Aircrafts, grenade launchers and machine guns: the arsenal of Los Chapitos and the armed forces during the capture of Ovidio Guzmán

Jesus Mariaa town located just over 45 kilometers from Culiacán, dawned on January 5, 2023 like a battlefield. Before sunrise, the sky was already illuminated by the violent bursts of a machine gun that the Air Force fired from the heights.

A helicopter UH-60 Black Hawk gunned down with a deadly Vulcan M134 Minigunwhich can shoot up to 850 bullets per secondwas only the first sample of the arsenal that the Armed Forces (FFAA) showed off that day during the operation to recapture Ovid Guzman Lopez, The mouseson of Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.

The air operations of military personnel even referred to the actions of the government in the nineties, during combats against guerrillas such as the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN).

In 1994, the Armed Forces irregularly fired artillery on several planes Pilatus C-7 to intervene in the armed conflict that broke out in Chiapas during the last year of the presidency of Carlos Salinas de Gortari.

Images similar to those of that time were visible during the violent day of January 5 in Sinaloa. with planes Beechcraft T-6 Texan IIapparently armed, the corporation flew over the Culiacán area and attacked multiple ground targets.

However, to no one’s surprise, the little boys —the faction of the Sinaloa Cartel headed by the heirs to Guzmán Loera’s drug empire— also had a wide variety of weapons at their disposal.

With the intention of preventing the seizure and transfer of Ovidio Guzmán to Mexico City, hitmen from the criminal group used their artillery to confront not only the Infantry personnel, but also the ground and air military units.

One of the videos that became most popular during the “second Culiacanazo” was that of a hit man aiming and shooting at an Air Force plane with a Barrett M82A1 anti-materiel rifle .50 caliber. This device became popular during the Gulf War in the 1990s due to its long range (around One kilometer) and its effectiveness against targets such as radars or vehicles.

As a consequence of the hitmen’s attacks on the air units, two planes received bullet wounds, as confirmed by the Federal Civil Aviation Agency (AFAC). One was from the Air Force, another was from Aeroméxico.

Until now, the balance of people injured or deceased exclusively derived from the air operations of the Armed Forces is unknown.

On the other hand, the clashes on land were also carried out with a powerful arsenal on the part of both sides. Destroyed official and private vehicles They filled the areas surrounding the home of Ovidio Guzmán in Jesús María, as well as other points in Culiacán and the rest of the state.

One of the images that best exhibited the brutality of the fighting was that of a vehicle belonging to the Ministry of National Defense (sedena), license plate 5734572, which was completely devastated despite its armor plating.

The Army unit, which could be a SandCat or a DGIM DN-XI, was visibly attacked by high-powered projectiles. Sources specialized in military arsenal considered that, to cause such damage to the vehicle, Los Chapitos should have used weapons like RPG 7 (a portable anti-tank rocket launcher) and finish off the car with 40mm grenadeswhich are for military use.

On the other hand, some of the 26 armored trucks that made up the security ring of the Mouse had been modified to place powerful machine guns like turrets at the rear.

Automatic weapons as one Browning M2 .50 caliber and one FN M240 They were part of the artillery with which Los Chapitos intended to take care of the backs of the infamous son of the shorty who rose to fame after the “Culiacanazo” of October 2019.

The Browning M2 is known as the “the mother of all machine guns”. Weighing almost 40 kilograms and two meters long, this deadly weapon has an effective range of up to 1,800 meters and can fire 550 rounds per minute.

Some Sinaloa State Police vehicles were also captured with Browning machine guns embedded in the back.

It was designed at the end of World War I and debuted on the battlefields during World War II. Since then, it has become the main machine gun in the catalog of the member countries of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

On the other hand, the M240 arrived in the world in 1977 and has been the protagonist in conflicts such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Like the Browning M2, it has a effective range of 1,800 meters, but it is characterized by being noticeably lighter and smaller. The 12.5 kg of it. and 1.2 meters in length make it one of the most versatile medium machine guns.

On a personal combat level, multiple recordings reflected the wide diversity of rifles, grenade launchers and carbines with which the hitmen of Los Chapitos had.

Among these, weapons such as the H&K G3A3a combat rifle of German origin that can execute up to 600 detonations per minutewhose origin dates back to the last years of World War II.

The light machine guns were one of the most peculiar elements of the commandos that defended the son of the shorty. They were probably inclined towards this type of weapon due to the power they offer and their high rate of fire.

Some that were captured in different videos were the M1919 Browning .30 caliberthe M249 (of Belgian origin and with a speed of up to 1,150 shots every 60 seconds) and the RPD 7.62 x 39mm.whose production began in the Soviet Union in 1956 and has continued to this day from countries such as China, Egypt, North Korea and Poland.

Finally, the armed commandos showed their supply of grenade launcher like the Colt M203which was developed during the Vietnam War as an easy-to-use, lightweight, and versatile alternative, as it can be used both as a weapon to attack specific targets and as an artifact to deal damage in larger areas.

This attachment, normally adapted to carbines such as the M16 or M4, was found among members of Ovidio Guzmán’s main protection body after his capture.

So far, the officially confirmed balance after this intense operation was 29 people dead (10 soldiers and 19 aggressors), as well as 35 wounded Y more than twenty blocks throughout the Sinaloan territory.

The entity today governed by Rubén Rocha Moya revived, for long hours, the terror that broke out on the afternoon of October 17, 2019. Although the clashes occurred in different areas and it is presumed that the operation was a success, the population experienced another black thursday. Once again, with Ovidio Guzmán and the Sinaloa Cartel as the main protagonists.

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