What happens to the gear found in caches?

[GermaniaInvicta]

What happens to the weapons which are found in caches in Iraq?
Can the lucky guy keep them or must he hand them over to be stored or destroyed?

[msnger]

their burn along with terrorists in hell.

[Sdet21]

"hooah" to that!

[Wrath1]

Some of the stuff was kept and some was "thrown-away" and destroyed with all the other "arms".

I personally kpet a few things I wasn't supposed to. Mostly arms from WWII. What a shame it would have been to destory a Tommy or PPSh-41.

[jizzmonkey]

What happens to the weapons which are found in caches in Iraq?
Can the lucky guy keep them or must he hand them over to be stored or destroyed?

Most of it is blown the f***k up...what can be refurbished and handed over to the ING or Ip's is kept, but for the most part all the stuff we found was crap.

[Omaha]

Most of it is blown the f***k up...what can be refurbished and handed over to the ING or Ip's is kept, but for the most part all the stuff we found was crap.


Like that one picture with the shmoe in the parking garage of your's, a bunch of old rusty hand grenades and rpg rounds from the 60s.

[Wrath1]

You are right..alot of the stuff found is crap. The good stuff is in the hands of those who don't want to give it up so easily.

The stuff I kept is still in Bosnia and Serbia. I never tried to smuggle it out and you shouldn't either. I've got a house and land there, though.

[jizzmonkey]

Like that one picture with the shmoe in the parking garage of your's, a bunch of old rusty hand grenades and rpg rounds from the 60s.

yup..most are like that. At least the cache's we found...every once and a while you find stuff not so vintage.

[One?]

it wont be crap when they rig it to a timing device, detonator and a bunch of other electronics and old rusty bombs/grenades.

didnt iraq used to make weapons?

[jizzmonkey]

it wont be crap when they rig it to a timing device, detonator and a bunch of other electronics and old rusty bombs/grenades.

didnt iraq used to make weapons?

I'm not saying it doesnt pose a threat..trust me I know how destructive 6 rusyt-ass 155's daisy-chained together can be. But I AM saying I wouldnt ever use the stuff, or give it to the ING...its old and unstable.

[oregongrunt]

We'd destroy the big items in place or if they were small arms or other fun goodies, we'd take them back to camp for target practice or other activities. If they were things like grenades, mortar rounds or RPG heads, we'd throw them in the closest irrigation ditches.

[wiking]

One rather bad thing about small arms, especially old AK's found all over the middle east and asia, is that they are so old, well used and i guess at times rather neglected on the cleaning, that they often suffer heavily from poor accuracy due to worn out barrels. Add to that the not allways perfect quality of soviet ammunition (or so i've heard), and small diffrences in the weapons and ammo made all over the world.

Alone one of these things are not much, but when a worn out barrel is set to fire old ammo from possibly several diffrent manufacturers with a varying degree of quality and balistical performance, then bullets might well fly in rather strange places.

[NewsMan]

In Afghanistan, depending on where the cache is found, some servicable stuff is given over to the ANA (more frequently when dealing with tanks and artillery) and the rest destroyed. I to know of servicemen who rescued WWII items. In particular, I saw M-1's and a wooden stocked Sten gun stamped USA (looked like an old OSS weapon?).

[wiking]

In Afghanistan, depending on where the cache is found, some servicable stuff is given over to the ANA (more frequently when dealing with tanks and artillery) and the rest destroyed. I to know of servicemen who rescued WWII items. In particular, I saw M-1's and a wooden stocked Sten gun stamped USA (looked like an old OSS weapon?).

But how the hell does a wooden stocked Sten stamped USA and M1's end up there anyways? (the wooden stocked Stens were used by the British airborne i think, Might have been used by the OSS to.)

[NewsMan]

World War I and WWII German helmets there as well. Afghanistan is full of crazy stuff.

[wiking]

World War I and WWII German helmets there as well. Afghanistan is full of crazy stuff.

How is the condition of the stuff you find, a collecters heaven or a collecters nightmare?

[crazyman]

we either blew it in place, or brought it back to be inspected and then issued to iraqi army if the weapon was in decent condition. some larger caches got blown in place because we werent sure about the safety of some jury rigged things in em

[NewsMan]

How is the condition of the stuff you find, a collecters heaven or a collecters nightmare?

Collecters heaven. Only problem is that you need to have an ISAF or US soldier to ship whatever home through military means... the guards at the airport took my helmets!

I saw a room in Gardez that was stacked full of German helmets in good condition. I found mine in Herat, on the other side of the country. I've seen nice, authentic 1850's flintlock pistols for $50. A ton of stuff there where there isn't a lot of money.

ps - I am suggesting the pilferage of antiquities. Although the Afghan government looks at relics, like helmets, as such... to me, that's a strech.
You also have to be real careful of knock-offs. Gem business in Afghanistan is good to... but like before, you have to know what you're doing.

[wiking]

blimey, i'll be booking a flight to a-stan soon then.
The Afghans could make a killing like that, round up all WW1 or WW2 equipment, and any antique firearm available, and sell it off.

Especially in the US a antique European weapon can claimb prices several times over the market price they do here in europe, so long as the stuff lasted they'd be able to make a bloody shyteload of cash. :)

Marcus, where are you and why aren't you going on a tour to A-stan when i bloody need you there!

[panzerjager]

eBay, of course!

[Cygnus]

Any BAR assualt rifles found?

[tehllama]

I think the strategy on this is quite good -- mortar rounds and anything else IED related is no-keepie -- I remember somewhat regularly hearing about Palestinians whe kept blowing themselves up because they were incompetent exposives engineers -- needless to say recycling stuff from the ones dumb enough to lose track of it is no-go.

Is this why I randomly see images of ING with gold AKs?

[oregongrunt]

I captured a museum quality Nazi Mauser with "1945" stamped on it. I wish I could have kept it. Also there was an armored division's yard in 2003 that had Shermans and T-34s lined up in the back lot.