British troops forced to borrow ammo

[Julian2]

 

 

 

November 23, 2006 12:54pm

Article from: Agence France-Presse

 

 

BRITISH troops in Afghanistan were sent a defective batch of ammunition, and were forced to borrow rounds from Canadian and American troops, the defence ministry has confirmed.

 

"Three months ago, there was a single defective batch of 0.5 ammunition,'' a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said.

 

"Some ammunition was borrowed from the Americans and Canadians for the short time it took to be replaced. At present, there are no problems with 0.5 ammunition or any other kind of rounds in theatre,'' she said.

 

The comments were in response to a report in The Daily Telegraph which alleged that a platoon from the 3rd Battalion Parachute Regiment refused to go out on patrol until the problem was resolved.

 

According to the newspaper, the ammunition was thought to be from either Pakistan or the Czech Republic, where a round costs 60 US cents ($A .77 cents)

 

British, Canadian or American ammunition costs about $US1.50 ($A1.93) meaning cheaper ammunition would likely have saved thousands of pounds, given the number of rounds fired.

 

"The ammo we had was rubbish,'' the newspaper quoted an unnamed parachute regiment officer involved in the fighting as saying.

 

"It just kept jamming. At one point, we refused to go out because it was so bad. Eventually we managed to scrounge some Canadian rounds,'' he said.

 

"If we had not got that ammo we would certainly have lost a lot of people.''

 

In response to the allegations of weapons malfunctioning, the spokeswoman for the MoD told AFP that "southern Afghanistan has extremely hot and dusty conditions which can sometimes interfere with the moving parts of a weapon.''

 

"It would be misleading to blame this on defective ammunition.''

 

The Telegraph reported that senior technical officers tested five different batches of ammunition, all of which were found to be defective.

[Flashermac]

The UK buys its ammunition from Pakistan???

 

 

 

[Fidel]

Well it's no wonder it doesn't work then... the boys in the factory probably know which consignment is going where... and do a little sabotage.

 

I guess the Taliban gets its ammo.. and guns.. from Pakistan too.Nice.

 

And Pakistan has no vested interest in keeping the conflict going.. considering the fact that the army makes the ammo and the army is in power.

[Torneyboy]

Very bad position for the troops...

Hope they get it sorted fast...

[Bangkoktraveler]

UK buys their ammo from Pakistan which is probably second sourced fom Afghanastan and Iran.

 

The phiosophy for this is that some of the UK soldiers who have been killed were killed by friendly fire. By using this ammo, deaths by friendly fire should be reduced.

[Fidel]

From Wikipedia:

 

[color:green]POF's headstamped .303 Mk VII SAA ammunition had an incredibly poor reputation amongst military surplus rifle shooters,[citation needed] being noted for hangfires ("Click-Bang") and failures to fire, as well as being highly corrosive and difficult if not impossible to reload - all undesirable qualities in military ammunition. It is thought[citation needed] that poor storage conditions may be a major contributor to the generally inferior quality of this ammunition, as the projectiles themselves are well made and accurate.

 

It is worth noting that the No 4 Mk I rifles made by POF were of good quality, although they are difficult to find due to the scarcity of their export from Pakistan.[/color]

 

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