Daesh small arms perspective

    Most of the media we have presented about the Terrorist group Daesh, detailing their small arms inventory, has come from the group themselves in propaganda and news reports. However recently, courtesy of VICE News, we have a completely unfiltered view from one of their own fighters, in an engagement against the Kurds. The news agency was able to obtain this footage from the helmet camera of one of the slain terrorists. It depicts a mobile element going into battle against a Kurdish YPG position in northern Syria. The truck where the fighter with the camera is in suffers a mobility kill, and the crew in the armored bucket in the back have to bail out and egress to the rear. Much can be said about the tactics of these guys that just plain suck. From rolling on the ground instead of low crawling, to not being aware of their RPG back blast area at all, to horrible communication throughout the vehicles and between the individual fighters in the back of the Mad Max like armored trucks.

    As for small arms, we see some interesting developments, namely the 7.62x51mm MG3 (it could possibly be an MG42 from a number of World War Two weapons caches that were unearthed in Syria), to a DIY rifle mounted grenade launcher, set off by a blank round, gingerly lit like a Molotov cocktail. I will give them credit for referring to the types of RPG rockets by Anti-Personal and Anti-Tank, with the personal ones shaped like a solid rod, and the Anti-Tank ones with the bulbous warhead that the RPG is much more commonly seen with. We also see the use of M16s and RPK light machine guns.

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    Miles

    Infantry Marine, based in the Midwest. Specifically interested in small arms history, development, and usage within the MENA region and Central Asia. To that end, I run Silah Report, a website dedicated to analyzing small arms history and news out of MENA and Central Asia.

    Please feel free to get in touch with me about something I can add to a post, an error I’ve made, or if you just want to talk guns. I can be reached at miles@tfb.tv


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