# 3 "anti-aircraft weapons", 30mm, 14.5mm ammo nabbed in Helmand



## The Bread Guy (18 Feb 2010)

This, from ISAF today:


> An Afghan-international security patrol found a large weapons cache in the Now Zad district of Helmand last night.
> 
> The cache contained 2,520 30mm rounds, 300 14.5mm rounds, three anti-aircraft weapons, 15 rocket-propelled grenades, 34 mortar rounds and other ammunition.
> 
> ...



I'm guessing it's more of this, given 14.5mm ammo was found, and I can't think of a Soviet-bloc 30mm anti-aircraft gun the Taliban might easily have access to.

_More OSINT on Taliban anti-air threat here._


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## SeanNewman (18 Feb 2010)

Caches are found all the time.  hard to know if it even makes a dent as even a relatively large IED factory can be replaced with one truck from Iran or Pakistan.

It's amazing that the ammo can even still be fired half the time, as half the time it looks like it was pulled off the ocean floor.  Something to be said for Soviet weapons, I guess.


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## OldSolduer (18 Feb 2010)

Link here:

http://www.janes.com/articles/Janes-Land-Based-Air-Defence/ZSU-30-2-Russian-Federation.html


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## Retired AF Guy (20 Feb 2010)

Mid Aged Silverback said:
			
		

> Link here:
> 
> http://www.janes.com/articles/Janes-Land-Based-Air-Defence/ZSU-30-2-Russian-Federation.html



The ZSU-30-2 was a proposed upgrade to the original ZSU-23-4. As far as I can tell it never left the drawing board. As for the original article, its never specifically says that the 30mm ammo is for an anti-aircraft system: that was an assumption on the part of the original poster. The 30mm ammo is most likely for the main gun for the BMP-2  which was used by both the Soviets and Afghan army during the Afghan War and is still service with the Afghan Army.


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## The Bread Guy (21 Feb 2010)

Mid Aged Silverback said:
			
		

> Link here:
> 
> http://www.janes.com/articles/Janes-Land-Based-Air-Defence/ZSU-30-2-Russian-Federation.html


Thanks for that - as an SP gun system, though, I'd like to think ISAF ISTAR would have spotted the Taliban having something like that  ;D



			
				Retired AF Guy said:
			
		

> As for the original article, its never specifically says that the 30mm ammo is for an anti-aircraft system: that was an assumption on the part of the original poster.


Not exactly:
this]I'm guessing it's more of [url=http://forums.milnet.ca/forums/threads/85630]this, given 14.5mm ammo was found, and I can't think of a Soviet-bloc 30mm anti-aircraft gun the Taliban might easily have access to.[/url]
Not to mention a track record (open source) of ZPU-1's being found in Helmand in the past.


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## Ex-Dragoon (21 Feb 2010)

The only 30mm anti aircraft I can think off off the top of my head used by the Russians is in their Navy. They have a couple of versions of a 30mm Gatling gun.


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## Retired AF Guy (27 Feb 2010)

Ex-Dragoon said:
			
		

> The only 30mm anti aircraft I can think off off the top of my head used by the Russians is in their Navy. They have a couple of versions of a 30mm Gatling gun.



The  2S6 Tunguska  uses the the 2A38 series liquid cooled 30 mm cannon which is an adaption of the  GSh-30 which is carried on the SU-27/35 Flanker variants and the Mig-29 Fulcrum.


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