Murphy was a grunt.

1. Friendly fire - isn't.

2. Recoilless rifles - aren't.
3. Suppressive fires - won't.
4. You are not Superman; Marines and fighter pilots take note.
5. A sucking chest wound is Nature's way of telling you to slow down.
6. If it's stupid but it works, it isn't stupid.
7. Try to look unimportant; the enemy may be low on ammo and not want to waste a bullet on
you.
8. If at first you don't succeed, call in an airstrike.
9. If you are forward of your position, your artillery will fall short.
10. Never share a foxhole with anyone braver than yourself.
11. Never go to bed with anyone crazier than yourself.
12. Never forget that your weapon was made by the lowest bidder.
13. If your attack is going really well, it's an ambush.
14. The enemy diversion you're ignoring is their main attack.
15. The enemy invariably attacks on two occasions:
o when they're ready.
o when you're not.
16. No OPLAN ever survives initial contact.
17. There is no such thing as a perfect plan.
18. Five second fuzes always burn three seconds.
19. There is no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole.
20. A retreating enemy is probably just falling back and regrouping.
21. The important things are always simple; the simple are always hard.
22. The easy way is always mined.
23. Teamwork is essential; it gives the enemy other people to shoot at.
24. Don't look conspicuous; it draws fire. (For this reason, it is not at all uncommon for
aircraft carriers to be known as bomb magnets.)
25. Never draw fire; it irritates everyone around you.
26. If you are short of everything but the enemy, you are in the combat zone.
27. When you have secured the area, make sure the enemy knows it too.
28. Incoming fire has the right of way.
29. No combat ready unit has ever passed inspection.
30. No inspection ready unit has ever passed combat.
31. If the enemy is within range, so are you.
32. The only thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming friendly fire.
33. Things which must be shipped together as a set, aren't.
34. Things that must be together in order to work, can't be shipped to the field that way.
35. Radios will fail as soon as you need fire support. (Corollary: Radar tends to fail at night
and in bad weather, and especially during both.)
36. Anything you do can get you killed, including doing nothing.
37. Make it too tough for the enemy to get in, and you won't be able to get out.
38. Tracers work both ways.
39. If you take more than your fair share of objectives, you will get more than your fair share
of objectives to take.
40. When both sides are convinced they're about to lose, they're both right.
41. Professional soldiers are predictable; the world is full of dangerous amateurs.
42. Military Intelligence is an oxymoron.
43. Fortify your front; you'll get your rear shot up.
44. Weather ain't neutral.
45. If you can't remember, the Claymore is pointed towards you.
46. Air defense motto: shoot 'em down; sort 'em out on the ground.
47. 'Flies high, it dies; low and slow, it'll go.
48. The Cavalry doesn't always come to the rescue.
49. Napalm is an area support weapon.
50. Mines are equal opportunity weapons.
51. Sniper's motto: reach out and touch someone.
52. The one item you need is always in short supply.
53. Interchangeable parts aren't.
54. It's not the one with your name on it that should worry you; it's the one addressed "to
whom it may concern" you've got to think about.
55. When in doubt, empty your magazine.
56. The side with the simplest uniforms wins.
57. Combat will occur on the ground between two adjoining maps.
58. If the Platoon Sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.
59. Never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake when
you can sleep.
60. The most dangerous thing in the world is a Second Lieutenant with a map and a compass.
61. Exceptions prove the rule, and destroy the battle plan.
62. Everything always works in your HQ, everything always fails in the Colonel's HQ.
63. The enemy never watches until you make a mistake.
64. One enemy soldier is never enough, but two is entirely too many.
65. A clean (and dry) set of BDU's is a magnet for mud and rain.
66. The worse the weather, the more you are required to be out in it.
67. Whenever you have plenty of ammo, you never miss. Whenever you are low on ammo, you
can't hit the broad side of a barn.
68. The more a weapon costs, the farther you will have to send it away to be repaired.
69. The complexity of a weapon is inversely proportional to the IQ of the weapon's operator.
70. Field experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
71. No matter which way you have to march, its always uphill.
72. If enough data is collected, a board of inquiry can prove anything.
73. For every action, there is an equal and opposite criticism. (in boot camp)
74. Airstrikes always overshoot the target, artillery always falls short.
75. When reviewing the radio frequencies that you just wrote down, the most important ones
are always illegible.
76. Those who hesitate under fire usually do not end up KIA or WIA.
77. The tough part about being an officer is that the troops don't know what they want, but
they know for certain what they don't want.
78. To steal information from a person is called plagiarism. To steal information from the
enemy is called gathering intelligence.
79. The weapon that usually jams when you need it the most is the M60.
80. The perfect officer for the job will transfer in the day after that billet is filled by someone
else.
81. When you have sufficient supplies & ammo, the enemy takes 2 weeks to attack. When you
are low on supplies & ammo the enemy decides to attack that night.
82. The newest and least experienced soldier will usually win the Medal of Honor.
83. A Purple Heart just proves that were you smart enough to think of a plan, stupid enough to
try it, and lucky enough to survive.
84. Body count Math: 3 guerrillas plus 1 probable plus 2 pigs equals 37 enemies killed in
action.
85. The bursting radius of a hand grenade is always one foot greater than your jumping range.
86. All-weather close air support isn't.
87. The combat worth of a unit is inversely proportional to the smartness of its outfit and
appearance.
88. It's easier to expend material in combat than to fill out the forms for Graves Registration.
89. Cluster bombing from B-52s is very, very accurate -- the bombs always hit the ground.
90. The crucial round is a dud.
91. Every command which can be misunderstood, will be.
92. There is no such place as a convenient foxhole.
 93. Don't ever be the first, don't ever be the last and don't ever volunteer to do anything.
94. If your positions are firmly set and you are prepared to take the enemy assault on, he will
bypass you.
95. If your ambush is properly set, the enemy won't walk into it.
96. If your flank march is going well, the enemy expects you to outflank him.
97. Density of fire increases proportionally to the curiousness of the target.
98. Odd objects attract fire - never lurk behind one.
99. The more stupid the leader is, the more important missions he is ordered to carry out.
100. The self-importance of a superior is inversely proportional to his position in the
hierarchy (as is his deviousness and mischievousness).
101. There is always a way, and it usually doesn't work.
102. Success occurs when no one is looking, failure occurs when the General is
watching.
103. The enemy never monitors your radio frequency until you broadcast on an
unsecured channel.
104. Whenever you drop your equipment in a fire-fight, your ammo and grenades
always fall the farthest away, and your canteen always lands at your feet.
105. As soon as you are served hot chow in the field, it rains.
106. Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nothing to do.
107. The seriousness of a wound (in a fire-fight) is inversely proportional to the
distance to any form of cover.
108. Your bivouac for the night is the spot where you got tired of marching that day.
109. If only one solution can be found for a field problem, then it is usually a stupid
solution.
110. It is a physical impossibility to carry too much ammo.
111. There are few times when hostiles can't hear you: When they're dead, you're dead,
or both.
112. You're only better than your enemy if you kill him first.
113. Once you are in the fight it is way too late to wonder if this is a good idea.
114. NEVER get into a fight without more ammunition that the other guy (see #110).
115. Being shot hurts.
116. All or any of the above combined.

Trust in God, all others pay cash.

      “When the highwayman holds his gun to your head, you turn your valuables over to him. You
'consent' alright, but you do so because you cannot help yourself, because you are compelled by his gun. Are you
not compelled to work for an employer? Your need compels you, just as the highwayman’s gun.”

 anarchyforever

 Alexander Berkman quotes

Chechnya’s Homemade Weapons Fuel War
Russian

Rebels are using improvised and home-made weapons to continue their guerrilla war.

By Umalt Dudayev in Grozny (CRS No. 227, 15-Apr-04)

On a chilly day at the beginning of April a short young man wearing a black jacket, jeans and knitted
cap pulled right down to his eyes walked briskly through Grozny’s central market. He went up to two
Russian officers who were buying cigarettes and beer at a small mud-spattered kiosk.

The young man suddenly pulled out a short-barrelled gun from under his jacket and opened fire on
the unsuspecting Russians. Then he dropped his own gun next to the dead bodies and quickly pulled
the gun of one officer out from its holster, grabbed a submachine gun lying next to the other and
disappeared into a nearby side-street.

When Russian and Chechen security officials arrived at the scene some time later, no one could
describe for them what the killer looked like. The only evidence they found was the abandoned
Chechen-made Borz – or Wolf – submachine gun.

The Chechen-manufactured Borz is one of a number of weapons, made, reconfigured or repaired in

Chechnya, which enable enemies of the Russian military and the pro-Moscow Chechen police force to
continue their fight at very low cost. The net result is that even if the Russian authorities were to
manage to stop the theft of weapons, or their trade and sale to the rebels, a substantial arsenal will
remain in their hands.

The 9-mm submachine gun Borz is an ideal weapon for sudden attacks. It is a small compact gun,
whose lightness and ease of use makes up for its poor technical quality.

“This submachine gun has quite poor tactical and technical features,” said Major Anatoly Medvedev,
an officer for the Russian intelligence service, the FSB, in Chechnya. “The 9-mm bullets from the
Makarov pistol, which the Borz uses, are too powerful for the steel from which the gun’s barrel is
made and wear it out quickly. After shooting two or three cartridges, a Borz simply begins to ‘spit’ the
bullets out.

“Nonetheless, I would describe this gun as ideal for saboteurs and killers. It has entirely fulfilled its
purpose as a weapon used by paramilitary groups of a partisan type. It has a fantastic rate of fire,
and once all the bullets have been fired it can simply be thrown away. As far as I know, a Borz costs
very little in Chechnya, about 100 US dollars, and its production requires little effort or expense.”

The Borz gun was first produced in 1992 in Grozny’s Krasny Molot factory by the order of the first
Chechen president. General Jokhar Dudayev, who personally received the first manufactured weapon
bearing the number, 0001. Industrial production of the gun soon stopped due to the lack of good-
quality metal and the outbreak of war in 1994. But the homemade manufacture of these weapons has
continued up until recently.

Vladimir Semchenko, head of the science department at Moscow’s Central Army Forces Museum of
Russia, told IWPR that the main military museum of the country has several Chechen Borz
submachine guns in its collection, “One of them was given to our museum as a gift by General
Gennady Troshev [who formerly commanded Russian troops in Chechnya]. The exemplars of this gun
that we have differ from one another both in their technical features and in appearance, which
indicates that they were homemade.”

Adlan Musayev, who used to work at the Krasny Molot factory, said that “only several hundred” Borz
guns were produced there but it had spawned many more copies.

Homemade weapons have helped Chechen rebels fight on, particularly in the second conflict that
began in 1999. The fighters do not have heavy weaponry but are extremely skilful at fashioning
whatever comes to hand into battle arms.

Their guerrilla warfare relies heavily on mines and explosives. Lacking conventional mines, they use
unexploded mines and rockets. Sometimes they simply surround the rockets with explosive and blow
them up. Often they heat the unexploded weapons over fire and obtain liquid explosive, which they
pour into containers, to which they then add metal bolts, nuts and nails to create shrapnel.

The Russian high command, and especially its main spokesman Ilya Shabalkin, has frequently said
that its soldiers have found medical syringes at captured militant bases and used this as proof that
many fighters are drug addicts. However, it appears that most of these syringes are being used as
detonators for mines. De-miners can detect metal objects but do not pick up the presence of plastic
syringes.
The guerrillas are also skilled at reusing captured weaponry. Major Medvedev said they had found a
heavy machine gun in a militant base in Vedeno in southern Chechnya which had been removed from
the turret of an armoured vehicle. “Even those officers who had served in many conflict zones were
amazed at what they saw,” he said.

“The fighters put it on a rotating tripod, fixed bicycle handlebars to it, and connected the mechanism
of electric trigger to an ordinary battery. As a result they turned it into a very powerful, compact and
convenient gun, which is as good as factory-made ones. As the saying in Russia goes, ‘Necessity is
the mother of invention’!”

Twenty-three-year-old Iznaur, who fought in the platoon of the famous Chechen commander Hamzat
Gelayev, whose death was recently confirmed, reveals another source of weaponry.

“Turning a drive shaft from a KAMAZ truck into a mortar doesn’t take much effort,” he said. “You just
need to solder a medium-sized nail to one end of the shaft, and your mortar is ready! All that’s left is
to stick it into the ground and you can start shooting. We had several such mortars in our platoon.”

Attempts by pro-independence president Aslan Maskhadov to produce arms in the inter-war period of
1996-9 also created a stock of weaponry that is still being used. Weapons were produced mainly in
Grozny at some of the workshops of the half-destroyed Krasnyi Molot and Elektropribor factories and
in the third largest city in Chechnya, Argun. The Argun factory mainly produced mortars and grenade
launchers.

An FSB officer in Chechnya, who wished to remain anonymous said, “According to our information,
before they invaded Dagestan in the summer of 1999, the units of Shamil Basayev and the Arab
fighter Khattab received over 250 such mortars and about a thousand auxiliary grenade launchers,
which had been manufactured in Argun. Also, in Grozny, Makarov pistols were being made on a
territory of a former tram depot. Components were purchased at military factories in Russia.”

Even today in Chechnya one can buy Makarov pistols, refashioned from gas pistols for between 100
and 150 dollars. Makeovers that have an “Ossetian” barrel from North Ossetia are the most popular
with the buyers. They are just one part of an arsenal of weaponry that is fuelling the continuing
violence in Chechnya.

Umalt Dudayev is a pseudonym of an independent Chechen journalist.

Quote:

The BORZ ("Wolf") machine-pistol (due to its dimensions, that's more likely assimilable to a large
pistol cabable of selective fire than to a real sub-machinegun or machine-carbine) is clandestinely
produced in metal workshops of Chechnya to equip "Self-Defence Forces", partisans and separatist-
terrorist formations. The weapon is based on the PPS (Sudaev) WW2-era machine-carbine, and it is
a blowback-operated gun. Lock is provided by a return spring.
The barrel is securely fastened to the bolt. With the forward movement, the bolt extracts the
cartridge from the magazine and chambers it. The weapon fires from the open bolt, and the bullet is
ignited by striking pin. The pressure of solid-reactant gases on the bottom of case retards the blow-
back at the moment of the shot, and such principle (the retarded blow-back) made it possible to
decrease the mass of the bolt and the recoil.

The receiver group is made of stampet sheet steel. The magazine well and the grip are connected to
it by spot welding (or sometimes by screws). The bolt is fixed by screws. The very simple sights are
all in one with the receiver group. The cocking handle is top-mounted; the BORZ machine-pistol
sometimes features a small up-folding stock to help controlling the weapon while full-automatic
firing.
The magazine construction is borrowed from the World War 2 - time German "Schmeisser" MP-40.
A second generation machinepistol-submachinegun, called BORZ-20, has been recently spotted in
Chechenya; according to the sources the BORZ-20 is a clone of the Israeli MICRO-UZI, firing from
the closed-bolt position and having an higher capacity magazine (40 rounds) that's housed in the
grip; a sound suppressor might apparently be attached to this BORZ-20.

Pros of the project: the weapon is compact enough, and the availability of low-capacity magazines
allows to carry the weapon concealed and ready to fire. The safe - fire selector switch is placed a
position that makes possible to switch the safety off and select semi-auto or full-auto fire while still
holding the weapon from the grip, and keeping the finger at the trigger's reach; and, since the
cocking handle is placed upside, that can be cocked ambidextrously. Also, the grip of this weapon is
reported to be fairly ergonomic, and the elongated magazine well can be hold as a foregrip to allow
better control of the weapon in full-autofire. The fore part of the bolt has been engineered with a
protrudescence to work as a spent cases deflector, so that such an item is not required as a separate
part.

Cons of the project: the offensive capabilities of this weapon in actual combat situations is modest
due to its weak cartridge and of the general low quality in manufacture of most existing BORZ
machine-pistols (which are for the most part made in clandestinely-made in backyard workshops).
The weapon is largely inaccurate in full-autofire, and its short aiming line further decreases the
accuracy. Bolt, barrel and sights tend to wear out. The presence of the up-folding butt (in the
models that are actually provided with it) doesn't even helps much in aimed fire because its
accommodation is actually defective, and it can be partially effective in its function only if kept
against the stomach or the thigh. The bolt of this machine-pistol has a very short service life; the
safety of the weapon can be engaged only when the bolt is open, and this can lead to accidental
discharges if the BORZ is dropped or receives a hit. Reliability is also poor. The dirt normally caused
by the shooting can pollute the chamber or the bolt, thus leading to misfires. The tooth of the
ejector can often cause the separation of the bullet case collar (or of a piece of the case anyway)
that goes stuck in the ejection window, causing jammings or preventing a new round from being
chambered. The early opening of bore leads to the ejection of solid-reactant gases inside the
receiver group, and this doesn't only causes the rapid overheating of the weapon, but also dirts the
striking pin.

-THE HISTORY AND THE CURRENT SITUATION-

The Chechen-manufactured BORZ is one of a number of weapons, made, reconfigured or repaired in
Chechnya, which enable enemies of the Russian military and the pro-Moscow Chechen police force to
continue their fight at very low cost. The net result is that even if the Russian authorities were to
manage to stop the theft of weapons, or their trade and sale to the rebels, a substantial arsenal will
remain in their hands.

The 9x18mm BORZ machine-pistol is an ideal weapon for sudden attacks. It is a small compact gun,
whose lightness and ease of use makes up for its poor technical quality.

Here are some declarations of Maj. ANATOLY MEDVEDEV, an FSB (Russian Intelligence Service)
officer dispatched to Chechenya:
"This machine-pistol has quite poor tactical and technical features. The 9x18mm bullets from the
Makarov pistol, used in the BORZ, are too powerful for the steel from which the gun’s barrel is made
and wear it out quickly. After shooting two or three cartridges, a Borz simply begins to ‘spit’ the
bullets out. Nonetheless, I would describe this gun as ideal for saboteurs and killers. It has entirely
fulfilled its purpose as a weapon used by paramilitary groups of a partisan type. It has a fantastic
rate of fire, and once all the bullets have been fired it can simply be thrown away. As far as I know,
a BORZ costs very little in Chechenya, about 100 US Dollars, and its production requires little effort
or expense".

The BORZ machine-pistol was first produced in 1992 in Grozny’s Krasny Molot factory by the order of
the first Chechen president. General Jokhar Dudayev, who personally received the first manufactured
weapon bearing the number, 0001. Industrial production of the gun soon stopped due to the lack of
good-quality metal and the outbreak of war in 1994. But the homemade manufacture of these
weapons has continued up until recently.

VLADIMIR SEMCHENKO, head of the science department at Moscow’s Central Army Forces Museum
of Russia, declares that the main military museum of the country has several Chechen BORZ
machine-pistols in its collection:
"One of them was given to our museum as a gift by General Gennady Troshev [who formerly
commanded Russian troops in Chechenya]. The exemplars of this gun that we have differ from one
another both in their technical features and in appearance, which indicates that they were
homemade".

ADLAN MUSAYEV, formerly employed at the Krasny Molot factory, declares:

"Only an handful of huntdeds of BORZ machine-pistols were produced there but it had spawned
many more copies. As far as I recall, in two military campaigns the only weapon the extremists have
managed to develop and start makeshift production of is the primitive BORZ machine-pistol."
“Government is not reason. It is not eloquence.
Government is force; like fire it is a dangerous servant -- and a fearful master.” —George Washington,
1797

mnmlist : less
Stop buying unnecessary things.

Toss half your stuff, learn contentedness.

Reduce half again.

List 4 essential things in your life,

stop doing non-essential things.

Do these essentials first each day, clear distractions

focus on each moment.

Let go of attachment to doing, having more.

Fall in love with less.