This .50 BMG Rifle designed by Barrett Firearms is a Close Quarters Combat version of the M82A1M/M82A3, easily distinguished by the short barrel. It is used by the SAS-Trained Sniper 'Schoolboy' (Matthew Marsden) throughout the film. During the night raid during the rainstorm, the M82CQ has an AN/PEQ-2A mounted on the scope, and is seen as fully sound suppressed, though a .50 caliber weapon (or any supersonic round, including the 5.56x45mm) can only be partially suppressed.
There are many AK types in the movie, and upon further study, most of the models will be identified. But one of the obvious ones is the Norinco Type 56. It is obvious in the hands of some of the Burmese Junta soldiers and during the final battle En-Joo (Tim Kang) and Lewis (Graham McTavish) grab Type 56 rifles and fight with them.
Junta soldiers can also be seen use Type 56 rifles with the classic 'Vietnam' era pig sticker underfolding bayonet.
Error creating thumbnail: File missingNorinco Type 56 (fixed stock variant) with under-folding bayonet - 7.62x39mmError creating thumbnail: File missingA Junta soldier raids the village with a Norinco Type 56 rifle with the "Pig sticker" underfolding bayonet - 7.62x39mmError creating thumbnail: File missingA Junta soldier stabs a Karen child with the bayonet of his Type 56 - 7.62x39mm. While the scene is indeed gruesome, note how the bayonet is a fake blade that collapses on a spring to look like it is stabbing someone.Error creating thumbnail: File missingJunta soldiers shooting villagers with Norinco Type 56 rifles with the "Pig sticker" underfolding bayonets - 7.62x39mm
Custom AKMS
Myint (Supakorn Kitsuwon), the Karen Rebel leader carries a cut down AKMS. The Custom rifle has parts from the Norinco Type 56 and the AKMS. In reality, these rifles don't interchange parts, but it was possible since the gun is massively customized and practically rebuilt from scratch. This appears to be the same short rifle that Claire Danes fires in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. It is NOT an AKS-74U and there is no such rifle as an AKS-47U like the airsoft weapon we sometimes see.
Obvious in many shots there are many RUBBER AKs/Type 56s/AKMs. Most noticeable because their trigger guards are thicker than normal and sometimes the front sight has no hole and are solid rubber blocks.
A Jericho 941FB Compact ("Baby Eagle") was used by the villainous Major Pa Tee Tint (Maung Maung Khin) as his personal sidearm, only seen during the final battle of the film.
Trivia Note: The actor Maung Maung Khin, who plays the villain, was a real life Karen resistance fighter, who escaped to Thailand (where the movie was filmed) to reunite with his relatives. Stallone wanted someone who understood the nature of the Burmese military and luckily had an actor with real life dealings with their brutality.
En-Joo (Tim Kang) grabs an M67 hand grenade from a pouch and throws it. But in the shot it's an obvious M69 Metal training grenade (even visible with the 'blue' paint of the inert model).
One of the first bunker buster bombs, the British "Earthquake" Tallboy bomb was 21 feet long and weight 5 tons and was used by the R.A.F. in 1944. The one seen in the film is halfway submerged in the soft jungle earth and extends 10 feet high. Though people thought that the explosion mimicked a nuclear explosion more than anything, a 5 ton conventional bomb is a massive explosion that resembles a small nuke blast. A goof is that the British never used the type of plane (Avro Lancaster) that carried the Tallboy in Burma. It was mainly used against the Germans in Europe during WWII rather than against the Japanese in the Pacific Theartre.
Reese (Jake La Botz) carries an M4A1 with M203 Grenade Launcher with a tan camo paint job and a red dot scope (probably an Airsoft replica) that is a copy of the real Trijicon ACOG scope. Noticeable is the lack of the fiber optic band on the top of the real ACOG scope, indicating that it is a replica red dot.
Diaz (Reynaldo Gallegos) carries a DSA SA-58 OSW short FAL Carbine with folding stock. Diaz's version has the Type III Metric receiver (with minimal machining cuts). The DSA SA-58 OSW, is offered with the Type I receiver (more cuts, lighter weight, but not as strong). Thus it is suspected that the SA-58 OSW in the film is a build up of a previous FAL Type III receiver with DSA OSW Parts.
SAS trooper Lewis (Graham McTavish) carries a Mossberg 590 with a Magpul M93A rear stock attached to a Mesa Tactical M4 adapter block and a Mesa Tactical Top receiver Rail with an EOTech holographic Sight.
The Browning M3 (the anti aircraft version of the M2HB .50 Cal machine gun) used in the film has a perforated shroud around the barrel and a modern twist - a Muzzle Brake (similar to a Barrett M82A1) to divert the flash to the sides, especially useful if you're shooting from behind an armored shield and your only viewable area is directly above the barrel. The M3 had a long heat shield for several reasons, not the least bit being that when used against aircraft in WW2, the bursts were much longer as gunners attempted to walk their fire (via tracers) onto their targets. The barrels grew red hot and the heat shield not only helped protect the crews, the added area improved the heat dissipation qualities of the barrel. It is not the standard air cooled Browning M2HB that is usually seen mounted on vehicles.
Trivia: Sylvestor Stallone was originally going to wield the Browning M3 by hand. The gun was weighed in at ~120lbs and Sly could carry and fire it, but it was so cumbersome and slow that it cut down the action too much. They decided to mount it on the back of a truck instead but the recoil was so immense that it ripped off the truck floor. They bolted the mount down on the truck and that is what is seen in the film.
File:Rambo08BrowningM3special.jpgProperty Master Kent Johnson shows off the Browning M3 used in the film. Looks like this guy is ready for a WWII film based on the guns behind him.
Browning M2HB machine gun
The only standard M2HB in the film is seen on the Burmese Pirate Boat near the middle of the film.
When Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) has a flashback to his old days of killing, scenes from the first film are shown when he tries to pick up an M16 (SP1) rifle in the police station to fight the police outside before Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna) stops him. Scenes where Trautman kills him with the M1911A1 are also seen, but since that was from a deleted scene in the first film and the gun is not visible, it is left out.
As with the other Rambo films, John Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) is never without his Compound Bow. In this film, he sadly has no explosive tipped torque arrows but he does effectively kill a personel truck load of Junta soldiers at distances a far as 60 yards! To make sure this was possible, the crew shot arrows to test this distance and see if they could reach it. They did (with horrible accuracy) so we are to assume Rambo is a super archer still.
Rambo's knife in this film is a primitively built mini machete made out of a slab of metal as opposed to his expertly crafted survival knives in the other films. Sylvester Stallone actually stayed up all night building the knife like you see in the film, although do to time constrictions, he had to do it all at once without cooling the blade. They went through about seven pairs of heat protective gloves do to this. Sly claims after making the knife, he has a rather warm handshake.
Before deciding on using the machete, Rambo (Sylvester Stallone) was going to use his survival knife from Rambo: First Blood Part II and drop it in the burning Burmese Pirate boat, symbolizing his end to killing. Good thing they changed it, what's a Rambo movie without killing?
