American bought Russian choppers for Afghanistan military.

[Infohawk]

The sad thing is we bought any hardware for Afghanistan. It could very well be Taliban piloting those copters in 10 years.

 

[Jhhnn]

Perhaps the US should equip its armed forces with Russian AK-47 since you all gung ho for cheap Russian made weapons.

Chinese made J-10 & J-20 are cheap while the F-22 are so unreliable and expensive, and new Chinese aircraft carriers are cheaper to procure than the maintenance of old American aircraft carriers.

Better yet, it make perfect sense to relocate the pentagon and CIA to China, because their labor force is cheap and they are good at hacking.

WTF is wrong with you, anyway? Russian designed hardware is the best choice for low tech warfare using semi trained support troops. It's famously rugged & reliable, low maintenance, get the job done hardware, particularly against technologically constrained adversaries. Price isn't the issue, at all.

Which is not to advocate its adoption for our own troops or for other well trained & well supported militaries, at all.

In the case of helicopters, if you can't keep 'em flying, they're just another ground target.

 

[Red Dawn]

You guys actually still believe this stuff dont you? I wonder if this thread will be around 10 years from now...

I doubt this forum will be around in ten years.

 

[Ackmed]

Ivan made the AK-47 the best assault rifle, American Sikorsky are too expensive for these operations we are saving taxpayers money.

The AK is far from the best assault rifle. Most dependable in the desert? Probably. It is not very accurate at distances at all though. And running full auto unless you're 20 feet from someone is not good.

 

[irishScott]

The AK is far from the best assault rifle. Most dependable in the desert? Probably. It is not very accurate at distances at all though. And running full auto unless you're 20 feet from someone is not good.

A quality AK is actually quite accurate down to sub-MOA at 100 yards. Hard to do without optics, but the platform is capable. Now if we're talking cheapo AKs then yeah that quality's going to suffer, but Russian military AKMs are capable IMO.

In this video the reviewer uses 3rd party sights, but it speaks to the capability of the platform.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9aFATFbJ04&feature=channel_video_title

 

[Ackmed]

A quality AK is actually quite accurate down to sub-MOA at 100 yards. Hard to do without optics, but the platform is capable. Now if we're talking cheapo AKs then yeah that quality's going to suffer, but Russian military AKMs are capable IMO.

In this video the reviewer uses 3rd party sights, but it speaks to the capability of the platform.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9aFATFbJ04&feature=channel_video_title

In single shot mode, most any long barrel is accurate at 100 yards. I know pretty well first hand how accurate they are over 100 yards. And the Taliban doesnt use optics so thats a moot point.

 

[irishScott]

In single shot mode, most any long barrel is accurate at 100 yards. I know pretty well first hand how accurate they are over 100 yards. And the Taliban doesnt use optics so thats a moot point.

I'm just saying the AK-47's not a bad way to go for a battle rifle. It's the most popular platform in the world for a reason and can easily hold its own with an M4/AR-15 based rifle. As it sounds you know more about it than I do. Just saying...

 

[ayabe]

We should have given them some UH-60's then forced them to give up mining rights to some of their rare earth elements for parts. The Chinese are currently stealing that which is rightfully ours.

Yeah that sounds a bit harsh but I'm tired of losing people defending these mudhut-dwelling fucking neanderthals.

 

[Ackmed]

I'm just saying the AK-47's not a bad way to go for a battle rifle. It's the most popular platform in the world for a reason and can easily hold its own with an M4/AR-15 based rifle. As it sounds you know more about it than I do. Just saying...

I would almost agree with you in an urban setting. With very close distances. It is a bigger caliber, and has auto. M4's have 3 round burst, which is really all you need. One you go past that, its rarely accurate. However, once you start adding distance between the two parties firing at each other, the AK sucks. At least the ones the Taliban are using. I have my own, and keep it clean. Its very accurate shooting single shot. Mine is not full auto. I have shot one that is, and there no way you can be even close to accurate in anything but a 3-4 shot burst, and at close range. You cant just hold the trigger down and hope to be accurate.

The AK is an amazing weapon for what it is. You can abuse the crap out of it, and it will still fire. And its cheap. So in that respect its great. But I do not personally believe it is the best assault rifle.

This is me in Afghan last year with an AK we took;

We played around with them, was fun. On one operation, we were getting shot at a lot. It was my job to clear a hill (combat engineer) from IED's. I kept getting shot at, and so i stopped and waited till they stopped. Went back to clearing, and they shot again. Played that cat and mouse game long enough, and I just kept clearing because they werent that close to hitting me. They were about 300 meters away in a tree line, but we couldnt see them with our 4x optics. Shot back a bit when we saw them shoot, cause you could see them then. But theyd just move. Anyways, as I said they werent that close. A few got within 5 meters or so, but thats it. So I just kept clearing. Then we got our MK-19 and snipers up there, and fun was had.

I guarantee if the tables were turned, we would have picked them off. I was sky-lining my self big time, but they couldnt hit me with that weapon from that distance. Im not trying to come off like a know it all, because I dont know it all. So please dont take it that way. Ive just had some experience with the AK's that the taliban are using. And the A4 that I used. I would much rather have my A4.