Chapter 521 American Soldier (2/2)

”Sh*t, there's also the AN/PRC-152 Multiband Handheld Radio! We're rich, buddy!”

Hans could not help but cry for joy as he went through the equipment.

”This is military combat equipment for the Marine Corps, right?” Li Du asked. ”You're completely sure? It's all very valuable?”

”Yes, I'm sure about it,” replied an exuberant Hans. ”It's worth a lot. A complete set like this is worth 80,000 dollars. There are eight complete sets here, which mean the total value is more than 600,000 dollars!”

”So much money?!” Li Du exclaimed.

”Of course,” Hans said with a nod. ”Look at this, the Marine's Lightweight Helmet. This thing alone is worth 1,500 dollars!”

Li Du took the helmet and examined it. It felt light—not at all like it was made of metal. ”What's special about this helmet? One thousand five hundred dollars for a helmet—American soldiers are rich.”

”Of course,” Hans said. This is the replacement of the Personnel Armor System for Ground Troops helmet. This is now one of the most advanced protective helmets out there. And these night vision goggles cost more than 200 dollars. This FROG balaclava and combat suit cost more than 500 dollars combined.

”This is the most valuable item: a complete set of Modular Tactical Vests costs more than 5,000 dollars. This is the Enhanced Small Arms Protective Insert. A big one costs 700 dollars while the smaller one costs 500 dollars. And this M16A4 automatic rifle and TA31 riflescope—all these are treasures!”

”Even so, it doesn't add up to 80,000 dollars,” a skeptical Li Du said. ”Spending 80,000 dollars to fully equip a soldier sounds a bit exaggerated, right?”

Hans patted the handheld radio beside him and said, ”You're right. If it's only the weapons and the protective equipment, it's not that expensive. But, we still have this handheld radio. Buddy, this is expensive. One radio like this costs 50,000 dollars!”

Big Quinn was examining a gun and concurred, ”Boss, Big Fox's right. Furthermore, this handheld radio is not for every Marine. It's only given to the elite unit of the Marines.”

”Yes,” Hans said excitedly, ”that's right!”

With the real weapons and military equipment being uncovered, the cosplay props were still useful as well. These props were definitely a good cover so that they could take away all this equipment smoothly.

Li Du was puzzled. Since Tucson was evidently an aviation city and there was an air base there, it was strange that they had found Marine equipment.

Hans was unable to make any conjecture either. ”I will go to the police and contact the military to check the NSN code in the weapons. After that we'll know how to deal with all this.”

All the weapons and equipment came with a numeric code—the NSN code, or the ”National Stock Number.” In order to ”standardize material items of supply,” NATO countries had developed a NATO codification system to address and unify the material codes used across different countries and greatly increase the efficiency of replenishing supplies.

The NSN codes were also equivalent to the identification number of the weapons and equipment. One would simply input the code and the relevant information was retrieved: where the item was produced all the way to the current status of the item was recorded in the system.

Hans took charge of all these matters as Li Du did not know about this stuff.

However, Li Du was somehow certain that they would be unable to keep the weapons. Although the United States allowed civilians to own guns and allowed a private collection of certain heavy weapons, the laws did not allow civilian possession of military-grade weapons.

Even the police were not allowed to take possession of that.

But Hans was rather positive about it, saying that this was not a problem as there were plenty of collectors who had a lot of military weapons in their collection. There were even some people who collected tanks and artillery.

Li Du then searched the internet and found heavy weapons listed for sale online. He saw a collector showing off his latest collection of a tank; it was not an old tank from World War I or World War II but a Soviet tank captured by the US forces during the Iraq war!

Hans came along with Li Du to the police station. His responsibility was to make a report of the weapons and the equipment they'd found. The police immediately contacted the military and they began their investigation into the history of the weapons and equipment.