There are photos of US soldiers with AKs in Iraqi. Apparently in Vietnam US soldiers would use the AK but find they were shot at by their own side. Don’t know how true that it.

I am not a member of the armed forces, and I have spent zero time in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any other deployment zone. Thus any observations I make or questions I raise are solely from conjecture, based on a tiny amount of second/thirdhand exposure to “what is.” That said, I try to use reason, so I hope I’m not too far off base.

Here is the issue I see…what about friendlies (US and local) using picked-up weps? Operating system wars aside, I presume US soldiers using AKs etc. is not unheard of, and by extension, Iraqi Army guys might pick one up, for such universal and rifle-inspecific reasons as conserving/out of primary ammo, severe damage, that sort of thing.
IIRC there was a situation in WWII, where certain US units were issued camo. They were sometimes fired upon by other US units, because up until that point, the only soldiers in camouflage were Germans.

“Yes biometrics adds an additional layer of tracking should one of these guns go missing, but that is a secondary effort. You can accomplish the same thing with morning formation. Everyone who is not holding an M-16 please step into the office. Done.”

That’s a good thought. My one thought would be to either register their current AKs (Funny I say that, but it’s a different sort of situation, gov property) by serial, or add some sort of serial or tracing mark to it. Flipside is it would be ridiculously easy to supply Acme Bad Guys Supply with a list of legit S/Ns to go on new, unmarked AK recievers, probably somewhat easier than doing so with an AR that basically has to come from a machine shop, with a certain degree of fit-and-finish. That and it doesn’t address the supply of 7.62×39.

I guess I should invest in FN Herstal and Olin Corp.

BTW, Aaron, you mention…
“…without near religious amounts of maintenance, will jam constantly.”
For those who are Muslim, that should be pretty straightforward. When you hear prayer call, clean yourself, say your prayers, clean your weapon. And maybe look at fixing things for the US rifles, of course, whether it be pistons or polymer or whatever works.

I mostly agree with you, but I don’t think that they will ever be able to assume M16 = friendly. Iran produces a clone of the Chinese AR-15 clone, these clones will probably make their way to the insurgents for use in fake checkpoints etc.

Many of the rank and file Iraqi Army and Police wear 2 hats. Army by day, insurgent by night, and it is an even bet that NEITHER of his two families knows about the other. The AK is so ubiquitous in this culture, seeing one is meaningless, taking his AK and giving him an M-16 “outs” him to everyone who sees it. It makes it much easier for us to tell good guys from bad guys.

I suggested pinning gold paper stars to their clothes, but I guess that was tried once before and people got pretty touchy about it.

An Iraqi army uniform is pretty easy to come by if you want to run a fake checkpoint for carjackings and shakedowns. An M-16 is much harder. Once we can say 100% of the Iraqi army is packing the Mattel toy rifle people have an instant visual cue that the guys ahead are phonies. This also applies to our guys. Increasingly US soldiers are operating side by side with Iraqis. At a couple hundred yards viewed through NVGs that distinctive profile is a big help in deciding what to do. Now when you see that classic AK image, you dont have to pause to check for friendlies in the area. Skulking around at night+AK in hand=72 Virgins.

Yes, follow the money. That is usually the answer. For a second here forget about the money involved in ammo contracts. This move means we can CUT OFF ammo. As long as the Iraqis use 7.62×39 in a State sponsored capacity we have to allow it to exist. This enables us to take that card off the table by eliminating any stockpiles we find as obsolete, or even better, tracing them straight to insurgents.

You could also add black ammo into the mix, but that is another conversation.

Yes biometrics adds an additional layer of tracking should one of these guns go missing, but that is a secondary effort. You can accomplish the same thing with morning formation. Everyone who is not holding an M-16 please step into the office. Done. Also one of the M-16 family traits is an insatiable need to be cleaned. It will not be long before any rifle that falls out becomes deadlined because Iraqis, used to AK’s, who have not been trained in it’s care and maintenance will be unable to keep it running. You know what these guys Everyone is focusing on the functional arguments of the M-16 Series. These points are all well known and have been discussed to death. There is a much simpler and more practical implication to this move. First let me establish my BS rating. I have been in Iraq for nearly 5 years. I spent several years in the field, and now I am a mentor at a tier one Iraqi training unit.

Many of the rank and file Iraqi Army and Police wear 2 hats. Army by day, insurgent by night, and it is an even bet that NEITHER of his two families knows about the other. The AK is so ubiquitous in this culture, seeing one is meaningless, taking his AK and giving him an M-16 “outs” him to everyone who sees it. It makes it much easier for us to tell good guys from bad guys.

I suggested pinning gold paper stars to their clothes, but I guess that was tried once before and people got pretty touchy about it.

An Iraqi army uniform is pretty easy to come by if you want to run a fake checkpoint for carjackings and shakedowns. An M-16 is much harder. Once we can say 100% of the Iraqi army is packing the Mattel toy rifle people have an instant visual cue that the guys ahead are phonies. This also applies to our guys. Increasingly US soldiers are operating side by side with Iraqis. At a couple hundred yards viewed through NVGs that distinctive profile is a big help in deciding what to do. Now when you see that classic AK image, you dont have to pause to check for friendlies in the area. Skulking around at night+AK in hand=72 Virgins.

Yes, follow the money. That is usually the answer. For a second here forget about the money involved in ammo contracts. This move means we can CUT OFF ammo. As long as the Iraqis use 7.62×39 in a State sponsored capacity we have to allow it to exist. This enables us to take that card off the table by eliminating any stockpiles we find as obsolete, or even better, tracing them straight to insurgents.

You could also add black ammo into the mix, but that is another conversation.

Yes biometrics adds an additional layer of tracking should one of these guns go missing, but that is a secondary effort. You can accomplish the same thing with morning formation. Everyone who is not holding an M-16 please step into the office. Done. Also one of the M-16 family traits is an insatiable need to be cleaned. It will not be long before any rifle that falls out becomes deadlined because Iraqis, used to AK’s, who have not been trained in it’s care and maintenance will be unable to keep it running. You know what these desert dwellers call an M-16 that hasn’t been cleaned in a while? Nothing. They are dead because it wouldn’t fire.

There are fixes to both problems but we arent applying them to ours or the IA’s. Supporting the troops my a-s.