Angry Planet - How the AK-74 Became a Fashion Statement

Episode Date: November 11, 2019

If there’s been a recent throughline or theme on this season of War College, it’s that war has changed. And it’s not just conflict, but the way we cover conflict. Increasingly, people are using open source intelligence and social media to study and report on the changing nature of conflict.Calbre Obscura is one of those people. He’s an independent arms researcher interested in non-state groups in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. He is extremely online, and he knows more about AK variants and homemade mortar rounds than anyone else in the world. Follow him online @CalibreObscura and visit his website at calibreobscura.com.You can listen to War College on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is warcollegepodcast.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/warcollegepodcast/; and on Twitter: @War_College.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. Obviously, bullpups are much shorter to use in confine spaces, but I don't believe that's really the point. I believe that it's really a fashion statement and that these conversions are done as in a way, a status symbol. You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast that brings you the stories from behind the front lines. Here are your hosts. Hello, welcome to War College. I am your host, Matthew Galt. If there's been a recent through line or theme on this season of War College, it's that war has changed. It's not just conflict, but the way we cover conflict.

Increasingly, people are using open source intelligence and social media to study and report on the changing nature of war. Calibro Obscura is one of those people. He's an independent arms researcher interested in non-state groups in the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia. He is extremely online, and he knows more about AK variants and homemade mortar rounds than anyone else in the world. Should follow him on Twitter at Calibur Obscura and visit his website at Caliburabre.com. Sir, thank you so much for joining us.

It's great to be on. All right, so let's get some basics out of the way. How would you describe what it is that you do? I would describe what I would why I do is pulling in disparate sources of information, usually completely open source, to try and put together both an entertaining public Twitter feed and to be able to write about it in depth to create the desired effect, as it well. And what is that desired effect? Do you have a goal in mind when you're doing this coverage? Well, the reason I started doing this coverage was because really there was no other person doing what I wanted to see on the internet, which was as high a quality open source arms coverage as possible and as up to date as possible. There is an awful lot of really good information out there on PDFs all over the place.

There's lots of good Twitter feeds, but I also wanted to be able to write in depth about the subject, about the trends, about how things are moving over time, and basically just try and advance the understanding of the subject for myself as much as anyone else. And is there kind of, how long have you been doing this again? Explicitly writing just over a year. Okay. And in that year, are there any kind of trends or what's like the big picture that you've seen develop? If we're talking about Syria, for example, though I've been looking at that subject for a bit longer than that, I've only been writing about it before. I would say one of the biggest examples you will see, this is not just purely in terms of small-land identification, but in terms of the broader picture is the increased media. presence of people like Malhamah Tactical, which particularly the Western media really loves

to talk about. But to a degree, they're an enigma because it's what is a facade, what is real, what is serious, that's an interesting topic. But also there's an increasing change. Again, I don't really focus on the tactics, but there's an increasing change in the use of of more expensive, more modern, more previously rare platforms, thermal vision, night vision, smaller caliber rifle, you're moving from 762 to 5.45 to 5.56. Also, that you become aware of, as each group does it. Typically, you're going to have a more extremist, if you like, more dedicated faction starting something, and then trends in terms of customization, in terms of optics, in terms of smuggling, then all track down to lower tier ones, less extreme, less dedicated,

smaller, so on. Is that a trend you're seeing across the board on both sides, or is it one side better armed than the other? Well, I mean, we're talking sides here. I know it's more complicated than that, but you know what I'm saying. Are we talking about Syria? Yeah, sorry, specifically Syria. In Syria. Well, the Syrian government, if you can call it, that has obviously massively benefited from an influx of modern Russian arms ever since circa 2016, I guess, maybe even earlier.

There's been a massive amounts of Russian small arms being delivered to the Allied militias there. most notably the AK-74, a variety of other modern platforms, a lot of thermobaracts, modern RPG warheads, things like that. That has obviously made a difference on the battlefield, but as with so many other things in Syria, I guess these items become status symbols, and they're not really used for their true battlefield worth, and you'll find that they are captured from isolated outposts en masse.

and then used against the original owners. As a descendant of that, the non-state groups, particularly in places like Idla province, have benefited massively eventually over time from those deliveries because they have filtered through to them in increasing numbers. It seems in 2019 there's more AK-Sem before than they almost ever has been, or I've ever observed. It's almost similar to when the Islamic State took over.

emosal and they've got all of those M16s. It feels similar to that. It's not on the same scale, but you understand what I'm referencing. Yeah. No, no, I get it. So these weapons don't, these weapons need ammunition, right? And is most of that also coming from these caches and from sources outside of the country, or do they have, or is there a method by which people are, you know, ammunition's not too

hard to manufacture yourself, maybe at a mass scale it is, but, You know, where is it coming from? If you'll talk about across the entire country, well, there's just been so many deliveries of arms from both sides coming in that if you're not going to be super specific, that the cartridges used could be from almost anywhere. They could have been come over from Iraq somehow. They could have been delivered by the Russians. They could have been from any number of the rebels, state backers. They could be from the United States. It could be from anything.

So it really depends on how specific you're being. There has been studies carried out, not by myself, but it's shown some of the ranges of munitions used by the Islamic State in Iraq. And it goes all the way from the 60s, I think 50s even, manufactured all the way to only merely years or months prior to being recovered from them. That's in terms of ammunition manufacture. So it's very diverse. Okay, and so non-state actors are mainly getting their weapons, how?

That's a very hard question to answer because of the war, particularly in Syria, has been going on for so long that it's very, very hard to track what is coming from where. If you're talking about distinct systems, if you're talking about generic AK variants, well, it's almost typically impossible to work. out where that's going from, just purely from an open source intelligence point of view. Once you get more dedicated, for example, there has been multiple Russian deliveries of AK-704 into Syria over since 2016. And those models have directly turned up in absolutely unused conditions for sale in the arms markets of the rebel-held areas. So you can put one and one, sorry, two and two together and make four.

and it's very obvious there's been a fairly decent measure of corruption. Transfer, I don't know on how big of a scale really. But then of course, also there's just been such massive capture over the years from the regime that obviously used to massively overstock warehouses. Millions and millions of rounds captured hundreds and hundreds of small arms all the way up to 23mm anti-aircraft cannons, ATGM and so on. So it's not always very easy to distinguish that. But I would say most of the time you're dealing with munitions that are already in country

that have been supplied either by the various backers of the rebels to the rebels prior to the end of 2017, or you're dealing with cashes or stocks which have been supplied or owned previously by the Syrian government. For a second, let's talk about some of the weirder weapons. that I think is what you've kind of built your reputation around finding. Because we've seen some pictures of some much older weapons, as well as some of the newer ones that have been kind of out there. And we've also seen them reinvented by gunsmiths out there in very strange and interesting ways.

Could you talk about that maybe for a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. So one of the most interesting things you'll see is that Syria, was a great purchaser of weapons from the Eastern Bloc. And that included East Germany, which it purchased an awful lot from, or the Soviet Union, obviously, but it had a fairly disparate,

it had a fairly broad selection of arms suppliers. And it also did purchase fairly large quantities of what now would be completely obsolete weaponry. For example, you'd see the Lugas, some of them you were made in Imperial Germany in the First World War. They would have been captured in the Second World War, refurbished by the Soviets, given to the East Germans to use for usually police pistols. And then large stock to those were then transferred around the 1960s to the Syrians for a bargain basement price. and you have fully functionings in sometimes barely used products of the First World War still appearing for sale. You also find that as a result of the conditions, particularly in Idlib province, which is under a certain amount of economic blockade, if you like, there are certain capabilities which were never really supplied in great numbers to rebels, and that includes precision rifles.

and that is why you have the reasonably unique practice of the rebarreling and extensive modifications of Mosin-Nagant rifles, which are, in many cases, over 100 years old to try and turn them into a serviceable platform for use against regime forces. Okay, so what is, what is some of the strangest stuff you've seen in terms of modification? Like, I'm just scrolling your feed now, and I've got the bullpup, the bullpup AK, I think is actually very interesting. Well, the bullpup AK isn't a unique phenomenon, in a sense. The Ukrainians actively use bullp up AK variants for their special forces, actually. and there's been various other countries which have tried the idea, usually with little success, because the operating mechanism and the, as they call it, the rock and lock design of the AK,

the manual of arms doesn't translate well to a bullpup design. However, for a few years now, the mostly Russian-speaking fighters, usually foreign fighters, in Syria have developed a cottage industry of converting a conventional AK rifle of any caliber to a bulltop design. And since then they've also decided to do that to the SVD, Dragonov, which is also in a sense completely unnecessary. very. And the question is, it gets asked a lot when I post these is the, why does this get done? Because it doesn't work well. It makes the recall impulse unusual, so I'm told. It makes mag changes much slower. There's all sorts of ergonomic downsides. So why bother? And for me, the conclusion really is, is it's a fashion statement. Yes, there is, obviously, bullpups are much

shorter to use in confined spaces, but I don't believe that's really the point. I believe that it's really a fashion statement and that these conversions are done as in a way, a status symbol. This doesn't entirely compute, though, because they don't sell for huge amounts of money. A bullpup AK is fractions of a price of just a Glock. So it's an interesting one. And frankly, it's hard to work out. And they've never been very. forthcoming with telling me precisely why they do that. Okay, two questions. Explain to the audience, first of all,

what we mean by a bullpup. And second, why is that a fact, why is that specific thing a fashion symbol? Why did that become status? Yeah, so essentially you can define a bullpup by

saying the action of the firearm and the magazine is behind the trigger. One of the most famous examples of that is the Steyer Al. the British L85, the Croatian VHS II. And it came much more into the fore, I guess, you could say, in the Cold War. But recently, most armed forces are not moving towards that design. One of the most widely produced ones is the Chinese standard service rifle, which is also a bullpub.

they as I said they really came about because the idea is that you have a long barrel in a much more compact package so that you could get the benefit of increased accuracy and all the good things that come with a long barrel but then you're also able to use that weapon for close quarters use now why is it a fashion statement I I cannot answer that question it's it seems to me to be that way it seems to me to be something you don't know why it's a fashion statement. Yeah, I don't know why it's a fashion statement. It's a weird one. I'm sorry. I have a question that may actually have the answer in there somewhat. A lot of these are young guys, and a lot of them have... It seems there's some indicators that some of these guys played a lot of video games in the years leading up to the conflict, particular some of the foreign fighters.

And I wonder how much of this is guys who play games like Counter Strike and Call of Duty and thought this stuff was cool and thought and think that makes them look like Navy SEALs. Like how is the operatorization of conflict maybe something that plays a role in this? Yeah, well, it's hard to tell. But in a sense, amongst a lot of fighters there, there is definitely a move towards trying to look. like a Navy seal. They're trying to look like their SAS. They're trying to have the tactical accoutrements. Many of them, a lot of it, you know,

much of it for social media in a sense. So I definitely think that could be an influence, but I think it's hard to really define that without getting a broad spectrum survey in a sense. But I think definitely there's a broader trend that way. Most of these guys, as with a lot of ISIS fighters, are reasonably online, and they maintain active social media presence, and they've been there for a while.

And I guess it's a natural progression of things. What are some of the other trends that you see where people are pursuing small arms that are not necessarily because they are a better weapon, but because it conveys status? The biggest example of that is the AKS 74U. I think there is almost no other platform, apart from, I guess, in force to a degree, which has the level of status, which that does symbolize for both sides in the conflict. You wouldn't have previously seen them very much in case your listeners aren't, I'm not explaining this, but the AKS 74U is a shortened version of. of the AK-74, and it's designed to take up the space of the submachine gun, but use the full-size cartridge of the AK-74. The problem is it has such a short barrel that it's significantly

more impractical than the AK-74 for use at any decent range. So large amount of these have been supplied by the Russians into Syria, and both the Syrian regime enforcers, generals, figures like that are extremely keen on carrying them, as well as the rank and file, if they can get their hands on them. And you will also find that commanders and rebel forces will carry them. You see, obviously, that Bin Laden is famous for carrying them. The associated bodyguards, leadership figures of almost every faction in a sense across the Middle East is very keen on the AKAS for you. Now, explaining that phenomenon is a hard one, but it really does go back to the invasion of Afghanistan when it was shown really as a big status symbol. Some associated with the destruction of a helicopter as helicopter crews carried it.

Others associated with it just originally being rare. It then became associated with Osama bin Laden. And then from then forth, it's just, it's never lost the allure. What do you think is the coolest weapon that you've seen? That's an incredibly tough one. I think because of the diversity that you see, I think it depends really on whether you're talking about cool because it's cool or cool because it's actually a very effective and important platform. I think in this conversation, those are two different things, right?

Because I've got a follow-up question to this, but what do you think is aesthetically the most pleasing weapon? It would have to be the AK series, in particular, a late 1980s AK-74, if I was going to be very definite. I think by far. And that's just basic, unmodified, fairly common now. But I think it's the most aesthetic. And why?

Why does the aesthetic design of that particular weapon call out to you? I reckon it would just be I reckon it would just be generally just a simple fairly modern design there's no bells and whistles it's just simple, sleek

easy there's nothing hanging off it how have you seen people modify weapons to make them aesthetically pleasing but makes them function like garbage like what is the stupidest thing people do to their small arms?

People will shorten their AKs till there's a few inches of barrel left, where they're horrendously impractical. They'll do the same to M16s. They're very much like M16s doing that to them. We're very impractical. The working of the weapon will be screwed. The velocity of the bullet will be dramatically dropped. A lot of these times it comes down to...

If we can make it dramatically shorter, for some reason, it's much cooler. Hard to tell why sometimes, and the really serious fighters you see on the front lines, aren't doing that, but that seems to quite often be the case. Is it help you tell, like, who's a poser and who's actually a fighter then? By what kind of weapon they're carrying? That's hard to tell, because, as with anything else, the information they freely put out is but a picture of our presentation of themselves that they would like to be communicated. So I think that's a difficult one to tell.

I think on the more dedicated, on the more funded groups, there is definitely a notable level of increase of sophistication and of money spent on their platforms. That's definitely noticeable. That's why you have suppressors. That's why you have thermal vision. On the flip side of that, what do you think are some of the more interesting or clever modifications or reinventions of weapons that you've seen out there? Yeah, well, in my opinion, the modified mozins are perhaps the most interesting because they're essentially taking an utterly archaic platform, applying cheap modifications to it and turning into what is essentially a quite effective precision. platform, which fills a capability gap.

What's the capability gap that they're filling? Yeah, I would say it fills the gap of, there's a real lack of precision rifles. There's SVD, there is PSL, which would be usually determined to be a designated marksman rifle in Western armies, but there is a lack of bolt action precision rifles for a reasonable cost. Do you think that conflict journalists and wonks that when we're doing our job and we're talking about this stuff, that there's something we lose when we don't understand that there is a coolness factor. There is an aesthetic factor to these weapons that helps people decide what they're going to use. Yeah, definitely. And I also think that there is heavy, heavy symbolism

in some platforms, which would be caught by the intended audience, but would not necessarily be caught by those who aren't O'Fey. You could see that in Nigeria, IS West Africa province will very proudly show off 5.45mm AK-74s, which they've captured from the Nigerian special forces. That's both a statement of, we captured these from your special forces. obviously bolstering morale and secondly a very clear link back to the very prominent positioning of that exact platform back in Syria and Iraq by IS fighters so there was very clear visual links between particularly in stage scenes between what is used and what what is shown and other factors

so it does come down to what it's cool but I think there's also quite an important visual language which I can't explain to you, but I think it's definitely a thing. But I mean, that's kind of what you're trying to do with your work to a certain extent is explain that visual language to us, right? I try. I think you succeed most of the time. Calibre Obscura, thank you so much for coming on to the show to talk to us about all of this. Where can people find your work?

And how can people support you? Yeah, so it's Twitter.com forward slash caliber obscure. spelled with the RE, the English way, the correct way. And same with the website, caliber obfuscura.com. There is no donation link. There is no other link apart from that. I am available if you'd like to pay me to do things. Then I have contact details on my website.

But apart from that, that's it. All right. Thank you so much for coming on. And I appreciate it. Thank you so much for tuning in. War College listeners, War College is me, Matthew Galt, Kevin Nodell, who is in the Middle East right now. It was created by myself and Jason Fields.

If you like the show, we've got years, years of archives, years of archives, with many, many great episodes in there. Please leave us a comment, drop us a like, visit the Facebook. We are on Twitter at War underscore College, and we will be back next week. Stay safe until then.