My last verbal info a couple months ago was from reserve and active duty vets of the Iraq war.
Soldiers and Marines are regularly issued heavy disposable plastic weapons sleeves in which to keep their rifles/machine guns and magazines for ready use. The tear-away perforations make it easy to unsheath the weapon quickly when needed. The sleeves provided good protection against the constant dust and sand exposure that troops and equipment get in the open desert. Apparently there was a constant shortage of this item, and troops didn't always have the option of properly storing loaded weapons.
As a civilian contractor, I've experienced a couple of those ferocious sandstorms in the Kuwait desert, and you can believe they are horrendous! When they get bad, we couldn't see five feet in front of us. We actually had to tie ropes between our parked armor vehicles to know which direction to go when exiting one vehicle to another! A few seconds of exposure to the almost constant wind and any weapon, no matter how clean, is coated with fine, gritty, sand and dust. I defy anyone to come p with an alternative to cleaning and inspecting his weapons several times a day. Breakfree CLP is no worse than any other one-step lubricant, and is not the culprit here. The harsh operating conditions are.
John
