Prabhakaran's personal gun, body armour found

[ravee2k2]

Sri Lanka today claimed to have found the slain Tamil Tiger chief Vellupilai Prabhakaran's personal gun and body armour, seven months after overrunning the last LTTE bastion in the decisive battle at Nanthaikadal lagoon off the northern coast.

The arms used by Prabhakaran were found buried 15 feet under the ground at Vellamulliwaikkal area in Mulaittivu along with scores of suicide kits and several anti-aircraft guns. Senior DIG for Vavuniya Nimal Lewke confirmed that the weapon a M-16A2 with a grenade launcher that was found was used by the LTTE leader as his personal weapon, local media reports said today.

Prabhakaran was killed by Lankan Army at Nanthikadal lagoon in Mullaitivu on May 18 last year. The gun had been found buried with his body armour and as many as 125 suicide kits, 50 mortar bombs, 25 anti-aircraft guns. Lankan security authorities continue to scour the northern countryside for weapons cache of the LTTE.

The specialised Army units have had lot of success in locating the weapons of Tamil Tigers. While retreating LTTE had buried most of their heavy weapons in underground caches which the Lankans are now searching for. The arms and is now in the process of being transported to the Vavuniya Senior DIG's Office. The search operations were conducted with Terrorist Investigation Division in Vellamullavaikkal area in Mullaitivu, the Defence Ministry said. A staggering 2000kgs of explosives were among the recovered haul of war material, it said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Defence Secretary Gotabhaya Rajapaksa said the use of Information Technology played a major role in the defeat of LTTE. A good example of this could be observed during the recently concluded operations in the North, he told a gathering here yesterday. "Through proper IT integration, we were able to provide live video feeds of the battlefront captured by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles not just to on-field commanders, but to the key decision makers in the hierarchy up including the Sri Lankan President," he said.

This was a critical tool in achieving success against the militants while ensuring the safety of the civilian population trapped by the LTTE, he added.

"If something like this can be achieved in a combat situation, there should be no barriers to the proper exploitation of IT in the private sector," Rajapaksa said
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M16A2


New rear sight, brass deflector and forward assist of M16A2


A Marine with an M16A2 on a training exercise at Camp Baharia, Iraq, 2004. An M1 Abrams tank is in the background
The development of the M16A2 rifle was originally requested by the United States Marine Corps as a result of the USMC's combat experiences in Vietnam with the XM16E1 and M16A1.[8] The Marines were the first branch of the U.S. Armed Forces to adopt the M16A2 in the early/mid 1980s with the United States Army following suit in adopting the M16A2 in the late 1980s. Modifications to the M16A2 were more extensive. In addition to the new rifling, the barrel was made with a greater thickness in front of the front sight post to resist bending in the field and to allow a longer period of sustained fire without overheating. The rest of the barrel was maintained at the original thickness to enable the M203 grenade launcher to be attached.[8] The front sight was now a square post with 4 detent positions, adjustable for vertical zeroing by using a cartridge, nail or special tool. A new adjustable rear sight was added, allowing the rear sight to be dialed in for specific range settings between 300 and 800 meters to take full advantage of the ballistic characteristics of the new SS109 rounds and to allow windage adjustments without the need of a tool or cartridge.[8] The flash suppressor was again modified, this time to be closed on the bottom so it would not kick up dirt or snow when being fired from the prone position, and acting as a recoil compensator.[42] The front grip was modified from the original triangular shape to a round one, which better fitted smaller hands and could be fitted to older models of the M16.[8] The new handguards were also symmetrical so that armories needn't separate left and right spares. The handguard retention ring was tapered to make it easier to install and uninstall the handguards.[8] The pistol grip adds a notch for the middle finger and more texture to enhance the grip. The buttstock was lengthened by 5/8 inch (16 mm).[8] The new buttstock became ten times stronger than the original due to advances in polymer technology since the early 1960s. Original M16 stocks were made from fiberglass-impregnated resin; the newer stocks were engineered from DuPont Zytel glass-filled thermoset polymers. The new stock included a fully textured polymer buttplate for better grip on the shoulder, and retained a panel for accessing a small compartment inside the stock, often used for storing a basic cleaning kit. The heavier bullet reduces muzzle velocity from 3,200 feet (980 m) per second (975 m/s), to about 3,050 feet (930 m) per second (930 m/s). The A2 also uses a faster twist rifling to allow the use of a trajectory-matched tracer round. A spent case deflector was incorporated into the upper receiver immediately behind the ejection port to prevent cases from striking left-handed users.[8]
The action was also modified, replacing the fully-automatic setting with a three-round burst setting.[8] When using a fully-automatic weapon, poorly trained troops often hold down the trigger and "spray" when under fire. The U.S. Army concluded that three-shot groups provide an optimum combination of ammunition conservation, accuracy and firepower. There are mechanical flaws in the M16A2 burst mechanism. The trigger group does not reset when the trigger is released. If the user releases the trigger between the second and third round of the burst, for example, the next trigger pull would only result in a single shot. Even in semi-automatic mode, the trigger group mechanism affects weapon handling. With each round fired, the trigger group cycles through one of the three stages of the burst mechanism. Worse, the trigger pull at each of these stages may vary as much as 6 lbf (27 N) in pressure differential, detracting from accuracy.[citation needed]
All together, the M16A2s new features added weight and complexity to the M16 series. Critics also point out that neither of the rear sight apertures is ideally sized. The smaller aperture was described as being too small, making quick acquisition of the front sight post difficult; and the larger aperture was described as being too large, resulting in decreased accuracy. To make matters worse, the rear sight apertures are not machined to be on the same plane. In other words, the point of impact changes when the user changes from one aperture to the other. The rear sight's range adjustment feature is rarely used in combat as soldiers tend to leave the rear sight on its lowest range setting of 300 meters. This distance is seen by many as an excessively long range for the minimum setting, given that most engagements take place at significantly shorter ranges. Despite criticism, a new rifle was needed both to comply with NATO standardization of the SS109 (M855) and to replace aging Vietnam era weapons in the inventory.

[imsirish]

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