{"id":76240,"date":"2022-01-17T21:10:41","date_gmt":"2022-01-18T03:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=76240"},"modified":"2022-01-17T21:10:41","modified_gmt":"2022-01-18T03:10:41","slug":"76240","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=76240","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

You can’t stop the signal<\/p>\n

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THE FGC-9 IN MYANMAR: 3D GUNS AND THE FUTURE OF GUERILLA WARFARE<\/a><\/p>\n

February 1st, 2021, is the day the\u00a0Myanmar military seized power<\/a>, which immediately led to civil unrest. That unrest began as peaceful, pro-democracy street demonstrations, but in short order, peaceful demonstrations gave way to guerilla warfare. The situation evolved and changed rapidly due to an ever-escalating and violent military-lead government. Now it seems the power of the internet has delivered a Christmas present to Guerilla fighters in Myanmar, in the form of the FGC-9.<\/p>\n

Government forces outnumber and out-arm the Myanmar guerillas by a wide margin, and have made use of machine guns, rockets, and tanks over the past year of conflict. The Guerrillas constantly find themselves outclassed by the government\u2019s superior firepower, and have been searching for a means to turn the tide.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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Myanmar People\u2019s Defence Forces fighter with a 3D-printed 9mm FGC-9 PCC posted to social media in recent weeks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After the military showed they were\u00a0completely willing<\/a>\u00a0to be brutal to peaceful protesters, killing some in the street and leaving others to\u00a0disappear<\/em>\u00a0outside the view of the public, some of the people of Myanmar began to seek out arms to protect themselves and potentially even mount a real resistance. Unfortunately, obtaining firearms isn\u2019t easy. So, they did what Guerrillas around the world have practically always done \u2014 they made their own.<\/p>\n

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Making one\u2019s own\u00a0firearms<\/a>\u00a0is a long-held tradition of guerilla fighters. In fact, this was common practice during the revolutionary war, where colonial Americans built rifles in secret to resist the King\u2019s men. However, technology has changed, and instead of building weapons the old fashioned way, now the people of Myanmar have begun 3D printing firearms, specifically a design known as the FGC-9.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s an FGC-9?<\/h2>\n

Well, if you follow Jake Hanrahan of\u00a0Popular Front<\/a>, you might have seen an episode on 3D-printed guns in 2020. A man going by the name JStark1809 showed a 3D-printed semi-automatic 9mm carbine. JStark1809 lived in a European country that heavily regulates the ownership of firearms.<\/p>\n

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He served as the primary designer of the FGC-9, but a community of firearm enthusiasts helped along the way. His goal was to produce a firearm that could be printed and wouldn\u2019t require any regulated parts and pieces. The FGC-9 can be produced quite easily by those with the right equipment, using materials that aren\u2019t difficult to come by.<\/p>\n

The FGC-9 is a closed bolt, semi-automatic design that utilizes the 9mm round. For a 3D-printed gun, it\u2019s rather refined and well made. It\u2019s easy to see why the guerillas in Myanmar are turning to this weapon. They can print and machine the parts as needed and arm their guerilla efficiently, and the technology isn\u2019t as unfamiliar to many involved as one might expect.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n

The people of Myanmar have used 3D printing extensively for things like replacing parts in their farming equipment in a more cost effective manner, so its really no surprise they\u2019ve moved on to printing guns under their current circumstances.<\/p>\n

The Modern Liberator<\/h2>\n
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Three pictures from Myanmar reportedly show guerillas armed with FGC-9 carbines and a display of the carbines they\u2019re building. Currently, 3D-printed guns aren\u2019t long-use weapons. Some have lasted over a thousand rounds, which\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0impressive, but military weapons last for tens of thousands of rounds. I\u2019d imagine the FGC-9 acts like a modern\u00a0Liberator pistol<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Liberator concept came to be in World War 2. The idea was to mass-produce cheap single-shot pistols and drop them into occupied areas. Here guerillas could retrieve them and use them to ambush Nazis. Then, they could steal better weapons and continue their operations.<\/p>\n

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Liberator FP-45<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The FGC-9 will likely serve as a short use weapon as well. That is, until the guerillas can retrieve better weapons, either through external support or looted from the bodies of troops they\u2019ve killed. And to be clear, the FGC-9 appears to be a much better weapon for the job than any Liberator.<\/p>\n

This marks the first time a homemade 3D-printed weapon has found its way into a large-scale conflict. It represents a fascinating turn for guerrilla forces now and in the future, with far-reaching implications for practically every military force on the planet.<\/p>\n

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What effect will this weapon have in Myanmar?<\/h2>\n

It\u2019s important to note that all we have seen are photos of the guns in what could be Myanmar. There is no confirmation, but because the military-operated government hasn\u2019t shown much friendliness to the press or to freedom speech, most of the information out of the nation these days is speculation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can’t stop the signal THE FGC-9 IN MYANMAR: 3D GUNS AND THE FUTURE OF GUERILLA WARFARE February 1st, 2021, is the day the\u00a0Myanmar military seized power, which immediately led to civil unrest. That unrest began as peaceful, pro-democracy street demonstrations, but in short order, peaceful demonstrations gave way to guerilla warfare. The situation evolved … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gun-schtuff"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76240"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76240\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76241,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76240\/revisions\/76241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}