I recall that our troops found a large stash of STG44s in Iraq some years back. I don't know what happened to them.
I was in Kirkuk, Iraq as a commanding officer of an Army Brigade's maintenance company in 2007-208 and one of my missions that year was to package up several years worth of Captured Enemy Weapons that our Brigade and the Army Brigades before us had seized since 2004. We ended up filling two 40ft milvans stuffed with weapons ranging from .38 Enfield revolvers, Makarovs, 9mm Helwans and CZ75s, 303 Brit Lee-Enfields, 8mm Mausers, Stens, Sterlings, AKs, SKSs, Brens, G3s, RPGs, RPKs, RPDs, PKMs, MG42s, Russian 82mm Mortars, B-10 Recoilless Rifles and...13 Stg-44s with several magazines for each and cases of Russian, Pakistani and German small arms ammo seized out of caches.
All of those materials from all of our Brigade collection points from all across Iraq were sent to Camp Taji, just north of Baghdad, to help resupply the new Iraqi Army. All of the bolt action rifles and older pistols were destroyed and the semi-auto firearms and heavy weapons logged in and resupplied to their new units...that collapsed in front of the resurgent militants in 2015 that reformed after our departure in 2010 so the weapons are back out in recirculation again with the terrorists.
And yeah, I would have loved to keep some of them and bring them back like my father did in Vietnam and Korea but the Army changed the rules after Grenada...only antiques allowed....Although I did carry a Sterling as a PDW for several months while the weapons were being catalogued, and inspected for serviceability by my weapons techs
Bruce
