I certainly recall at NIPG being taught that the LMG was to be loaded, cocked and set to A for auto and the safety should only be applied when crossing obstacles. The RM colour sgt did however point out that even he thought it was barmy!

Originally Posted by freedomman

Second one, alluded to by posters above: is it normal for blokes to use hosts' weapons for these sort of things?

This months soldier mag has a bunch of turks at copehill down with LSWs and A2s

Originally Posted by ugly

I certainly recall at NIPG being taught that the LMG was to be loaded, cocked and set to A for auto and the safety should only be applied when crossing obstacles. The RM colour sgt did however point out that even he thought it was barmy!

The SOP I mentioned was IDF circa 1980 - 2000. In my 23 years I never witnessed an ND resulting from it (ND's were usually a result of fooling around, lax or non existant drills). I was about to write that not being able to cock with the safety on is not a real problem when I suddenly remembered an ND I saw that could have been prevented if the safety could have been left on (and had the miserable apology for a squaddy been 100 % less gormless):
Dusk on a summer eve and 12 of us file out of Marjayoun towards the Litani river where we were to lie in wait for infiltratrating PLO fighters. Once we're clear of the town the CO halts us and takes us through the Galil loading + locking procedure, with barrels at 45 degrees. The muffled report of the rifle grenade man's Galil is almost lost among the sound of the other 11 of us cocking simultaneously. All the same, we all stop, staring at him in the gloom. Where a rifle grenade had been mounted on the end of his barrel, there now was just the barrel. "You just ND'd a rifle grenade?" asked the CO incredulously. "Err" he began, BOOM came the sound of the grenade impacting, somewhere further on towards the Litani.
There wasn't too much one could do in the circumstances and anyway, we had to get on with the mission. Just then a field intelligence officer in a jeep arrived from the direction of the impact and screeched to a halt in a cloud of dust - "All take cover! The terrorists are firing Katyushas!"
None of us, including the CO, said anything.

Originally Posted by Ravers

Originally Posted by Schaden

Galil - quite popular in a few South American countries, some do it 7.62 x 51.

R4/R5 is the RSA licenced version very, very good weapon, carried one for about 10 years.

I heard a rumour that the early versions of the R5 had a beer bottle opener built into the bipod. Please tell me this is true! :D

The old 7.62 SLR's cocking handle was very adept at opening beer bottles !!

28 fittings on the outside of the M113 suitable for opening beer bottles as well. Reforgers were a Blur

I still have e faint scar along my thumb from the edge of a folded SLR cocking handle

Originally Posted by Goldbricker

28 fittings on the outside of the M113 suitable for opening beer bottles as well. Reforgers were a Blur

Damnit! 23 years using M113's and I never even knew.

All the IDF I knew were too poor to buy beer!

probably because they spent had spent their cash on coca cola!

That'll be kosher-cola, no ?