[Nosegunner]

Saddam Hussein spent decades accumulating weapons of all sorts, and as you might imagine there is a wide array of obsolete and highly collectable firearms among them. I have been exchanging E-mails with a captain assigned to a SPTT (Special Police Transition Team) in Iraq. He has generously shared a few photographs of weapons found there. I know that there have been countless weapons destroyed by coalition forces either in battle or as part of the ongoing process of reducing weapons available to insurgents, but the media has no particular interest in taking note of the more interesting weapons found- -no surprise there.

I have been given permission to share the photos, and will continue to post more as they become available. Many thanks go out to the generous captain for sharing these images. I will not post his name unless I hear otherwise. Here, then, is a snippet of the last E-mail with the photos to follow:

"I have found some of the most interesting guns over here. Most all were burned and left to rust. Here is a list so far.

Vickers machine gun
Lewis machine gun
Henry martini rifle
Henry martini cadet rifle
MP 44
Bren LMG
M1919a4 (flexible and fixed models)
M2 HB (flexible and fixed models)
G3
FN/FAL
Various Mausers
Lee Enfield
M79 grenade launcher
Iranian M16
Smith and Wesson 76 submachine gun
MG42
MAG 58

And the list continues, of course I left out soviet guns (AK,RPK,PKC,DSKA)"

This is an FN from the mid-1950s with the rare spadegrips. I hate to see this one destroyed.

You have to wonder how many piles like this one there have been

You can see some .50 & .30 caliber Brownings in this shot.

 

[glockhead]

would i love

a few days in that room with my tool box

 

[blkbd]

I,I,I'm going to be sick To see all those toys go to the scrap heap.

I should see if I can borrow my Brother In Laws photo album of when he was station in Iraq, He has some great pics of the toys he was able to play with and see Demilled-His group was stationed next to a group of EOD's and he got to play with some of the small arms before they scraped them. He also has a pictues of them field demilling artilley buy placing thermite on the breach of the cannons.

 

[kbailey3]

Are my eye's deceiving me, or is that a BAR right of center, toward the bottom of the pile in the second photo? More of our history down the tubes. kbailey3

 

[upandrunnin]

I think you're right kbailey. Sure looks like a BAR. The more I look at that, the more .30's I see in that pile. That is sickening. I hope they take out 5 Iraqi's for every piece of history in that pile.

 

[Kojak]

Reminds me of the twisted rebar at WTC ground zero

Unfortunately, just another pile of metal for the scrapman.

 

[iRIGHTi]

 

[Chad G]

doesnt look like too much there is salvagable, most of it looks like its rusted or badly abused, Insanes men couldnt have very much common sense to maintain those guns. I'd like to see them come back Home for us to have.............

 

[Prince50]

Not abused by the Iraqis, Burned by coalition forces, then piled high in a scrap heap graveyard worth about $.05 per pound. Most of that stuff could be re heat treated, and saved, but it will all go into the furnace to be turned into screwdrivers, or Ab-Loungers made in China and sold at your local Wal-Mart.

M2HB parts kits worth $4500, turned into about $ 4.23 worth of steel.

Notice all the wood and plastics are gone, and just the exposed (And now very prone to rusting) steel is left.

Darin