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This was on Foxnews.com, but this link goes to Michael Yon's Online Magazine.

Edited to add: Foxnews is reporting that the most frequent comments list it either as a grenade launcher, potato gun, or a toy. Yon is embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq and they found it on a recent mission. According to Yon, he has handled it, and it is not a toy.

http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/wha ... s-this.htm



Do you know what this is?

The recent loss of five helicopters in Iraq has caught the attention of the media. Also in the media is all the new talk of Iranian influence on weapons in Iraq, although my readers learned about the issue more than a month ago in Walking the Line (Part Two of Three). (Not linked here)

In the face of all this “new� controversy about “foreign� weapons in the battle space, I recalled some of the many photos I’ve taken of caches of weapons captured by Iraqi and American forces in Iraq. The photo above is from one of these.

None of the military persons who’ve seen the photo were able to identify the weapon depicted in it.

Do you know what it is?

Do you know where it came from?

Please respond in the comments:

Note: If you click on the link in the actual story, there are some pictures that are not 10-year-old daughter safe. Not gory, just some colorful language.

In rec.guns it was identified as a toy from a GI Joe set.

- Jim

this here, is my BOOMSTICK!!!!!!!!

the scope looks too good to be a GI Joe toy, but, stranger things HAVE happened. I'ma guessin' a 'tater gun.

seamusTX wrote:In rec.guns it was identified as a toy from a GI Joe set.

- Jim

I have no idea what it is, but from the Foxnews website:

"Sorry, but we checked that out and Michael Yon, the freelance journalist and weapons expert who found the "mystery weapon," wrote that he and the GIs he accompanied on patrol in Mosul handled the "weapon," and they all report that it was full-sized.

FOXNews.com did, however, check photos circulated on the Web that claimed to show the "weapon" as part of a toy soldier accessory pack. We found that those photos were doctored, probably using Photoshop. We also contacted the toy manufacturer who told us that the "weapon" was not part of their product."

What is on the ground at the bottom of the photo?

ChrisStevens wrote:What is on the ground at the bottom of the photo?

That is an RPG provided for size reference.

Looking at the photo on the original site, it looks to be some type of homemade RPG launcher. The handles are wooden and the body almost looks like PVC pipe or something.

Big Calhoun wrote:Looking at the photo on the original site, it looks to be some type of homemade RPG launcher. The handles are wooden and the body almost looks like PVC pipe or something.

That's exactly what I think.

lrb111 wrote:

Big Calhoun wrote:Looking at the photo on the original site, it looks to be some type of homemade RPG launcher. The handles are wooden and the body almost looks like PVC pipe or something.

That's exactly what I think.

Homemade RPG launcher, complete with spray-paint camo job!

I'd bet the first RPG fired from that thing would melt it, if it indeed is PVC. If it's truly a workable weapon, it's probably metal.

Whatever kind of weapon it is, though, I bet it's a "non-catalog item"!

If anyone is still interested, Strategy Page has an article about the origin of the weapon.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htweap ... 70304.aspx