Soldier Systems Daily is attending a BHI Foreign Weapons Course. Today's post (Day 3) was on heavy weapons. Day 2 was all about the AK and Day 1 was an intro, pistols and subguns. There's some pretty good video over there too, you should check it out.
Nobody ever let's me shoot a DShKM. *sigh*
Here's an excerpt (excerpt and photos courtesy and property of Soldier Systems Daily):
Day 3 of the BHI Foreign Weapons Course was all about Machine Guns...big, dangerous looking, Soviet Machine Guns. Over the course of a career, you might get to handle foreign weapons and maybe even shoot an AK, but rarely if ever do you get the opportunity to not only get into the nitty gritty of how to use and maintain them, but actually fire them as well. It's training like this that promotes adaptability, going beyond simply demonstrating a capability to a student. Blackheart ensures you know how to do it.
Once again, we began the day with lecture paired with hands on application. Using the same methodology as previous days, our instructors gave us history of each weapon followed by a demonstration on how to make it safe, load it and maintain it. Due to the variety of machine guns we completed the lecture portion before starting a round robin with students rotating between the RPK, RPD, PKM and DShKM. In addition to the weapons themselves we also learned about accessories such as the tripods and cleaning kits. Below are examples of amazing cleaning kits provided to Russian troops with these weapons. Not shown is the DShK kit which includes a hammer!
If you've got the time and you have any interest in the "Soviet Era" weapons so common pretty much everywhere we deploy, go read these BHI class updates on Soldier Systems.
