Takedown Rifles (1990s)

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Rupert

My recollection is that the mount took standard 1" scopes. If not, the version sold to the US market (before the 'assault rifle' import ban) certainly did.

Ah, the H&K G3 rifles had integral 30mm rings, meaning you'd need a scope very similar in size and shape to the Hensoldt Z24. The US market HK91 and SR9 rifles were offered with the option of 30mm rings to be attached to a STANAG claw mount.

In either case, no longer than 12.5" and an objective lens under 50mm, so as not to interfere with operation of the rifle. 30mm scopes are common in the US these days, less so in 1987, but there were some on the market. Plus, maybe a German glass would be suitable, just one from the 80s instead of the 70s.

[Pursuivant]

Begging the question, but isn't much of the problem with sourcing a suitable gun due to the fact that you want an inherently obscure weapon - an accurized large- to medium-caliber takedown rifle fitted with expensive optics?

Wouldn't the more anonymous and cheaper option be a well-maintained military surplus rifle in whatever model and caliber is locally dominant, with decent military surplus optical sights, "tuned" immediately prior to use by a competent gunsmith, and then fully or partially (just firing pin and barrel, and possibly other parts which potentially leave tool marks on the brass) destroyed immediately afterwards?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Begging the question, but isn't much of the problem with sourcing a suitable gun due to the fact that you want an inherently obscure weapon - an accurized large- to medium-caliber takedown rifle fitted with expensive optics?

Well, yeah, but maintaining cover identities as harmless tourists while having the capability to engage targets at long range is quite a specific requirement.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Wouldn't the more anonymous and cheaper option be a well-maintained military surplus rifle in whatever model and caliber is locally dominant, with decent military surplus optical sights, "tuned" immediately prior to use by a competent gunsmith, and then fully or partially (just firing pin and barrel, and possibly other parts which potentially leave tool marks on the brass) destroyed immediately afterwards?

There are a lot of resources behind this, but it's both more economical and secure to spend a few tens of millions on hundreds of caches than it is to maintain competent gunsmiths on every island in the Caribbean for thirty years or more.

For operations where weapons can be carried overtly, anonymous surplus military weapons are an option. But I don't really need research for that, I already *know* what kind of weapons that is going to be.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Icelander

These are for use on Caribbean islands and on boats near those islands, where the people carrying them will usually not have any license to carry weapons.

In the Caribbean in the 1990s, this isn't a particularly limiting factor!

There should be no problems getting massive amounts of effectively untraceable guns as long as you have sufficient money and connections to the right regional players: ex-KGB agents, rogue CIA, U.S. military, or DEA agents, or just a well-organized drug cartel with tentacles which extend from Columbia to Miami, Florida or New York City.

At the time, the United States paid minimal attention to gun exports to South and Central America via private purchases and it was even easier to buy guns via private sales in the U.S. in the early 1990s than it is today. There was no national network which tracked such sales and even if one existed it would just consist of paper records rather than a computer database.

A network of agents in the U.S. could easily acquire large numbers of older civilian or police-surplus guns via private sales and then secretly ship them overseas with very few records of the transfers. Given that weapons from the 1950s and 1960s were becoming less fashionable due to the rise of modern automatic pistols and AR-15 clones, they might even be able to get them at bargain prices.

As for weapon storage, as long as condensation or corrosives don't get into the hollow interior portions, metal parts packed in Cosmoline or similar anti-corrosion treatments and stored in sealed containers can last in good condition for decades. Tropical heat and humidity, and the effects of sea air and sand can be brutal, so there's a good chance that improperly preserved weapons will be useless particularly if there's salt water involved.

Aboard a boat, fuel lines or fuel tanks, possibly with internal false bottoms, would make a good anaerobic storage location for metal gun parts as long as the fuel itself isn't inherently corrosive. The same goes for gun caches hidden on land. Most islands rely on fuel-oil powered generators so barrels of fuel oil or large stationary fuel oil tanks wouldn't attract any particular attention.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Ah, the H&K G3 rifles had integral 30mm rings, meaning you'd need a scope very similar in size and shape to the Hensoldt Z24. The US market HK91 and SR9 rifles were offered with the option of 30mm rings to be attached to a STANAG claw mount.

You could get shims to allow using normal US scopes with 1" diameter tubes then, because I remember that being something mentioned - that you didn't need to import German optics.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Rupert

You could get shims to allow using normal US scopes with 1" diameter tubes then, because I remember that being something mentioned - that you didn't need to import German optics.

Oh, you certainly could.

Just that the user experiences I could find indicated it was not optimal. In any case, if the Hensoldt Fero Z24 4x32mm scope was easily available commercially, maybe that's the appropriate optics for it anyway.

[Pursuivant]

Off topic, but if SJG ever decides to do a GURPS 4E version of Modern Firepower Icelander definitely needs to be one of the writers. The level of technical knowledge in this thread puts similar threads on some gun forums I've read look to shame.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Off topic, but if SJG ever decides to do a GURPS 4E version of Modern Firepower Icelander definitely needs to be one of the writers. The level of technical knowledge in this thread puts similar threads on some gun forums I've read look to shame.

When Hans-Christian Vortisch writes it, I'll playtest, but writing it would be actual work, which I try to avoid. Especially at RPG writer payscales.*

*They wish they were paid peanuts, because at least then they could afford peanuts. It's definitely something people do because they *want* to be published RPG writers and/or to support a gaming company they love, because they have to do something else for income.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

In the Caribbean in the 1990s, this isn't a particularly limiting factor!

There should be no problems getting massive amounts of effectively untraceable guns as long as you have sufficient money and connections to the right regional players: ex-KGB agents, rogue CIA, U.S. military, or DEA agents, or just a well-organized drug cartel with tentacles which extend from Columbia to Miami, Florida or New York City.

Several people involved have connections to CIA shell companies from the 1960s and 1970s, but they are not involved in Guatemala, Nicaragua or Iran-Contra in the 1980s. They do know some of the players, but are trying to avoid coming to the attention of the post-Church Committee CIA and US intelligence community in general.

They do have access to some old stores of WWII and Cold War weapons, as well as contacts to black- and grey-market arms dealers from France and former French colonies. There are also high-level governmental contacts in numerous African nations, as the people involved have been involved in oil and gas, mining and security work in Africa for decades. To some extent, those contacts extend to Latin America and a few Caribbean countries, but the caches are being placed on islands where the network doesn't have trusted allies in law-enforcement.

Those caches placed 1987-1990 will have quite a different character than those placed for a few years after 1990, given how much Soviet weaponry flooded the international arms market.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

At the time, the United States paid minimal attention to gun exports to South and Central America via private purchases and it was even easier to buy guns via private sales in the U.S. in the early 1990s than it is today. There was no national network which tracked such sales and even if one existed it would just consist of paper records rather than a computer database.

Agreed. But if a firearm were used in something that was classified as an act of terrorism or otherwise investigated by large and powerful agencies for a long time, even paper records in a small store could be a problem.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

A network of agents in the U.S. could easily acquire large numbers of older civilian or police-surplus guns via private sales and then secretly ship them overseas with very few records of the transfers. Given that weapons from the 1950s and 1960s were becoming less fashionable due to the rise of modern automatic pistols and AR-15 clones, they might even be able to get them at bargain prices.

The proliferation of AR-15 type rifles didn't occur until after the federal Assault Weapon Ban of 1994-2004. Because such rifles were effectively banned by name from 1994-2004 (with weird-looking workarounds sold in that time), they started to be seen as desirable and after the ban ended, demand exploded to unprecedented levels.

Before 1994, Colt sold most of the AR-15 rifles, with Bushmaster, Eagle Arms and Olympic Arms three of the largest producers that weren't Colt, but it's important to recognize how modest the market share of 'black rifles' was at the time. Colt made less than 600,000 from 1963-1994 and all other companies, combined, made around 200,000. Average yearly production of AR-15 type rifles, from all manufacturers, between 1963-1994, was just over 26,000. That's over an order of magnitude less than the average after the AWB.

There were dozens of firearm models much more popular than AR-15 type rifles in the America of the 1980s and 1990s.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

As for weapon storage, as long as condensation or corrosives don't get into the hollow interior portions, metal parts packed in Cosmoline or similar anti-corrosion treatments and stored in sealed containers can last in good condition for decades. Tropical heat and humidity, and the effects of sea air and sand can be brutal, so there's a good chance that improperly preserved weapons will be useless particularly if there's salt water involved.

I'm assuming that the containers would be pretty professionally prepared. Some of the people involved were trained by intelligence agencies and military SOF to cache weapons for resistance groups after a Soviet invasion and they have a bigger budget (per cache) now than they had then.

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Aboard a boat, fuel lines or fuel tanks, possibly with internal false bottoms, would make a good anaerobic storage location for metal gun parts as long as the fuel itself isn't inherently corrosive. The same goes for gun caches hidden on land. Most islands rely on fuel-oil powered generators so barrels of fuel oil or large stationary fuel oil tanks wouldn't attract any particular attention.

Good point.

[Icelander]

Here is an example of an early cache.

1987; Anguilla; Sombrero Island.
Concealed in insulated plastic cases located in a steel oil drum located in the concrete basement under the former lighthouse, demolished in 1962.

4x FN P35 Hi Power pistols*, 9x19mm Parabellum (made in Belgium 1943-1944).

2x Beretta Mod 71 pistols**, .22 LR (made in Italy 1966-1967) w/machined stainless steel suppressor inspired by AWC Archangel (-2 Hearing, -1 Bulk; Weight 0.4 lbs.; 6.5" long and 1" wide).

2x MAT-49 submachine guns, 9x19mm (made in France in 1952-1953).

1x Marlin 39M rifle**, .22 LR (made in USA, 1979) w/Leupold M8 Compact 4x28mm Rimfire Special Scope mounted with Leupold medium rings (+2 Acc; Cost $150; Weight 0.8 lbs.) and machined stainless steel suppressor (-3 Hearing, -1 Bulk; Weight 0.8 lbs.; 10" long and 1.25" wide).

1x FMP G3 rifle***, 7.62x51mm (made in Portugal in 1966) w/Hensoldt Fero Z24 4x24mm scope (+2 Acc, -2 darkness penalties; Weight 1.6 lbs.; 1 AA battery/50 hrs.) and H&K bipod (0.9 lbs.).

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12x FN P35 13-rd 9x19mm Parabellum magazines**** (made in Belgium in 1980-1985).
4x Beretta Mod 71 8-rd .22 LR magazines (made in Italy in 1986-1987).
2x MAT-49 20-rd 9x19mm Parabellum magazines (made in France in 1953).
8x MAT-49 32-rd 9x19mm Parabellum magazines (made in France in 1970-1978).
4x FMP G3 20-rd 7.62x51mm magazines**** (made in Portugal in 1965-1975).

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1x case (500) of Federal FMJ 115 grain 9x19mm (made in USA in 1986).
10x boxes (500) of Remington-Peters JHP 115 grain 9x19mm (made in USA in 1978-1986).
2x boxes (100) of Eley Match LFN 40 grain .22 LR (made in UK in 1987).
1x battlepack (240) of Hirtenberger FMJ 147 grain 7.62x51mm (made in Austria in 1980).
1x box (20) of Federal Premium Nosler Partition 150 grain .308 Winchester (made in USA 1987).

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2x Bianchi 855 Nighthawk I knife (Survival Knife; hammer-forged 440C stainless steel, Fine (Materials); thr+1 imp / sw-1 cut; made in Germany 1972-1975).

1x Gerber Mark II knife (Large Knife; L6 tool steel, Fine (Materials), Fine (Balanced; Dagger); thr+1 imp / sw-2 cut; made in the USA 1967).

1x Becker Machax Survival Tool (Kukri; 20 oz. w/o sheath, 2 lbs., +1 to tool uses; black phosphate 4140 chrome-moly steel, Fine (Materials) and Fine (Balanced); thr imp / sw cut; made in the USA (Cincinnati, OH) in 1985).

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2x Steiner Commander 7x50rc binoculars (made in Germany in 1985-1986).
2x Champion's Choice Shooting Mat, RH (72" x 30"; rolls up 30" x 7.5" diameter; water-repellant duck canvas; Cost $80; Weight 6 lbs.) (made in USA in 1980-1985).

*Refurbished, throated, tuned and made Fine (Reliable) by unknown gunsmith.
**Factory barrel threaded by unknown gunsmith.
***Refurbished to G3A4 standard, with STANAG claw mount for scope, using H&K parts imported into the US in 1983.
****Selected for reliability; springs changed if needed.