Combloc SAW: Chinese RPD at the Range


h/t TX2Guns

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About the Author: NC Scout

NC Scout is the nom de guerre of a former Infantry Scout and Sergeant in one of the Army’s best Reconnaissance Units. He has combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He teaches a series of courses focusing on small unit skills rarely if ever taught anywhere else in the prepping and survival field, including his RTO Course which focuses on small unit communications. In his free time he is an avid hunter, bushcrafter, writer, long range shooter, prepper, amateur radio operator and Libertarian activist. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via his blog at brushbeater.wordpress.com .

13 Comments

  1. Him August 5, 2021 at 16:18

    Intermediate cartridge? For the rookies, say the caliber. 7.62x39mm. Nice weapon.

    • Jack Lawson August 7, 2021 at 02:33

      Hello ‘Him,’
      Hey, a Rhodie! Thanks for you putting yourself out there and your involvement and dedication to one of the greatest societies, causes and special people, like you, that this planet has ever seen… it was like the Battle of Thermopylae and the Spartan 300 versus the World.
      I assume you know that Green Leader was the result of the massacre of survivors of the two airliners they shot down out of Kariba. All were out for blood… and we got plenty of pay back.
      We left from Kariba Airport and came back through Mana Pools on Green Leader. I was on loan from RLI to ‘C’ Squadron SAS and jumped with them into Westland Farms about 150 klics north of Lusaka, Zambia. My parachute got fricking hung up in a tree but I had 60 pounds of explosives in my drop pack and the tree eventually got tired of holding me and that up.
      We caught them with their pants down. They never thought we’d go that far north of the capitol. Good God… I probably would have shat my pants and stayed in the plane if I’d known we were out numbered as we were. Something like 100 to 1 or more as I was told later. That arsehole Ken Flowers, head of CIO, was letting Brit MI-6 know about our operations and they in turn informed the Terrorists. May he rot in hell. They were a little slow in doing so on this one though. Even though the soccer field and most of the camps were empty… Rhodie Intelligence found out where they’d gone and hit them there too… like about twenty miles away and stomped the shytte out of them there.
      Got 1437 of them total on the op and one of ours wounded. Bombers, gunships and Lynx got most of them. But great by anyone’s numbers. If you’d seen what they did to the Rhodie farm families and their own tribal people you would understand why none of it weighs on my conscience… and then maybe you did see. Humanity is far better off with those arseholes removed from the planet.
      We captured so much ordnance that the C47s flew around the clock hauling this back to Rhodieland. Not the Chinese stuff… but the primo Russian stuff. Brand new Russian RPD, AKMs, TM 57 mines, RPGs with sophisticated sights. We had so much ordinance we put what we couldn’t carry off under and around a pile of sudza the size of a house. Then the engineers blew that into next week and when I left on the chopper it had turned about ten football field sized areas of Africa white and it still looked like it was snowing at Christmas. Sudza given to the terrorists and labeled on the bags “World Council of Churches, Methodist Synod.” That permanently severed my ties with the church I was baptized in.
      60 Minutes did a full hour on the World Council of Churches and their aid to the Communist Terrorists. But the Commies had taken over Rhodesia and that’s the only time 60 Minutes tells the truth… when it’s too late to do anything about it… and their broadcast served a dual purpose… to discredit Christianity. My combat partner, another American in SAS, was a former Vietnam Marine from Tennessee. He and I would check for booby traps and then pick the weapons boxes up and the bottoms would come out… termites.
      Green Leader Raid… great recording on the internet https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-p1NRLFso6Q. I like the pilot’s warning at 4 minutes.
      The SAS guy directly in front of me was the only casualty out of 400 of us… we were sweeping a tree lined dry river bed and adjoining fields when a terrorist popped out… fired at us and fucked off before we could get a bead on him. He hit the front sight of the SAS guy’s FN… bullet fragmented into his abdomen and bicep and the remaining fragments flew lickity split past all of us around and behind him. I remember he was cursing because his wedding was in a few days. But he survived.
      Four two barreled 14.7 MM anti aircraft guns had been firing at us after we jumped but by the time we were all down, these terrorists saw the light, threw the bolts from their AA guns into the bush and were all butt cheeks leaving the area. Two terrorists were captured about a half mile away and had hightailed it out of their underground quarters just before we rocked up. These were some of the unhappy POWs you saw, I suppose. They were fresh off a Russian Aeroflot flight to Lusaka and hadn’t even had time to unpack their gear. Still had their Aeroflot dinner menus from the day before in their packs.
      They’d spent the last year at the Patrice Lumumba University in Gorky, Russia. ‘Agricultural Training,’ as the university is known for (Sarcasm). Oddly, they had the same colored training notebooks the Rhodies had. Blue cover, white paper. They looked like they were made by the same printer… probably the company my Father In Law owned… ha ha!
      All their instruction was in English. Detailed sketches of how to lead the target and shoot down paratroopers in one section…. ha! In one pack I found a photo of about 25 students standing between two ancient cannons at this Russian agricultural university. Races and people from all over the world… and I assume all commie terrorist graduates. We force marched to the area the terrorists had moved to prior to our raid to search and destroy in that area. I remember we had no water and were miserable for a day and a half until they got some to us.
      Major H. asked for a volunteer to go into their underground bunkers and I jumped into the trench entrance and was the eager tunnel rat with my flashlight, 9mm and a stupid look you would have seen on my face if it hadn’t been so dark down there. Found nothing but two packs and was worried they’d been booby trapped… but I carefully checked them then went through them.
      I also found a Walther PPK .380 and a Sten Submachinegun in fricking .45 caliber with Russian markings and two HE grenades. Martin O. and I disassembled and hid the Sten, pistol and grenades in the battery compartments of one of our radios which we closely escorted back to Rhodieland.
      Someone ratted us out and they took the Sten from us, but Martin put the pistol and grenades in his personal pack. I found out later that he buried them somewhere in a flower bed in one of the parks in Salisbury. I suppose someday a gardener will tug on his rake and find a grenade pin on one of the tines.
      Now it is equal misery for both black and white… except if they’re in the leadership. The equality of Communism.
      Good to hear from a Rhodie!
      Good God I miss that place…
      Jack Lawson
      Associate Member, Sully H. deFontaine Special Forces Association Chapter 51, Las Vegas, Nevada
      Author of “The Slaver’s Wheel”, “A Failure of Civility,” “And We Hide From The Devil,” “Civil Defense Manual” and “In Defense.”
      As one member of our Commando wrote in later years: “That country (Rhodesia) has cast a long shadow over our lives, has it not?”
      As one struggles to endure the daily mundane of life, I realize he is right. He wrote on…
      “Rhodesia is a woman whose name is forever written upon our hearts – against whom no earthly flesh and blood of female can ever compete. We shed our blood, sweat, tears and the blood of others answering her siren call. Now that the winds and the rains have washed away the stench of the rotting corpses, we remember only the flair of our youth as we jousted lockstep with an opponent equally as determined to rid the world of us, as we him.”
      “Anoma – Anoma – Anoma!” Swahili for “I am a poor man – I am a poor man – I am a poor man!”
      “But I am a rich man and she (Rhodesia) has made me so. We loved her like no other. Oh, how I miss her and my friends so!”
      What amazing words, from yet another one of the guys in my Commando who appeared so ignorant that I didn’t think he knew how to read, let alone capture the spirit of then with such eloquent words.

  2. Him August 5, 2021 at 16:21

    Is there an advantage over the RPK?

    • NC Scout August 5, 2021 at 16:55

      Belt fed.

    • Johnny Paratrooper August 5, 2021 at 18:15

      The RPD has windage adjustable rear sights so that you can set in for a proper ambush. Some RPK’s have the windage adjustable sight, but the Commies and the Capitalists never made up their damn minds what the warrior needs (Or wants…)

  3. Jack Lawson August 5, 2021 at 19:58

    The Rhodesian Light Infantry carried the FN MAG (the current U.S. Army M-240) in the 7.62 X 51MM NATO round on Fire Force and external camp raids. Each ‘stick’ of four troopers had one unfortunate soul who had to carry this monstrous 24-pound gun along with 500 rounds of belted ammunition… the other 3 troopers carried the South African version of the FN assault rifle of same caliber, or R1 rifle, and additional belts.
    I unfortunately got picked at one time to carry this beast but never jumped with it… as my stick’s gunner, Alan Underwood did many times. He was the physically smallest of us and the best with the FN MAG. Alan jumped with an 81 MM mortar tube strapped to his scrawny body once too. He actually seemed to like the behemoth FN MAG. But I did learn how to use the FN MAG… there are 26 places to open a beer bottle on the FN MAG, I’ll let you know.
    During our Green Leader camp raid into Zambia we captured the Russian quality made RPD. The Chinese made version we captured in Mozambique on earlier camp raids… like everything else Chinese made… was junk and of questionable reliability.
    We captured so many Russian made RPDs in Zambia that the MAG squad automatic weapon was replaced with the RPD in all four of our Commandos. Brand new out of the box… or what wooden box was left after the termites got through with it. We must have blown their store of drum magazines into next Wednesday with air attacks… because we had none, so had to use our canteen pouches attached to the RPD to hold the belts. Much lighter and not so dangerous to jump with… and Alan fell in love with the RPD. I’ll bet he married a giant of a woman.
    The Russian made RPD… a fantastic weapon!
    Jack Lawson
    Associate Member, Sully H. deFontaine Special Forces Association Chapter 51, Las Vegas, Nevada
    Author of “The Slaver’s Wheel”, “A Failure of Civility,” “And We Hide From The Devil,” “Civil Defense Manual” and “In Defense.”
    “The Rhodesian Light Infantry… was the toughest and most mission-oriented people since the Roman Legions.”
    Quote about my unit from a friend of mine, a retired Major General of the U.S. Army and former commanding officer of the 1st Air Cavalry Division.

    • boss21 August 5, 2021 at 20:51

      @Jack Lawson. Good stuff. Amazing accomplishments by an embattled nation. Those Combloc light machine guns make a lot of sense.
      Got to fire the GIMPY/ FN Mag and Bren in Irish reserves. Heavy brutes but steady and reliable. Got to jump with the M60 over here (peacetime) ‘the most dreadful machine-gun ever made of which the only good thing was the sling’ – Peter Kokalis. It was handy as a crutch while dragging ass waiting to jump while the Chair Force did aborted drop racetracks,
      I really appreciate the Civil Defense Manuals and all the contributors.

      • Jack Lawson August 5, 2021 at 22:19

        Boss 21… got a laugh out of your “the only good thing was the sling” comment.
        Thank you for the compliment on the books.
        If I’d known the outcome… I would have stayed forever and fought harder.
        Equal misery for all under Communism… except the leadership.

    • Johnny Paratrooper August 6, 2021 at 00:19

      I loved the M240B as a Paratrooper. Personally, I carried the M-249 for nearly 3-4 years of training and combat. Both guns, despite the articles and manuals, are nearly 30lbs with all the attachments and ammo. I preferred the M-249 because I could carry nearly 1,000 rounds of ammo with almost no problem with an assault pack and camel pack. The M-240B could only be hauled around with 200-300 rounds of ammo before it turned into a back breaker.
      The M-249 ParaSAW is the king of modern weapons for single man.
      Hands down, the best quality of the M-249 over the M-240B on a part for part comparison would be the 200 round belts in plastic containers in favor of the M-249 and the range and accuracy of the 7.62×51 M-240B, which is considerable. The M-240B could be fired out to incredible distances of “max” range ,1300 meter MG ranges, on training exercises because of the extend burn time on the tracers at night and the larger “splash” of the round during the day. Granted, those modifiers are nearly impossible to see at max range(especially the tracers that burn out around 900 meters) but the constant training WILL teach you how to make this happen. It takes time, and practice, but it’s possible.
      Have you fired the “Mini” or M-249 SAW? It’s like having 3-4 AR’s (or more) in one complete unit. It’s a really incredible weapon. If you are in Vegas, which I think you may be, you should consider renting a SAW and testing one out on a proper range. There should be a few places around that will rent one out for a proper fee. You won’t be disappointed.

      • Badlands Rifleman August 11, 2021 at 01:38

        ParaSAW is such a great weapon. FYI a small RipIt fits in the 100 round nut sack if you remove about 80 rounds. Found that out during a PCI… The 240 is an awesome weapon too, but my favorite machine gun is the Mk19.

    • Him August 6, 2021 at 15:26

      Jack, during November 1978 raid on terr camp in Zambia I was still in training, but they had us secure the airstrip at Mana Pools for the lads. One fixed wing spotter aircraft landed and unloaded one casualty. Saw some POWs the lads brought back. The POWs didn’t look real happy.

  4. ÜPCG August 5, 2021 at 23:25

    How’s the recoil compared to a PKM?

    • NC Scout August 5, 2021 at 23:29

      Lighter.

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