A1s still going strong.........

Southern Shark · #1 June 23rd, 2012, 10:18 PM

I don't usually see M16s at all in this part of Latin America...... the USA had an arms embargo on the region... since around 1960... so you don't see a lot of them.

So far I've only seen M16s twice.... once was some kind of A2 but I did not get close to it because the guy who had it was obviously not supposed to (and hence probably Cartel... thank you Fast and Furious).

The other day I saw some soldiers walking around with genuine A1s. The finish was almost completely worn off them, they were bright and shiny in areas but they appeared serviceable. I am sure they would still work just fine. It definitely made me appreciate how durable the M16 is despite the materials used in its construction (or supposedly so at least). It also made me appreciate how flexible the M16 is as an operating system. The soldiers caught me looking at the guns and seemed proud of them... as if they knew that I knew that most soldiers carried Galils....

I had to wonder how the military here got these..usually they just use Galils in this part. The Israelis never had an arms embargo with this part of the world and the Galil is very common amongst non socialist countries (with the AK being the norm in the socialist ones). Either these were sold to them a LONG time ago, or they were picked up on the world surplus market (probably the later). For all I know these guns could have been captured by the NVA and sold off after the war. It would be cool to learn the history of those weapons.

A1........ still going strong.

Hawk45 · #2 June 24th, 2012, 10:31 AM

I bet they came via Vietnam. After the fall, they had thousands on hand and were selling/giving them away.

Southern Shark · #3 June 24th, 2012, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hawk45

I bet they came via Vietnam. After the fall, they had thousands on hand and were selling/giving them away.

Probably more like a million of them. I imagine that's close to the number we gave to South Vietnam in our attempt to shore up its military prior to its eventual collapse. Then of course there were the US rifles left behind which would have numbered in the thousands for certain.