Editing Guerrilla warfare (section)

===Acquiring conventional weapons===
====Legal civilian firearms====

Initial weapons of the guerrilla can include firearms that are legal for the civilian population to own. Depending on the country, these can range from [[muzzleloaders]] and double-barreled shotguns to bolt-action and semi-automatic rifles. These arms can either be legally purchased or stolen. In Cuba, [[Fidel Castro]] and his supporters used [[.22 long rifle|.22LR rifles]] in their [[Attack on the Moncada Barracks|attack on the Moncada Barracks]].<ref>de la Cova, Antonio Rafael (2007). The Moncada Attack: Birth of the Cuban Revolution. University of South Carolina Press. ISBN 978-1-57003-672-9. p.72</ref>
====Captured enemy weapons====
Insurgencies have long made use of weapons stolen, captured or otherwise procured from enemy forces due to the ease of procuring them and their ammunition, something that is very important to an insurgency which will be poorly equipped and will need whatever weaponry it can get. Such weapons are typically acquired by either looting them from enemy soldiers that they have defeated, by having infiltrators and sympathisers in the enemy forces steal munitions and secretly supply it to them, by gathering munitions abandoned by retreating, advancing or neglectful enemy soldiers, or by purchasing munitions sold by enemy soldiers on the [[black market]].

During [[World War II]], firearms captured from the [[Axis powers]] were used extensively by [[Resistance during World War II|resistance movements]] in Europe and the Pacific, due to their availability. These weapons were used alongside weapons supplied by the [[Allies of World War II|Allies]] and weapons inherited from their countries' previous militaries. Methods of acquiring weapons included purchasing them on the black market from Axis soldiers or their allies or stealing from German supply depots or transports.<ref>Rafal E. Stolarski, [http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/25%20Article.htm ''The Production of Arms and Explosive Materials by the Polish Home Army in the Years 1939–1945''.] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160823094606/http://www.polishresistance-ak.org/25%20Article.htm |date=2016-08-23 }} Archived 30 October 2022 at the [[Wayback Machine]] Translated from Polish by Antoni Bohdanowicz. Article on the pages of the London Branch of the Polish Home Army Ex-Servicemen Association. Retrieved 14 March 2008.</ref> Special efforts were also made to capture weapons from the Axis, such as raids were conducted on trains and vehicles carrying equipment to the front, as well as on guardhouses and [[gendarmerie]] posts, that proved highly successful. Sometimes weapons were taken from individual Axis soldiers accosted in streets or were brought over by defecting [[Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy|Axis collaborators]]. During the Warsaw Uprising, the Polish [[Home Army|Armia Krajowa]] (AK, Home Army) even managed to capture several German armored vehicles, most notably a [[Jagdpanzer 38 Hetzer]] light tank destroyer renamed "Chwat" and an [[Sd.Kfz. 251]] [[armoured personnel carrier]] renamed "Grey Wolf".<ref>Evan McGilvray (19 July 2015). [https://books.google.com/books?id=YYQwDwAAQBAJ&pg=PR6 ''Days of Adversity: The Warsaw Uprising 1944''.] Helion & Company. pp. 6–. {{ISBN|978-1-912174-34-8}}</ref> Captured German weapons used by European resistance groups included the [[Karabiner 98k]] bolt-action rifle and [[MP 40]] submachine gun, while resistance groups in the Pacific used captured Japanese weapons such as the [[Nambu pistol]] and [[Arisaka]] bolt-action rifle.

During the [[First Indochina War]], the Indochinese [[Viet Minh]] used weapons abandoned by or captured from the Japanese during WWII, but also made use of weapons captured from the French and their [[French Indochina]] administration, such as the [[MAS-36 rifle|MAS-36]] and [[MAS-49 rifle|MAS-49]] rifles, [[MAT-49]] submachine gun and the [[FM 24/29 light machine gun|FM 24/29]], [[Reibel machine gun|Reibel]], [[Vickers machine gun|Vickers]] and [[Hotchkiss Mle 1914 machine gun|Hotchkiss M1914]], [[Hotchkiss M1922 machine gun|M1922]] and [[Hotchkiss M1929 machine gun|M1929]] machine guns.

Japanese and French weapons continued to see service with the [[Liberation Army of South Vietnam]] of the [[Viet Cong]] during the [[Vietnam War]], with regular units using them during the early stages of the war, before they were passed down to militia units. They also used U.S-made weapons captured from the [[South Vietnam]]ese [[Army of the Republic of Vietnam]], such as [[M1911 pistol|M1911]] pistols, [[Thompson submachine gun|Thompson]] and [[M3 submachine gun|M3]] submachine guns, [[M1 Garand]] rifles, [[M1 carbine|M1]] and [[M2 Carbine|M2]] carbines and [[M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle|M1918 BAR]] and [[M1919 Browning machine gun|M1919 Browning]] machine guns, which they either captured in ambushes or raids or purchased off of the black market, the latter case being made possible by [[Corruption|corrupt]] ARVN military officers illegally selling munitions for profit. Later in the war following the U.S intervention, more modern U.S weapons such as [[M14 rifle|M14]] and [[M16 rifle|M16]] rifles, [[M60 machine gun|M60]] and [[M2 Browning]] machine guns and [[M79 grenade launcher|M79]] grenade launchers were captured from U.S forces and the increasingly modernised ARVN.
====Plausible deniability and sanitized arms====
[[Plausible deniability]] allows the supply of arms by governments to insurgents without the need for over elaborate ruses. For instance, the sheer number of [[AKM]] (an upgraded version of the AK-47 rifle) manufacturers and [[AKM#Users|users]] in the world means that governments can supply these weapons to insurgents with plausible deniability as to exactly from where and from whom the guns were acquired. Governments of nations with self-sufficient arms industries may intentionally remove identifying marks of their weapons for this purpose.<ref>[http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0515/p02s01-woiq.html In gun seizures, some surprise finds] {{Webarchive|url= http://web.archive.org/web/20030529080449/https://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0515/p02s01-woiq.html|date=May 29, 2003}} On 2003 seizure that found a sanitized Sig Sauer pistol. [[Christian Science Monitor]]. (May 15, 2003 edition, author Warren Richey)</ref> For example, the [[Yugoslavia]]n [[Zastava M48]]BO (for ''bez oznake'', 'without markings') rifle was manufactured with no markings save for a serial number. These were made in Yugoslavia for delivery to [[Egypt]] prior to the [[Suez Crisis]] of 1956. Yugoslavia was technically a neutral country, and by sanitizing the rifles sold to the Egyptians, it hoped to distance itself from the conflict between [[Egypt]] and [[Israel]]. Only a few hundred of the few thousand made were delivered to Egypt, the rest remaining in storage in Yugoslavia until the post-Yugoslav states rediscovered them. They are currently being sold to civilian collectors.<ref>[https://www.breachbangclear.com/yugoslavian-m48-mauser/ Zastava M48 Mauser: Milsurp Gem] Breach, Bang, Clear. Bucky Lawson. June 16, 2023</ref><ref>[https://wwiiafterwwii.wordpress.com/2017/06/27/syrian-civil-war-wwii-weapons-used/ Syrian Civil War: WWII weapons used] WWIIAfterWWII. June 27, 2017</ref><ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20060222085140/http://www.marstar.ca/Y-E-48BO.htm Marstar Canada] firearm's retailer's info page on Yugoslavian M-48BO "sanitized" rifle.</ref>