US sells 40year old ammunition to Afghanistan

[dancing-loon]

Supplier Under Scrutiny on Aging Arms for Afghans

Since 2006, when the insurgency in Afghanistan sharply intensified, the Afghan government has been dependent on American logistics and military support in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

But to arm the Afghan forces that it hopes will lead this fight, the American military has relied since early last year on a fledgling company led by a 22-year-old man whose vice president was a licensed masseur.

With the award last January of a federal contract worth as much as nearly $300 million, the company, AEY Inc., which operates out of an unmarked office in Miami Beach, became the main supplier of munitions to Afghanistan’s army and police forces.

Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

keep reading here: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/wo...hp&oref=slogin :lol:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
This has to be an early April Fools joke, or a piece of well thought-out propaganda with a hidden meaning. It's anything but the truth, according to my gut feeling.

What do YOU think?

 

[MikeyDB]

Dancing _Loon

I'm not familiar with the article and situation you've cited, but I am familiar with the trials and tribulations of using very old ammo.....

Not very reliable and quite bothersome when you're defending youself with it....

 

[dancing-loon]

Dancing _Loon

I'm not familiar with the article and situation you've cited, but I am familiar with the trials and tribulations of using very old ammo.....

Not very reliable and quite bothersome when you're defending youself with it....

Right, and that is why I have difficulties believing that the big, mighty war-happy US doesn't ensure they provide top-notch ammunition. Sloppy, sloppy all around!! Or they don't give a hoot, because they don't really want to end the war in Afghanistan yet!! Why not? I'm not sure.

 

[zoofer]

Why do some people refer to the NYT as the Treason Times?

The US does not willy nilly award $300 million dollar contracts to any old Tom Dick or Harry.

There are tons of specs involved. Why would a company holding such a lucrative contract go to all these under the table hijinks possibly losing the contract and even getting jailed?

What calibre bullets were they? There is no mention of rifles to fire the old bullets.

Anyhow if some were duds it may have saved Canadian lives. Most of the stuff is swiped by the terrorists embedded in the army. They use it to attack Canadians.

 

[MikeyDB]

Zoof....

There are American contractors awarded huge sums of money to do wonderful things like build bridges to no-where.....

Contracts aren't about meeting anyone's needs.....they're about making money!

 

[zoofer]

You are talking earmarks.

Military specs are different.

 

[Colpy]

Why do some people refer to the NYT as the Treason Times?

The US does not willy nilly award $300 million dollar contracts to any old Tom Dick or Harry.

There are tons of specs involved. Why would a company holding such a lucrative contract go to all these under the table hijinks possibly losing the contract and even getting jailed?

What calibre bullets were they? There is no mention of rifles to fire the old bullets.

Anyhow if some were duds it may have saved Canadian lives. Most of the stuff is swiped by the terrorists embedded in the army. They use it to attack Canadians.

I would assume the rounds are 7.62 x 39mm.....the old AK 47 round.....which would explain the age of the ammo and the reason it came from Warsaw Pact sources........

 

[normbc9]

When I served in Vietnam the Secretary of Defense McNamara demanded that all of the old warehouses be scoured for old munitions. We were being issued 1946-49 Lake City Arsenal .30 caliber ball and AP ammo and it was still in good working order. There was an occassional misfire but no more than out of the ordinary. Are the users experiencing problems with the ammo they are being sent? What arsenal was it originated from? The Tooele Arsenal still has 1960 vintage stuff and it still tests fine.

 

[dancing-loon]

Hi, Norm;
you probably didn't read the whole article. Here is an excerpt that explains your question perhaps;

....provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed.

Here a complaint from an Afghani officer:

But problems with the ammunition were evident last fall in places like Nawa, Afghanistan, an outpost near the Pakistani border, where an Afghan lieutenant colonel surveyed the rifle cartridges on his police station’s dirty floor. Soon after arriving there, the cardboard boxes had split open and their contents spilled out, revealing ammunition manufactured in China in 1966.
“This is what they give us for the fighting,” said the colonel, Amanuddin. “It makes us worried, because too much of it is junk.” Ammunition as it ages over decades often becomes less powerful, reliable and accurate.

In comparison, the ammunition you used in Vietnam was only 20 years old. It probably also makes a difference as to where and how the ammo is stored.

 

[Praxius]

"Since then, the company has provided ammunition that is more than 40 years old and in decomposing packaging, according to an examination of the munitions by The New York Times and interviews with American and Afghan officials. Much of the ammunition comes from the aging stockpiles of the old Communist bloc, including stockpiles that the State Department and NATO have determined to be unreliable and obsolete, and have spent millions of dollars to have destroyed."

Boooooo...... For Shame.

 

[normbc9]

Hi Dancing Loon. No and thanks for calling it to my attention. Much of the Chi Comm products are very unreliable too. The NVA had a lot of misfires and their green tracers going off in the breach. But the weapon was so forgiving it just keep firing unlike the new AR-15's and M-16's our troops were given as new issue. I'd see them come up out of the water and weapon was fully submerged and it still worked. But yes, this is unforgivable. I wonder whose brain child this is. That stuff should have been put in a hole and burned a long time ago. One thing about those handling the issue of things like this is they are given orders to follow and those issuing the orders have budgetary considerations but what a travesty of justice. We became so short of hard point wing mounted munitions that we were dropping old toilets, sinks, old shell casings packed with aluma-gel (napalm in its nicer more user friendly form) and even old boxes on spent metals. McNamara didn't have much to be proud of and when his book hit the market I was amazed at how well it sold. I'd never buy it.

 

[dancing-loon]

Hi Dancing Loon. No and thanks for calling it to my attention. Much of the Chi Comm products are very unreliable too. The NVA had a lot of misfires and McNamara didn't have much to be proud of and when his book hit the market I was amazed at how well it sold. I'd never buy it.

Norm, it's an honor to be taken serious by a Vietnam veteran!! I'm such a greenhorn, I had to look up who McNamara is or was!

From Wiki: Robert Strange McNamara (born June 9, 1916) is an American business executive and a former United States Secretary of Defense. McNamara served as U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1961 to 1968, during the Vietnam War. He resigned that position to become President of the World Bank (1968-1981). McNamara was responsible for the institution of systems analysis in public policy, which developed into the discipline known today as policy analysis.[