Notes on the Denel PAW-20 in use by Kurdish Forces

Variants of the South African Denel Praetoria Metal Pressings produced “Inkunzi” direct fire 20x42mm Personal Assault Weapon (PAW)-20 have been spotted in use by the Kurdish E.A.H.K Counter Terrorism Unit. This is one of a number of Kurdish Peshmerga units organized along a special operations or strike force concept, some of the others being the Western Kurdistan Special Forces and the Counter-Terrorism Group (CTG).

All have separate avenues of supply and command, and thus receive different types of small arms. The CT Unit in particular also has a number of Croatian VHS-2s in use, in addition to the standard issue M4s used by the group.

The PAW-20 appears to have come from a South African supplier, or at least a dealer or distributer with strong connections to South African material, as the CT Unit also has been spotted with 40x46mm Low Velocity Milkor MGL. However, the PAW-20 appears to have been found not very useful by the CT Unit, possibly for the same reasons it hasn’t been adopted in much larger militaries. With a similar weight and cartridge capacity of the MGL, and firing a 20x42mm cartridge that has much less effects on target as the 40x46mm, it would make more sense to lug around the MGL, UBGL, or a handheld grenade launcher, such as the Kurdish CTG are using against Daesh forces in Mosul right now. The only advantage it would really have is that it is twice the range of the MGL, but at 500 meters plus, a squad or platoon sized element could probably make far better use of their machine guns, indirect fire assets, and sniper rifles for more precise fire. Interestingly enough, there was a further production run of the PAW-20 in the summer of 2015 for an “unspecfied” customer”. The example with the Kurds could possibly come from this batch, as it does look relatively new and unused.

Specifications from Wikipedia-