US Booby Trapped Ammo as bad as using land mines?

The United States has been seeding battlefields with improvised exploding ammunition, part of a large-scale project intended to undermine the Taliban that can have grisly unintended effects. Such ammunition was introduced by the United States to Afghanistan with hopes that it would explode inside the weapons of its foes. But ammunition tends to move fluidly through and around conflict zones.

Link

Seems exploding ammo is gaining in popularity. Wasnt but a month or two ago Syrias government was getting flak for distributing exploding ammo among the resistance.

No question it is effective. It destroys the firearms, occasionally the firers arms and seeds a lot of fear and distrust.

But ammo moves like herpes and lice. Especially when such huge amounts are being used. And it circulates for a long long time. Even today surplus ammo from past wars can be purchased online.

So land mines are bad, right? Every civilized nation hates them and the UN has spent lots of time and money working toward their discovery and removal.

Will the booby trapped ammo pose a similar threat? Will it leak out of the war zones as the years go by? Will it begin to circulate on the civilian market?

Will the first civilian to be injured over some US exploding ammo win his suit against the government?

Seems like with the difficulties the government has over keeping track of vehicles, supplies and firearms those difficulties will only be compounded when trying to keep track of something as small in size yet as great in numbers as ammo.

Text removed.

ETA: Ok, I was thinking of something else.

Yeah, bullets...probably not such a hot idea to let that leak out.

But I like it, it's nefarious.

reply to post by watchitburn


It's ammo. Trapped ammo. You load it and you fire it and it explodes in your face.

Much more nefarious than bomb making equipment.

A 7.62 round off the shelf designed to blow you and your rifle up.

I'm guessing they are booby trapping mainly 7.62x39, 5.56 maybe .308 and 7.62x54? I don think it will find its way back to the states mainly because we just leave our stuff when we leave a country. And surplus has to sit around for quite awhile before its unpacked and sold as surplus which the US military hardly ever does with ammo.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere

Poor Afghanistan.

First the Russians attack, invade and seed land mines, now its the Americans attacking, invading and planting exploding ammo.

Just GTFO of their country already.

This is just a freaking horrible idea because of how much ammo moves around the world..

Sickening in my opinion.

You might find this interesting to read. It's a quick overview of the program to seed faulty and explosive ammunition among the stocks of the Viet Cong and Pathet Lao during the Vietnam War. I've read about it as Project Italian Green but this references other names it went by. Interesting stuff and definitely not a new tactic.

Project Eldest Son / Italian Green

I must say though, morale would tend to suffer a bit the 2nd or 3rd time a mortar or RPG team just vanishes in a blast of their own making because the warhead detonated before the propellant.

Something designed to kill or disfigure the bad guys is giving you people fits? Jeez, it's a war theater, that's what EVERYTHING there is intended to do.

Originally posted by azbowhunter
Something designed to kill or disfigure the bad guys is giving you people fits? Jeez, it's a war theater, that's what EVERYTHING there is intended to do.

That ammo wont stay in a war theater and it isnt going to hurt only war actors. That's the problem.

There is a lot of collateral with tactics like this.

But the US doesnt seem to worried about that anymore. What with all the drone missiles and all.

There's a clear difference. Land mines hurt anyone who walks on them, obviously not knowing they are there. So landmines can kill children, animals, anything that walks on them. They are non-discriminatory. Booby trapped ammo only works if you pick up the ammo, load it into a weapon, and fire it. That's an intentional act. Now maybe you think you can make the case that poor hapless Afghani peole are picking up ammo off the ground, loading it into their rifles, and firing them off into the air at weddingts as a means of celebration, therefore it isn't "fair: to salt booby trapped ammo, but I would submit to you that most all of the ammo is used in a combat situation.

It's not much different from some fanatic strapping a bomb on his chest intent on blowing up a school bus full of children and blowing himself up instead. Oh, too bad. Met any virgins yet?

Next you'll be comparing booby-trapped ammo with handing candy out at Halloween.

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


This has been going on for decades by all sides.

Here is just one example, Caution: Graphic

reply to post by schuyler


I didnt realize every human being with two arms capable of operating a firearm was an enemy combatant.

Silly me for assuming non-combatants lived in the region.

Why not carpet bomb the entire country then?

reply to post by thisguyrighthere


My first thought was that it wasn't nearly as bad as landmines because, in order to be a victim of it, you have to be a combatant thus eliminating the risk of a civilian being hurt by it.

The problem is that civilians are being forced into positions of becoming combatants in order to defend their homes from the US insurgency in the Middle East as well as from terrorist groups there. Some poor Afghan farmer picking up his rifle to defend his 14 children shouldn't have to worry about the ammo blowing up.

Not to mention your scenario of it reaching the market after a while. Not a happy thought.

Originally posted by Cuervo

Some poor Afghan farmer picking up his rifle to defend his 14 children shouldn't have to worry about the ammo blowing up.

Not to mention your scenario of it reaching the market after a while. Not a happy thought.

It goes well beyond defense or offense against human threats.

That farmer has livestock he has to protect from predators. Seeing as how the AK47 is so damn prevalent over there chances are good that is the firearm that farmer will be relying on and that firearm shoots the same 7.62 that the military targets do and that farmer isnt getting his ammo from Walmart. He's getting it from trades on the land or from street markets.

So farmer Joe raises his rifle to cap a couple of feral dogs going after his goats and BLAM! Joe loses half his face and his family loses their bread winner. Im sure that wont contribute to teaching a new generation of angry and hungry kids to hate America.