"Энди Макнаб. Немедленная операция (engl) " - читать интересную книгу автора

They took the responsibility very seriously.
We trained with the personal weapons that were available to the
squadrons. First were the 5.56 M16 and the 203, the grenade launching
attachment that most people went for, apparently, because of its increased
firepower. Some people, however, still liked carrying the SLR, which fired a
7.62 round. They-were in a minority because it meant that the patrol had to
carry two types of small-arms ammunition.
Another weapon at patrol level was the Minimiagain, firing 5.56
rounds. The Regiment also still used the GPMG, the standard army
section machine gun. I knew it to be an excellent weapon at section level,
and we were told that a lot of people preferred it to the Minimi. There were
quite a few jobs where people would insist on taking a GPMG: it was reliable
and very powerful.
We worked with Browning pistols, Colt 45s, and a number of different
semiautomatic weapons. For some jobs people might prefer a certain type of
pistol, but the majority would go for the Browning.
Then there were shotguns-the Federal riot gun, a pump-action shotgun
that had a folding stock and was an excellent weapon. Each squadron had its
own assortment of mortars-81 MM, 60 MM, and 40 MM-and the Milan antitank
weapons. There was also the LAW 90, a 84
MM rocket, the standard rifle company antitank missile. Then there was
Stinger, an American-made antiaircraft fire-and-forget missile.
"Stingers turned up in the Falklands, and nobody really knew how to use
them or what to do with them," the DS said. "It was just a case of, 'Here
they are, get to grips with them." So the boys were sitting around on the
grass one day, reading the instructions and having a brew, when over the
horizon came a flight of Puccaras.
A D Squadron member stood up and put the Stinger on his shoulder.
It was like the kid in the old Fisher Price ad: 'How's this work then?
What does this do?" The bloke was pressing all the buttons to make it
fire, and it did. It took down a Puccara. So the first time the Stinger was
used in anger was by a Brit firing at an Argentinian aircraft."
The story didn't end there. About two years later apparently, D
Squadron went over to Germany to the Stinger training center run by the
Americans. The training was in simulators because the weapon was so
expensive. The American instructors got to fire only one a year and had
certainly never used it in war.
"We've got this wonderful weapon," said one of the instructors.
"Any of you guys seen it before?"
The bloke put his hand up, and the instructor smirked. "In a
simulator?"
"No, I shot down a jet with it."
Besides the British and American hardware, we were trained with all the
Eastern bloc weapons: AK47s-the Russian, Czech, and Chinese ones-all the
mortars, their medium antitank weapons, and masses of different pistols,
such as the Austrian Steyr. We were told that a lot of times we'd be on
tasks where we wouldn't be using our own weapons; we'd have to go to a
country and use what we could find.
The AK family were excellent weapons. The' fired y 7.62 short, which
meant you could carry more 7.62