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British troops were 'supplied with defective ammunition'
Last updated at 11:22am on 23.11.06
The Ministry of Defence has admitted supplying defective ammunition to soldiers in Afghanistan.
The Daily Telegraph reports today that a platoon from the 3Bn The Parachute Regiment refused to go on patrol until the problem was resolved.
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The MoD has confirmed British troops were forced to borrow ammunition off American and Canadian troops as they battled the Taliban.
The Telegraph reports the batch is believed to have come from the Czech Republic or Pakistan, where a round costs 60 US cents, compared to 1.50 US dollars for British, Canadian or American ammunition.
The ammunition was for the .50 calibre Browning heavy machine gun, which can be also be mounted on a Land Rover.
The newspaper reports one paratrooper demonstrated how poor the rounds were in a video posted on the internet site YouTube.
The video shows two soldiers in a sandbagged position struggling to operate the machine gun. One is shown constantly re-cocking his weapon as a colleague tries to feed through the ammunition belt while enemy fire can be heard in the background.
The Browning machine gun fires up to 550 rounds per minute and can penetrate buildings and lightly-armoured vehicles.
A Ministry of Defence spokeswoman told the Press Association: "Three months ago there was a single defective batch of .50 ammunition.
"Some ammunition was borrowed from the Americans and Canadians for the short time it took to be replaced.
"At present there are no problems with .50 ammunition or any other kind of rounds used in theatre.
"Southern Afghanistan has extremely hot and dusty conditions which can sometimes interfere with the moving parts in a weapon. It would be misleading to blame this on defective ammunition."
The spokeswoman was unable to comment on whether disciplinary action would be taken against the paratrooper who reportedly posted a video of the poor quality rounds on YouTube.
Reader views (3)
Is there nothing our incompetent civil service and government can do right? Why are we buying ammunition from Pakistan? Which civil servant was too lazy to perform basic quality assurance tests? Who will face disciplinary action over this? Is it better to spend one pound fifty in the UK with a UK company or for the money and jobs to go to Pakistan?
- Mark, UK
How can a 'single' defective batch reach front line units? Surely samples are taken from each batch when purchased and proof fired to check the batch meets performance specifications? If you don't, you could be sending troops boxes of lipsticks. The Army has, or used to have, the capability to do this. Now, who knows? Of course, sending inadequate ammunition to the front is nothing new and in 1915 toppled the government.
- Peter Haldane, London
If this is true then there is a case for putting MOD officials and civil servants on trial for treason. Better still, shoot them with their own defective ammunition. The MOD is a complete disgrace and is as responsible for British deaths in combat as the insurgents.
- Nigel Macdonald, Camborne, YK
