#Africa

Photo Of The Day and we go to Africa for the Joint Knowledge Exchange 24 exercise, where members of the Somali National Army’s 162nd Danab Special Engagement Cell aim their weapons downrange in Kismayo, Somalia, Jan. 11, 2024. JKE 24 provided U.S. Forces an opportunity to train alongside the SNA 162nd Danab SEC and Kenya Defence Forces to share expertise in topics ranging from weapons handling to troop leading procedures.

Welcome to another edition of TFB’s Photo Of The Day. We don’t get contributions from readers too often, but it happens. Today is such an occasion, and it’s a pretty interesting one. Mike Owen of Meridian Ordnance LLC sent us pictures of various Russian AKs taken in the Horn of Africa.

Top of the day and welcome to our Photo Of The Day! It’s fantastic to see the M110 SASS in the wild, on a tripod. You see a U.S. Army National Guard soldier, assigned to Task Force Wolfhound, East Africa Response Force (EARF), conducting high angle shooting training at Arta Beach, Djibouti, in 2022.

Let’s go to Jacqueville in Cote d’Ivoire, or The Ivory Coast (Africa), for our Photo Of The Day. We see U.S. and Côte d’Ivoire special operations forces conduct a Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET). JCETs like these are intended to enhance U.S. relationships with partner nations by developing and maintaining critical military-to-military connections and improving joint and allied readiness and interoperability.

Photo Of The Day: During a Joint Combined Exchange Training (JCET) in Isiolo, Kenya on July 1, 2022, U.S. Marines assigned to Marine Forces Special Operations Command (MARSOC) undertake a specialized training exercise alongside Kenyan Army personnel. Above you can see several soldiers using FN SCARs with iron sights and a variety of optics.

Photo Of The Day: Above we see Spc. Jacob Mink, a scout sniper assigned to 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company, 1-149th, Infantry Battalion, Task Force Red Dragon, Combined Joint Task Force – Horn of Africa, as he provides security during Exercise WAKRI 22 near Ali Sabieh, Djibouti. He’s using the M110A1 Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System (CSASS), which is a development from Heckler & Koch’s HK417 in 7.62×51 mm. Note the optics from SIG Sauer and the tape covering the suppressor, probably to avoid sand and dust getting into the system. The suppressor cover is from Armageddon Gear.

John Rigby and Co., the renowned British deluxe hunting firearms maker, has announced the release of a limited edition run of their Big Game bolt action rifles dubbed Tsavo. These dangerous game rifles are dedicated to the story of the two most feared man-eater lions from the Tsavo region of Kenya that in 1898 killed 135 workers during the Kenya-Uganda railway construction.

According to this report from the French Armed Forces, they seem very happy with their new Heckler & Koch HK416Fs in the deserts of Sahel. They have used the HK416 out to 600 meters, with good results.

Although these photographs were published by at least mid-2014, the presence of an HK69A1 in the hands of any insurgent group is interesting enough to those of us at TFB. The pictures were taken by a Reuters photographer Goran Tomasevic while embedded with the then victorious rebel group Séléka, more formally known as Séléka CPSK-CPJP-UFDR. The images are viewable here, on a Ukrainian media website, which published a compilation of them in 2014. A caption attributed to the photographs on a separate website specifically mentions the location of where they were taken-

Shocking ammunition trend emerging…

Although the Russian Kalashnikov assault rifle is the one that is most famous, it is arguably the Chinese Type 56 AK that made the bigger impression on the world in the 1960s and 70s. This rifle was initially developed with Russian technical assistance just before the Sino-Soviet split beginning in 1956, but subsequent development took place without Russian input, leading to an entire family of unique AK variants. The name “Type 56” actually refers to this entire family of Chinese AKs, which includes milled receiver variants derived from the Russian Type 2 AK, as well as stamped versions similar to (but distinct from) the AKM. These guns showed up all over the world, and for many they are THE iconic “AK-47”. They were the primary weapon of the North Vietnamese Army in the latter half of the Vietnam War, were exported by the Chinese to Africa, Asia, and South America. It was the most used AK variant by the mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan War, up against Russian AK-74 rifles. Too this day remains one of the most common if not the most common AK variant, and it’s the Chinese Type 56 with its distinctive integral spike bayonet that is famously depicted as a symbol of liberation on the Flag of Mozambique.

I am not someone who has ever had the opportunity to travel to Africa to tackle the Big Five* most dangerous and difficult animals to hunt on the continent (and arguably the planet), and fully admit my novice status in this area. Karamojo Bell I am not.

Due to increasing poaching efforts over the years, an number of national and private parks in Africa have become increasingly vigilant in their efforts to combat poachers. As poacher tactics have become more sophisticated, so have many of the park Rangers guarding the animals that live in these parks. Unfortunately this has lead to some deaths on the Good Guy side of things.

NORINCO and Chongqing Jianshe Industry Group have unveiled a brand new modern 5.56mm and 7.62mm rifle platforms. We do not know much about these new guns other than the photos included here, not even the source of these photos which were passed to us anonymously. What we can infer is that these rifles are intended for the export market to compete with modern rifle platforms such as the Kalashnikov AK-12 and the Galil ACE and to a lesser extent Western modern rifle platforms such as the H&K 416/17 and SCAR-L/H. They will most likely to be manufactured by North China Industries and marketed internationally by Jianshe Industry Group.

Brazil’s premier small arms manufacturer is in hot water: Two former executives of Forjas Taurus SA have been served with charges of arms trafficking by the Brazilian government. The executives, Eduardo Pezzuol and Leonardo Sperry, allegedly negotiated deals to ship 8,000 handguns to Fares Mohammed Hassan Mana’a, a Yemeni arms trafficker active in Africa. Reuters reports: