Question from newbie : U.S soldiers with AK?

[Nyles]

The US military is not so short on weapons that they're using foreign kit. You are talking about the best-equipped military in the world (in quantity if not always quality). That would never happen. You might see pictures of guys shooting or posing with foreign kit for kicks, that's normal. I have plenty of pictures of using an SA80, but that's not a Canadian issue weapon, I just happened to play with one during some cross-training.

Most armies have very strict rules against using battlefield pickup weapons. You don't know what kind of condition it's in or if it's going to be effective or even safe. You don't know what conditions the weapon, and more importantly the ammo, has been stored in, you don't know how it's been maintained, and even worse you don't know if it's been sabotaged.

The classic example of this was right after the invasion of Iraq. Soldiers like guns, it's no surprise, and they espescially like unusual guns - you have huge piles of captured arms, and you had alot of guys pulling out sniper rifles (some Dragunovs, but more PSL and Al Kadesihs), and having them blow up in their faces. Turned out alot of Al Kadesihs were training weapons that were never designed to be fired with live ammo, and the troops didn't know how to recognise the markings.