Redstate

I didnt watch the debate and dont know anything about the specific comment but weren't US troops 'up armoring' their humvees with all sorts of found scrap metal and things?

However, there is a big difference between forces enhancing vehicles, and the assertion that forces are not issued firearms and ammunition, and must rely on AK ammo (which is of a different caliber than ours).

Also, while brigades may be broken at the battalion level, has anyone heard of a platoon having been broken up, with the parts distributed to different theaters?

And since when do Captains command platoons? Isn't this the sort of thing a "butter bar" (2nd Lt) does? Or a Sergeant in a pinch/ Aren't Captains supposed to command companies, or serve staff positions?

if a few American soldiers are using AK47s because they prefer them as weapons? If that is the case, they most likely would have to scrounge ammunition either from captured Taliban stockpiles or possibly from any NATO forces that still issue 7.62 rounds.

I don't recall any soldiers I served with in Vietnam using captured AKs or the SKS as primary weapons, but our mortar platoon did use a captured NVA 60mm mortar in the field along with a standard issue 81mm. As the 60mm was not SOP for Army units, we had to scrounge 60mm rounds from a Marine CAP unit that was stationed in our AO. This was contrary to Army regulations so we kept the weapon hidden when necessary.

I have no idea as to what comprises the standard infantry platoon in the Iraq or Afghanistan theatres, but can say that our COMPANY in Vietnam often had a field strength of between 50 and 60 men, including an Artillery FO and his radioman.

We may have had shortages of some things, during my day, but ammunition was never one of them. I suspect the same is true today.

that there was not a shortage of weaponry either, except spare M60 barrels were precious.

Also was the firing-sound factor; when firing against v.c. or n.v.a. using ak's there was the uncertainty by the enemy of who they were firing at. Even then the ak-47 was the more reliable select fire automatic weapon especially as compared with the m-16. extensive under-fire anecdotes attest to the ak-47 firing under conditions where few other weapons will continue to function. it is also easy to maintain and now ammo is universally available and cheap (that's some of the reasons why it's so popular with 3rd world countries and rebels/outlaws).


__________________________________________________________
"The Constitution is not a suicide pact". Justice Robert H. Jackson

Here in Virginia where we simply declare at the election judges' desk in which party's primary we want to vote, I considered crossing to inject my tiny piece of havoc into the Democrat process, but I got a Republican ballot, instead. What stopped me was the thought that, should the candidate (Senator Obama was "behind" at the time but expected to win all three Potomac primaries that day) for whom I voted go on to win the presidency, some part of the consequences would be on my head.

I am convinced that Senator Clinton will battle to the bitter end even if Obama takes all of the primary votes left to be had. She, her husband, and the DLC are fighting for their very livelihoods since an Obama win in November would be the last nail in the New Democrat coffin, and they cannot continue to profit from graft without any influence to peddle.

I go so far as to say that, should Obama win the nomination, Clinton, Inc., will act in their selfish interests by torpedoing Obama in the general election to keep 2012 open and the Dean/Kennedy/Obama "democrat wing of the Democratic Party" in abeyance--especially if they think they can false-flag it as an attack from the VRWC.

All this said, I still cannot root for Senator Obama for any reason. His exploitation of demagoguery appears masterful at this point, and there is danger that he, the Democrats, the MSM, and the rest of the collectivist machine can perpetuate the enchantment. The course people like Obama want to chart for this country ends with guys like me in WPA-like labor camps, doing busy-work building infrastructure nobody needs so that the intelligentsia will not have my neanderthal, thought-criminal mug uglifying the vistas from their dachas.