NFA and US PMC armories

[AdamG]

Tangential to the topic, praise for the RPD.
http://strikehold.wordpress.com/2009...-rpds-in-iraq/
I gather that these were acquired in-theater.

When I first arrived in Iraq I was amazed at the variety of weapons available to anyone who wanted to purchase them. Every contracting company was rushing to snap up the better conditioned weapons before the bad guys got them. There were stories of Iraqi procurement agents queuing up in Sadar City alongside the Militia and haggling with them over the price of a good machine gun. Everyone wanted heavy calibre machine guns. The Iraqi police and army needed them to protect their compounds. The contractors needed them for their PSD and convoy protection. Without a good machine gun in the last vehicle of your team you were dead.

[huskerguy7]

When I first arrived in Iraq I was amazed at the variety of weapons available to anyone who wanted to purchase them. Every contracting company was rushing to snap up the better conditioned weapons before the bad guys got them. There were stories of Iraqi procurement agents queuing up in Sadar City alongside the Militia and haggling with them over the price of a good machine gun. Everyone wanted heavy calibre machine guns. The Iraqi police and army needed them to protect their compounds. The contractors needed them for their PSD and convoy protection. Without a good machine gun in the last vehicle of your team you were dead.

Another similar story.

During the PMC "gold rush" in Iraq, most of the weapon procurements occurred beneath the table. One firm, which will remain nameless, operated out of Kuwait in the southern part of Iraq. Rather than store any weapons at their base in Kuwait, they would obtain their weapons from an ammo depot of Saddam's defunct army. Nobody monitored the depot; it was guarded with just a fence and locked gate. Somehow, the firm had acquired the keys and would pick up the weapons on their way in, and drop them off. However, once they were violently ambushed by insurgents, it was discovered that they (the insurgents) had used weapons from the same depot.