Iran Military Forum

Libya: War for oil

Libya: War for oil	Small | Large

Alright, let's go through this video.

FN FAL (1:43) - The narrator nails it on the head - the rifle is one of the "most widely used" in the world, including, interestingly enough, Libya.

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20070416041516/http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jir/jir030804_1_n.shtml

PKM (3:40) - Narrator doesn't recognize this and improperly labels it as a "US-made machine gun" which obviously isn't true.

Unidentified (3:44) - Narrator also labels it as "US-made" despite lack of identification. (perhaps someone can help me out?)

"Chinese Machine gun" (4:27) - The narrator identifies it as odd because it appears brand new. However this isn't out of the ordinary because large caches of weapons are kept in protective wrappings at their storage depots, that's the intent of caches after all. Later he says that "machine guns don't come with their own instructors", this is true, but it assumes that large portions of the military didn't defect and engage in training the civilian rebels who don;t have any military training.

MANPADS (4:56) - these appear to be SA-7s, relatively common in the Libyan arsenal and by no means an indicator of "western involvement". The instructor is probably just another Libyan soldier instructing civilians on how to use the weapons. As for requiring a "qualified professional" - that's true to the extend that guerrillas across the world qualify as a "professional"

US Army Helmet and Pistol (5:23) - you can't really tell what kind of pistol it is from the picture, let alone it's identity. As for the helmet, there is absolutely no indication it's from the US at all, from that picture it could easily be any of the composite ballistic helmets manufactured by any country across the world.

106 mm RR Ammunition (6:08) - Same deal here, narrator doesn't realize that supplies kept in ammunition caches are generally in good condition. He's also ignoring the fact that the US doesn't use the M40 any more, but plenty of other countries across the world do to say nothing of the various stockpiles that exist across the world.
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Bottom line is that it's obvious that the narrator doesn't have a lot of actual military related knowledge which invalidates the claims he makes.

the narrator proofs outsiders on theres way to control Libyan's natural recourses

Except he doesn't because everything he says is wrong. I'm sorry, but the author has a deficit of military knowledge. I don't claim to know everything about the Libyan armed forces, and I realize that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing, but the narrator clearly didn't do any basic research when it comes to where the weapons came from.

Of course the Yanks want to Wash themes Bloody Hands

I'm not exactly "washing my hands" of it, I'll readily admit that the US is bombing Qaddafi's forces, but I'm just point out that the narrator has his assumptions wrong. It's like asserting that because Qaddafi wore a cloak that he's a wizard, it just doesn't make logical sense.

No weapons (atleast in the magnitude presented in the above video) have been supplied to the rebels yet. Aside from the debate about how new the weapons look, the reality is that such a mass handout would be well known. You simply cant arm thousands of unknown rebels with these weapons and expect it to be under the table.

It's not like the movies where you get off the plane in the Somalian desert wearing a tuxedo , and 10 minutes later you're in a firefight trying to take over the presidential palace.

Such operation is a logistical nightmare , let alone trying to keep it under wraps.

...I cannot believe that these are not new weapons!

No weapons (atleast in the magnitude presented in the above video) have been supplied to the rebels yet. Aside from the debate about how new the weapons look, the reality is that such a mass handout would be well known. You simply cant arm thousands of unknown rebels with these weapons and expect it to be under the table.

It's not like the movies where you get off the plane in the Somalian desert wearing a tuxedo , and 10 minutes later you're in a firefight trying to take over the presidential palace.

Such operation is a logistical nightmare , let alone trying to keep it under wraps.

nevertheless such an operation is possible.... If u can arm Palestinian factions with a SIEGE on the country how hard is it to arm a country as open as Lybia in the state that its in? I dont think its that hard at all...  I watched alot of amerikkkan movies, and I think ur referring to the lord of war.... but hold on? wasnt that movie a true story?

how much amunnition can a Caches hold up? to last this long? You say the ones that were stationed in the east.... so Gaddafi spread his ammunition all over Lybia? btw... zenga zenga means corner by corner...


They have been dropping uranium bombs, and they have been owning the airspace... no one in the entire planet can monitor the entire airspace and predict what ur predicting that ist almost impossible to arm them without anyone knowing about it.... its very possible in my eyes... all u need is a plane and airspace... the allies lack non...

the other thing I wanted to ask... the first pic on the truck wth is that? I have never seen it before?  and some other interesting pics to look at....

That first pic is a rocket launcher, for short range. But yes the rebels are using tanks, even as we speak. They did have a few jets (how operational idk) , but as you know they cant fly them now due to the NFZ.

Mo here is a video showing the launcher used by libyan rebels:

Libyan rebels wage war with homemade rocket launcher

Looks to be from the Libyan airforce Mi24's , UV-16-57 models

Everyone seems to forget that Libya had a standing policy of importing large amount of arms and keeping the vast majority in cold storage.

For example, when Pakistan bought Libya's Mirage V's in the 90's, the Pakistanis were shocked to find that most of the airframes had very little hours on them or none at all! This means that many of their aircraft were immediately put into storage upon being delivered from France nearly 20 years before.

Also most of the weapons that have been posted here are all Soviet/Russian. For example the 4 tube artillery rocket system is a compact version of the Grad system designed to be deployed by Soviet Airborne forces. The rocket pods mounted on the trucks are the same are normally fitted on Mi-24s, this same configuration has been seen in Afghanistan as well.

Also everyone seems to bring up the SA-7s seen in those images...What I dont understand is why. The west clearly doesnt operate the SA-7 nor has any NATO nation operated it for many decades now (the former eastern bloc nations that are now part of NATO). So how exactly could the West have supplied SA-7s to the Libyan rebels? It is far more logical that Libya had a massive supply of these (the same of is true of Egypt and Syria most likely) in storage. Like the Mirage jets I mentioned early many of them were probably never even taken out of their crates since doing so would only hasten the need for maintance of them in the future. Now that said even in cold storage I am not sure how long a SA-7 could remain servicable but I have yet to see a good explanation as to how the West could have gotten them operational for the rebels. A far more logical theory would be that Egypt who has produced its own version of the SA-7 some years ago may have aided the rebels in making the SA-7s found in the storage depots operational.

Also it should be noted that according to Tom Cooper of the ACIG (who has been watching this conflict very closely) says there are THOUSANDs of weapons depots across Libya. So it makes perfect sense that many of the weapons rebels found in the depots are in near perfect condition since the whole point of an arms depot is to maintain arms in good condition for long periods of time.

My biggest complaint about the video is when the narrator claims in error that it is impossible the Ghaddafi could have received any new arms because Libya has been under sanctions. Problem is Libya had those sanctions lifted nearly 7 years ago! More importantly there is confirmed evidence of Ghaddafi's forces operated the SA-24 low level SAM system. THis system consists of an advanced variant of the SA-18/Igla MANPAD mounted to a vehicle that includes a IR imaging system making it immune to jamming. The thing is there is no record of any exports of this system. So if the narrator's flawed logic is correct how ever did Ghaddafi receive this advanced SAM system?

Combine that with the fact he claims the rebels are using American machine guns but doesnt actually state what type. To be honest I tried to figure out what those machine guns were but I couldnt find a matching gun made by America or Belgium (which designed many current American small arms). To be specific the barrels on these machine guns are a bit longer than machine guns like the M240 and other American machine guns. It is more similar to Soviet or Chinese MGs but I too couldnt find a match there either.

Also, the video doesnt show any of these supposedly brand new and western hand guns in any detail at all but claims they are western nonetheless. And even if they are western..So what? As I mentioned above Libya has been allowed to import arms for many years now and to me it would be quite logical for Libya to import western handguns since they are usually some of the best in the world and the old soviet models Libya has alreadly are obsolete. Remember Italy and France would trying to sell arms to Libya in the last few years, is it so hard to believe that Libya may have bought some new European/American handguns?