Following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, new NYPD officers are being trained with heavy artillery.
Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has decided to expand machine gun training to all of the department’s 1,000 rookie officers. The NYPD wants all rookies to complete the three-day training by the end of the year.
However, sources tell YWN that the officers will not be armed with the M4s on New Year’s Eve in Times Square (despite what the NY post reported on Monday).
Currently, only the 400 officers in the elite Emergency Services Unit are trained to carry M4 machine guns.
The NYPD also plans to give machine gun training to several thousand officers who deal with narcotics, vice, gang and auto crime.
In the event of a widespread terrorist attack like in Mumbai, specially-trained officers could supplement emergency tactical teams.
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14 Responses
The term “heavy artillery” refers to very large guns that fire large exploding projectiles capable of destroying multiple buildings with a single shot (canon, howitzers, etc.). It is highly unlikely any police department would want such a weapon, and if they did they would probably ask a unit of the state’s National Guard for assistance. No anti-terrorist unit would ever use such a weapon unless the terrorists had captured a part of a city and you wanted to kill everyone in that part (including hostages, neighbors, etc.).
The M4 is a hand held rifle that can fire automatically. It is basically an infantry weapon.
Similar weapons would include the uzi, the galil, the M-16, etc. It is not artillery.
A machine gun is not “heavy artillery.”
Heavy artillery is a field gun mounted on wheels and towed by a jeep.
They should train and they should train hard. It is very difficult for any tactical team to handle a terrorist attack like in BOMBay. They also have to expand the weaponry that ESU carries. How about bazokas or shoulder fired missles that can take down aircraft? (Which would have saved lives on 9/11.)
The corrections about ‘heavy artillery’ are right, for the most part, with some clarification:
1) with some rare execptions, there aren’t too many artillery rounds that can “destroy multiple buildings with a single shot”. There are some massive airborne bombs (MOAB, eg.) that may have that potential and, of course, nuclear devices. Don’t get me wrong. The standard 155mm round is very powerful and a few well placed rounds can devastate a nice sized structure (small apartment or office building). In practice, when such guns are deployed against structural targets (buildings, bridges, railways, factories) they are massed in batteries which do their work by pouring a large number of projectiles on the target.
2) heavy artillery does not always have to be towed: there are many self-propelled examples.
3) bazookas or what we have now in the form of shoulder fired anti-tank missiles are not effective ground to air weapons.
Health:
I am with you about some kind of anti-aircraft capability but there are several difficulties:
1) how the person on the ground knows for sure that the aircraft is under terrorist control, until the last possible moment. Possibly, emergency response people would be in radio contact with FAA or military command that has made a positive identification too late for other means to be employed.
2) bringing down the aircraft over heavily populated urban areas may be more deadly than what the terrorists can achieve, so use of such missiles can make matters worse (although, admittedly, it is hard to imagine how you could have made 9/11 worse).
“How about bazokas or shoulder fired missles that can take down aircraft? (Which would have saved lives on 9/11.)”
Not true. We have wepons capable of shootind down planes. We just didnt understande the attacks at the time.
I actually ordered a Stag Arms Ar15 M4 a couple of weeks ago i cant wait till its in SWEEEEET!!
its basically a short version of the m16 16 inch barrel instead of 20 or 24 inch
#3, in that case the NYPD would have to change its name to NYMC: New York Marine Corps. 😉
ANd as #1 and #2 said: this is not heavy artillery. Please… It makes me laugh…
Deepthinker:
Maybe we are being too hard on YWN. Assuming the editors are a bunch of frummies trying to be journalists, they’re doing fine. In time they’ll learn about fact checking. If they have a good yeshiva education, they probably don’t realize that standard English is different than what they speak in Boro Park.
On the other hand, nitpicking is fun.
Moderators Note: This is the insanity that we get yelled at for not approving.
even the goyim are preparing for the worst. it seems to me that the the downwards spiral is just beginning. just as haman was told by his wife — ‘once the freefall starts, its not stopping until you are destroyed’ — so too, the good and plenty years are coming to a close and we will soon be watching a very different kind of war play out — one that Hashem’s miracles will be even clearer and more distinct than mitzrayim (egypt). im getting ready– are u?
As if some in the NYPD are not heavy handed as it is now. Watch out! Bullet proof vests for civilians!
YESHIVA WORLD IS DOING A VERY PROFESSIONAL JOB.
EVEN THE NEW YORK TIMES MAKES MISTAKES.
#8, akuperma, as I see more and more of your posts, they look so similar to the casually made provoking sentiments found on many of the leading white supremacist websites. Are you affiliated with the movements corralled by stormfront?
#11 “even the New York Times makes mistakes” —
actually they’ve been caught fabricating whole
stories – it’s been years since they had a good reputation for accuracy. Yeshiva World News is doing an excellent job, and one I suspect that will get much better over time.
How about the Shomrim training for anti-terrorist fighting and a Frum Jewish well-trained militia??