MAJ Ehrhart - Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afgh.

[Ken White]

OK so you too have stated your opinion on the matter. You happy now?

Seemingly unlike some, I'm most always happy.

OK so you are good with a short range weapon being selected for medium to long range combat situations?

I'm quite happy that a reasonably well trained guy on the ground will select and use the weapons he believes is best suited for the particular job at hand; say a raid on a compound where some CQB might be the order of the day. I also suspect he would, quite properly, pay little attention to the thoughts of someone several thousand miles away.

Yes the message. It just as well could have been "look at me I've got an AK".

Coulda, woulda -- WE (that includes you) do not know why he had the weapon. You are of course free to indulge in idle speculation. We all have our strengths.

Any guesses why calling a guy carrying a AK a poser touched a nerve with Tanker Steve?

I suspect because the comment was unnecessary and you have a penchant for making disparaging innuendos that strike at anyone or anything that is not the way you believe (sometimes sensibly, sometimes not) it should be or that they should act. Add to that much of such comment is obviously from a point of relative ignorance of the Afghan theater and I suppose that's why he reacted the way he did. I wouldn't say you touched a nerve, I'd say you made an ill informed and speculative somewhat derogatory comment, one of your frequent attacks by innuendo and that you simply got called on it...

PS: go try to find a pic of Aussies in Afghanistan where they are pictured with the ANA they are mentoring who are carrying AKs. I obviously need some help on this.

As on so many things. Obviously. Here you go, results of a less than three minute Google search.

I'm sure your eagle eye will note that the Australians depicted in both pictures are carrying the Stryne infantry's standard issue F88 (Steyr AUG) as opposed to the original pictures second SOF guys M4 like weapon. What that means is that the SOF guys -- Stryne and Afghan -- carry M4 / M16 mods (or whatever they want...) while the regular Infantry is armed with the F88 for the guys from Oz and -- as seen in the pictures below -- the non SOF Afghans still mostly have AKs at this time, though that is changing fairly rapidly (thus my comment that the original pic guy may have wanted to apply a different signature...).