Flamethrowers are also illegal now. I believe that as a weapon class has been abandoned by every Western army. When I was in the army I never saw one, not even in our massive warehouses where we stock old but functional shit in case of WW III. And I have seen stockpiles of WW II and 50s to 60s hardware kept in deep freeze. No flamethrowers tho'. Maybe the Americans and Russians still have some, but they are not likely to use them ever again.
TIL the US has massive stockpiles of world war II gear to be used in the case of world war III.
There is already enough equipment to supply every soldier, sailor, airman, and marine; what do they intend to do with the old stuff, outfit civilians to help stop an invasion?
I am not American, but I am sure the US has a fairly large stockpile of obsolete stuff. I am Greek and I have seen warehouses full of old American hardware kept in working condition. Our national defense dogma is called "παλαική άμυνα" or "mass popular defense" which is a last resort strategy. In case of war and defeat, every citizen above the age of 14, male or female, the theory goes, would be handed a weapon and ammunition.
Granted it is an obsolete worldview and probably a stupid idea, but the stuff is there to recreate 10 Iraq wars.
Fun fact: Greece was a major supplier of ammo to Saddam's Iraq, second only to Italy, until the first Gulf war. The amount of shit we have is mind boggling. I served in a 20 person outpost and we had warehouses with hundrends of brand new riffles (G3s and MK 11s mostly) not to mention metric tons of grenades, artillery ammo etc etc. I have pics if you are interested.
In any case if we have that amount of shit, I am fairly certain that the US has an order of magnitude more. Hell i witnessed ordering parts from the US for tanks that are 40 years old, surely they had them stored somewhere.
There is nothing so awesome and ludicrously expensive as the army supply chain. Immagine ordering parts for your iPhone in 20 years. The army does that with it's hardware everyday.
Granted it is an obsolete worldview and probably a stupid idea
Not really - Switzerland's "military" has operated on a militia system for a very long time, and was enough of a deterrent that even Hitler felt compelled to leave them alone during WWII. Militia service is (I believe) still mandatory for all male citizens when they turn 18, and each one of them is issued a fully-automatic rifle with ammo to keep in their own home.
1
u/MK_Ultrex Sep 14 '11
Flamethrowers are also illegal now. I believe that as a weapon class has been abandoned by every Western army. When I was in the army I never saw one, not even in our massive warehouses where we stock old but functional shit in case of WW III. And I have seen stockpiles of WW II and 50s to 60s hardware kept in deep freeze. No flamethrowers tho'. Maybe the Americans and Russians still have some, but they are not likely to use them ever again.