variety. Those are fine for noise makers.
I think I read elsewhere that the RFP is calling for solid stocked rifles. AKs of Chinese origin have somewhat different fire control parts than rifles of European origin. Frequently they also have the gawdawful folding spike bayonet.
Bolts and bolt carriers don't always interchange either.

Not all AK magazines are created equal either, especially the 75 round drums.

In my experience and opinion the Hungarian and Polish variants are as well made as any and better than most. Given a choice I'd go for a Hungarian AMD-65 but that's me.

On the surface it seems stupid to buy 34,000 new rifles for a country with nearly as many AKs as grains of sand but I think it's a good decision and have no qualms over my tax money being spent this way.

[blanknoone]

"I support this program since Poland will need to standardize its weapons with NATO's 5.56mm ammunition it will need to get rid of its old Soviet equipment, and the new Iraqi Army is as good a customer for the weapons as any."

I REALLY doubt that these will be 5.56 NATO. I would guess, actually not guess since the peice says "soviet designed", that these would be chambered for the original soviet ammo.

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

"AK-47: When you positively, absolutely, have to kill every mother----er in the room!"

[SwinneySwitch]

Attn: General Sanchez, quit destroying the AK47s you find and if you need more, just go to any Iraqi market! SNAFU!

[tortoise]

I REALLY doubt that these will be 5.56 NATO. I would guess, actually not guess since the peice says "soviet designed", that these would be chambered for the original soviet ammo.

They will probably do what some other countries of done (e.g. Israel), and base it off the Finnish Valmet variants of the AK action. Not only were the Valmets made in all the standard NATO calibers and Russian ones, but they were really nicely made rifles and looked distinctive compared to many of the Chinese and Russian variants. I used to have a paratroop Valmet in .223, and it was without question the finest built AK actions I've handled and I owned many of the best. Ignoring the standard crappy AK ergonomics, they made some notable improvements to it over the standard Russian design. The .223 Valmet folder I had was good for about 1.5 MOA all day.

It still had a lot of the problems AKs have as a professional soldiers weapon, but most of the best AK derivatives (Galil, South African R-series) were based on the Valmet design rather than the Russian one.