I can confirm december’s information about the BFA and the difference between blank and live rounds, thanks to many wasted years of roleplaying games.
Yes. You absolutely MUST have a plug on the end of an M-16 in order to fire blanks. They are normally red, cube shaped things that screw a plug into the front of the barrel. If you are firing blanks, or training rounds, the rifle will not chamber the next round because the blast of gas from a live round does not push the bolt back. In a blank there is no slug to seal the barrel so the air can return to push the bolt and chamber the next round.
I know from personal experience that there is no way to fire more than one round from an M-16 without manually reracking the bolt after each shot if you do not use a plug on the end.
It just kills me to have to substantiate our old friend December about the modifications necessary to get a M-16 family weapon or the light machine gun to cycle with blank ammo.
The weapon requires an adapter that fits on the flash suppressor and restricts the bore at the muzzle so that enough gas is backed up to kick the reload mechanism into chambering another cartridge. The gadget looks like a square shield around the flash suppressor with a bolt and cross-bar sticking out of the end of the whole gizmo. Generally it is painted red and it is pretty obvious. If you try to fire a live round when the blank adapter is in place there is a fair chance that you will blow the adapter, the flash suppressor and a hunk of the barrel right off. The blank adapter is a pain–the cross-bar on the bolt is forever getting caught in stuff like camouflage netting, web gear, radio wiring.
Of course the lack of blank adapters does not disprove the BBC story, but it does pretty well take care of any claim that, if staged, the thing was staged with blank ammo.
This coming from the SDMB’s resident loud-mouthed dittohead, who will believe any nonsense as long as it’s stamped with George W. Bush’s seal of approval. :rolleyes: This is like having Hugh Hefner complain about sexual exploitation
If you want a target for your ire, go look in a mirror.
Actually, Brutus, it might amuse you to know that if the documentary had a slant, it wasn’t an anti-Bush one. In fact, both the British and the American armed forces got their fair share of criticism. It wasn’t about GWB at all, it was about the treatment of the media during this war.
december, while I’m not going to take some blogger’s word for it (dear God, that’s a poor cite even by your standards), I’ll also admit that I’m not a weapons expert. I have no knowledge to substantiate or debunk the “blanks were used” claim. I can only think that the eye witnesses heard shots, didn’t see any damage, and came to that conclusion.
John Carter of Mars, the GD thread has one person saying “nothing to see here, move along”, and then you agreeing.
Like I said, I’m not going to suggest everything in this documentary is rock hard fact. Especially with regard to the Jessica Lynch story, a lot of the information came from eye witnesses. Mostly because the media platoon wasn’t informed about more than the mere basics of it all, I imagine.
From what I understand, private Lynch had suffered a broken leg (US sources say two), a dislocated ankle, and a broken arm. The doctors at the hospital said she didn’t have any stab or bullet wounds like the Americans claimed. Add to that the fact that while no head injuries were ever spoken of, private Lynch now suddenly has a case of amnesia, and will probably never remember the incident, or so Pentagon sources claim. Isn’t that just a tad odd, given the sudden controversy about her rescue?
Add to that the Dept. of Defence guy on the show constantly evading any question and saying the full facts will come out eventually.
The show was about spin and propaganda as Coldfire said. The lynch incident took up only about 10mins. Nobody in the show ever said that the need to get Lynch out and to safety wasn’t present. No, what was said was that the Army went in in such a way as to make the best story for the public and home and the moral of the troops. I really don’t see why people are having a problem with this.
The prog. did not say anything negative about Lynch, the Army or Bush it was mostly about CentCom and the BS that surrounded it. The only real person to come out of it badly was the US military spokesman(a civilian) who really did seem like a guy out of his depth.
Was Lynch in need of help from her comrades? Yes
Was her means of recovery media managed and intentionally OTT? I don’t see much reason to disagree with that
Was it necessary to do this? No but it did gave a lift to US moral
and bolstered positive feeling towards the troops.
In a time of war propaganda is king. This is an example of opportunism with regards to the media IMO. Nothing very sinister about it just the normal fog of war but IMO the story of the brave and risky rescue was just that a story.
Coldfire, it’s sad that despite your admitted lack of expertise about guns, your first reaction to Smith, who does know something about them, was to insult him (“poor cite”) In fact, he appears to be a military expert, since his blog is headed
And, you threw in an insult against yours truly who found the information, which is directly relevant to this thread *(“by your standards”).
*Also, before you posted your nastygram, three posters had already supported the accuracy of Smith’s point about the blanks, so your insults were particularly inapt.
Lets not forget the Iraqi doctors had already tried to send her by ambulance to the Americans but were forced to return by the American troops. I think the Keystone Cops were more competent.
The only source I’ve seen for this bit of information is the Iraqui doctors in question.
Why do you believe their word over other sources?
What other sources? Are there news sources saying that this didn’t happen and why is it so hard to believe that it did? Nobody is saying that the troops knew who was in the back. Enemies of the US have used ambulances and the doctor in question didn’t talk about warning the Americans beforehand. he just said that he got the girl into a ambulance and headed for the US checkpoint. The troops opened fire and he turned back. Many people have been killed approaching checkpoints unannounced. This element of the story is believable IMO and doesn’t really paint either side in a bad light.
The prog. defiantly didn’t try to say that the US troops were stupid not to allow the ambulance through. The reason the story was told was to show that the area was free from Iraqi troops.
december, I’m sorry you feel insulted by my not acknowledging your cite. Just kidding, I’m not really sorry.
The point is, any loonie can start a Blog (God, I hate that word). That doesn’t mean the contents are anything else than personal opinions. Had your true wish been to clarify that the weapons used in the Jessica Lynch rescue could not have been firing blanks, surely you could have found a more credible source than an idiot with a weblog. How’s about the manufacturer’s website?
You may recall a recent Pit thread where it was suggested that your overuse of weblogs as “cites” or “proof” is rather annoying. Consider this another instance. Your “blogger” appears to be right about the incapability of the weapons at hand to be converted to blanks mode quickly, but he provides shockingly little insight otherwise. Based on one inaccurate statement (about the blanks) by one eye witness, he states “the BBC’s witnesses cannot be trusted”. Furthermore, the gentleman can’t comprehend that telepathy is not required to know that the US forces knew there were no Fedayeen, expecially if you’ve informed those US forces of that yourself.
Colour me unimpressed.
I think I’m going to start a blog called “THE TRUTH ABOUT ISRAEL, THE MIDDLE EAST, AND NON-CONSERVATIVE POLITICIANS”, and then use it as a cite when engaging december. Surely, that will convince him that he’s always wrong. :rolleyes:
what you’re saying interests me
your ideas and opinions appeal to me greatly
how can I subscribe to your newslettter?
Homer Simpson…
The whole notion that a field commander, let alone Centcom, would send special forces into a live war situation with blanks is so incredibly ridiculous that the insistence upon its veracity lays bare the hopeless bias and questionable agenda of the morons who believe it. There is apparently no moral obstacle between these dimwitted liberal revisionists and their manifest obsession for bashing Bush. They are mirror images of the Clinton bashers.
Once again, I’m reminded that the appropriate ones were over there fighting — that is, people who were professional, well-trained, and clear thinking — and the appropriate ones are safely home in their armchairs questioning and bitching — that is, people who are elitist, ignorant, and muddle-headed. That much, at least, is as it should be.
Blogger is mostly right, but it does NOT take 2-3 minutes to remove a BFA from an M16A2 or M4 Carbine. Maybe 30 seconds, if you are slow. As for the heat, Spec Forces generally use gloves. But BFA’s were not used.
That being said, Flash-Bangs can be mistaken for gunfire. And well trained forces do not fire their weapons unless there is a legitimate target. There does not appear to have been any targets to kill in this raid, so I would be surprised if the WERE any bullet holes.
The BBC quoted a doctor saying there were blanks. Sorry, not the best source for that kind of information, in my opinion.
This probably was a planned tactical raid to grab the prisoner. The cameras were very likely added to the raid package. The plan was VERY likely to get footage of this operation and use it for positive media propaganda. Here’s the shocker:
PROPAGANDA IS PART OF WAR!
You obviously didn’t see the documentary, Lib, or you wouldn’t claim it was bashing Bush. It wasn’t. For you to then conclude the whole documentary was hopelessly biased, and had a “questionable agenda” is rather ironic, seeing as how you seem to be such a proponent of clear thinking, which -one would think- at least requires having seen the material at hand before dismissing it.
So, tell me. Did you see it?
First of all, a manufacter’s web site would still have required someone with the expertise to know what weapons are in use and who the manufacturer are.
Of course you are correct that any loonie can start a blog. However, blogs have a couple of self-correcting mechanisms. The loonies tend not to get picked up by other blogs. The Smith cite I provided had been picked up by the the popular Instpundit and AndrewSullivan. If Smith was a loonie, then others would tend not to use his material.
Second, blogs tend to be speedily self-correcting. If Smith had been wrong about the blank ammo, reader of his blog as well as the other two would have written in with corrections. Note also that blogs tend to provide cites that can be immediately checked. Many of Jayson Blair’s fictions in the New York Times cited anonymous sources. OTOH Instapundit told us exactly where this gun info came from and linked to it.
The blog community (“blogoisie”) is somewhat analogous to a straight dope thread. Some posters are conservative loonies or liberal loonies or whatever. Plenty of individual posts are wrong or silly or irrelevant. Nevertheless, the overall threads generally provide a high level of thoughtful analysis. Posts are challenged. The wrong and silly comments get ignored, refuted or weeded out. The sensible, knowledgable ones provide excellent insight.
Well, fair enough, december. But why add another layer to the search for truth here?
Instead of linking to someone who describes his version of the facts regarding blanks, why not link directly to the sources they use?
Well, for one thing, this fellow didn’t name any sources, making his opinion just that: an opinion. And while he may have a point about the blanks, he sure misses the beat on everything else.
if it was staged they would have known that six soldiers were buried there and brought shovels…instead of digging them up with their hands. they didn’t just rescue lynch, they also recovered bodies.
They were shallow graves, right outside the hospital. Perhaps they were afraid of damaging the remains of those soldiers, and decided to do it by hand?
To further counter your argument: if the situation in the hospital was thought to be so dangerous (in that the US troops suspected Fedayeen to still be inside), would they instruct several men to unearth a few graves by hand, thereby rendering them virtually defenseless? Or would it make more sense to go in for the one survivor, and leave the already buried bodies for a later recovery mission?
There’s no point in risking men’s lives in order to recover bodies, is there?