If you have been following this blog you know the Chinese have been in the news recently.
A Chinese ship carrying 3 million rounds of 7.62×39mm and 1500 RPG rounds destined for land locked Zimbabwe tried to offload in the South African port of Durban.
Robert Mugabe’s Zanu (PF) party have been arming militias to drive out farmers and terrorize opposition supporters since the election they probably lost (but refuse to announce the results). Despite this the South African Defence Secretary approved the shipment: “This is a normal transaction between two sovereign states and we don’t have to interfere”. Not that surprising since the South African president openly supports Robert Mugabe.
Luckily for the people of Zimbabwe the dock workers have refused to offload the cargo.
The Chinese reported that Tibetan monks have been hoarding vast quantities of arms …
“In the past two days, local police found three rifles, 571 bullets, 10kg of dynamite, five detonators and 38 satellite receivers in 11 key monasteries in Jone and Xiahe counties, and Hezuo City in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture,” Xinhua reported.
I would not call 571 rounds a “cache” and for all we know they could be .22LR or guns kept from any of the past centuries wars. Satellite receivers probably means GPS devices.
I think the majority of the readers of this blog have more arms in their safe than all monks in China.
Citizens are not allowed to own firearms in China. Foreigners will be allowed to bring in their firearms in for the Olympics.
But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.
With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.
Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.
In purchasing munitions, the contractor has also worked with middlemen and a shell company on a federal list of entities suspected of illegal arms trafficking.
Moreover, tens of millions of the rifle and machine-gun cartridges were manufactured in China, making their procurement a possible violation of American law.
It is a long article. Somewhat sensationalist. Looks like some kids (18, 22 and 25 years old) found a source of soviet ammo and sold it. This is the kind of story that they will make into a move.
The above photo shows Chinese UN peacekeepers performing during a medal ceremony in Lebanon. It is interesting to see how they hold the bullpup to use the bayonet.
The Type 79 submachine gun is more or less patterned after the Type 56 (AK-47) assault rifle. It uses gas-operated, rotary bolt action with short stroke gas piston located above barrel. The bolt group and fire mode/safety switch are similar to those of the Type 56 rifle. The barrel, receiver, pistol grip, magazine and shoulder stock are all made from stamped steel. The weapon fires 7.62 X 25mm pistol cartridge in either single or fully automatic mode. Ammunitions are fed from a straight box magazine that holds 20 rounds. Shoulder stock folds up and forward when not in use.
Type 79 submachine gun is rather unusual for its class as it is very lightweight and uses locked breech, gas operated action instead of more traditional (for SMG) blowback action. This weapon was (and probably still is) widely used by PAP (Chinese police).
If the SAS can do it …
No doubt these guys will be quelling the protests against Chinese policy that could break out.
UPDATE: It is Chinese Artillery, not North Korean. Sorry, my mistake. Apparently those are Chinese characters in the background. Thanks Danger Zone for the correction.
A photo in the NK AAA article I recently blogged about show AKs mounted on artillery barrels. The theories on MilitaryPhotos.net are that they could be:
Crude Sights
Used to fire tracers
Used to fire bullets during training instead of artillery rounds to save cost.
The only other explanation I can think of is that they are just stowed away up there. Although I don’t see how the operators could climb up a hot barrel to fetch it during combat.
Iran is one of those countries who are not happy when they are not copying weapons designed by other countries. The irony is that they have copied an Israeli weapon.
These grainy photos were taken from a video (see below).
There are a few parts that look different to the CornerShot such as the bottom of the front and the hinge. A lot of it looks the same. Compare with the original:
This youtube video is very bad quality. The original, in WMV format, is here.
The chinese also developed a corner shot type weapon, the HD66, but it looks very different to the Israeli and Iranian weapon. It is really a QSZ92 pistol mounted on the end of a submachine gun.
MilitaryPhotos.net has some interesting photos of the Chinese International Criminal Police Organization.
Some interesting suppressed AKs, they look like AK-103’s but could be something else, and what is probably a Norinco CQ (M16A1 clone) or CQ-M4 (you guessed it, an M4 clone).
Although, I wouldn’t be surprised if these were airsofters (btw, I have nothing against airsoft).
I came across these photos, of the recent Chinese Indian war games, showing the QBZ-95 in use. Although they could be the QBZ-97 (5.56mm version), I cannot tell the difference.
The Chinese have two types of gas operated semi-automatic .50/12.7mm caliber rifles. Both only shoot at 2 MOA with standard ammunition.
This is enough for anti-material work but well below western sniper rifle standards. For comparison, the Barrett M82 is supposed to shoot sub MOA (less than 1 MOA).
It is available in either 12.7×108mm or .50BMG.
Hi, welcome to my blog! This blog is dedicated to all things firearms related. I hope you enjoy it.
I want this blog to appeal to a worldwide audience and so I will be focusing on firearms and shooting rather than country specific politics. There are already many great blogs defending your rights!
Hi, welcome to my blog! This blog is dedicated to all things firearms related. I hope you enjoy it.