HoodaThunk?

Back on the 13th Michael Yon posted a photo on his blog of a weapon he’d never seen before. Having no weapons expertise myself, I had nothing to say on the matter but I am interested in this sort of thing, so I’ve kept my eyes open for any clue. Imagine my surprise to see a story up on FoxNews.com referencing Yon’s photo and story.

The photo of a “mystery weapon” found by GIs and a Web journalist in Iraq two years ago has captured the imagination of bloggers around the world eager to answer the question: What is it?

The photo, which shows what appears to be a weapon, about 3-feet long, resembling a rocket propelled grenade (RPG) launcher, was taken by Michael Yon, a writer and photographer currently based in Iraq. He photographed the “weapon” in 2005 as he was cataloging a huge cache of munitions discovered by Iraqi police under a barn in Mosul and later destroyed by the 1st Battalion, 24th Infantry Regiment.

The nice thing about the MSM – and where they should really concentrate their efforts – is the access to the sheer amounts of sources and resources they can bring to bear on a topic. FoxNews.com took the photo and brought it to the attention of a wide array of weapons experts to get their opinions. Most of those folks agree that the weapon looks homemade (an assessment I agree upon) and was likely developed to enable the firing of some kind of rocket that normally isn’t man-fired.

One thing the experts appear to agree upon: it’s badly designed. They all believe that the positioning of the weapons butt-stock and where that necessarily puts the user’s head will cause him all kinds of trouble:

— “From the round in the foreground, it’s clearly an RPG launcher of some sort. I’ve looked through all my “Janes: Weapons of the World” [books] and can’t find anything like it. My first thought: it’s homemade. A close look at how close the butt-stock is to the rear of the launcher tells me that the shooter will be hard of hearing when he meets the 72 virgins.”

— “Looks kind of Eastern European, or maybe… made in Al Qaeda shop class and stole the scope off daddy’s hunting rifle… look for [someone] with a bloody ear and singed hair.”

— “My guess is that this is a mock up of a weapon, or an improvised munition. For one thing, the telescopic site is attached to a plate that is welded on. Second, both the front handle and the butt are screwed on — notice the screw holes on both at the bottoms. This would impair the integrity of the barrel, making it liable to explode if it were fired. Next, the butt end of the weapon is too close to the rear of the weapon, and there is no blast shield. Finally, if you measure the projectile, which has a firing pin at the bottom (the small dot) and hold the measurement up to the barrel of the weapon, the trigger is about two inches short of the firing pin. One thing I do know is that if this thing were going to work, it would take an extended trigger mechanism… It also could be a refitted German-made Armbrust recoiless rifle, fitted with a grenade launcher on front, to hold RPG rounds. It is, by any definition, an improvised munition.”

One of the more notions being floated around is that this is a Palestinian-made weapon known as a “Yasin.” Wikipedia says the Yasin is an anti-tank rocket launcher allegedly first used in October 2004, but I’ve not found a picture of that weapon to compare to the “Yon Mystery Weapon.” If anyone out there knows where one is, please let us know.