Open Source Defense Analysis: Pakistan's Logistical Nightmare

Pakistan makes the news almost every day now. Headlines like: Another Bomb Blast in Peshawar, Army Assaults Taliban Stronghold, and so on. What doesn't make headlines is the logistical problems of Pakistan's Army arising from a relatively simple matter: small arms.

Pakistan's wide-array of small arms is a great look into its history of military partners. The countries of origin include, the US, Russia, China, Germany, Belgium. Nominally, this is not an issue, but in actuality this variety of small arms fires a variety of cartridges using a variety of magazines. Most of the Chinese and Russian weapons fire a 7.62 x 39mm round, while the Belgian and US rifles fire a 5.56 x 45mm round. The German G3 fires a 7.62 x 51mm round which is not compatible with the Russian and Chinese rifles. Each of these different sized rounds has a different magazine type as well.

If soldiers in battle cannot share ammunition or magazines with each other this can have the effect of being a negative combat-multiplier, i.e. if a soldier is afraid of running out of ammunition because he/she knows that the soldier next to him/her cannot share ammo, they will shoot less. This problem is compounded by the fact that an already complex resupply process is now further complicated. Logistics personnel must not just bring ammo, they must to bring the right quantities of three separate types of ammo, not counting light or heavy machine guns or any other weapon systems.

The Pakistani Government doesn't have the resources to train and familiarize its troops with the nine different assault rifles it equips. They would do much better to decrease the variety of rifles/ammunition size and thus remove a negative combat multiplier, making their troops more efficient in the field and easier to resupply.