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The Battle of Newry Road was a running gun battle between British helicopters and Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) armed trucks, fought along the lanes east of Crossmaglen, County Armagh, on 23 September 1993. The engagement began when an IRA team from the South Armagh Brigade attempted to ambush three helicopters lifting off from Crossmaglen barracks. ==Previous actions (1974–1991)== According to British Army reports, the IRA carried out 23 attacks on helicopters in south County Armagh during the Troubles.〔Harnden (2000), p. 358〕 Until the early 1990s, when the Westland Lynx were fitted with heavy machine guns, all British helicopters in Northern Ireland flew unarmed.〔''(Operation Banner: An Analysis of Military Operations in Northern Ireland )''. MoD, Army Code 71842. Chapter 6, page 3〕 Following two attacks with rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) in 1974 and 1976, the introduction by the South Armagh Brigade of M-60 machine guns raised its level of firepower.〔 In February 1978, in the follow-up of a shooting between British troops and IRA members, a Gazelle helicopter crashed when its pilot attempted to avoid machine-gun fire, killing a Royal Green Jackets Lieutenant Colonel on board.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 work=Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN) )〕 Exactly a year after, a Scout helicopter was hit nine times while flying over Glassdrumman. A Grenadier Guards Major was wounded, but the pilot managed to land the machine safely.〔 One Gazelle was damaged in January 1980 and another in May 1981, both near the village of Cullaville.〔Harnden (2000), p. 359〕 In yet another incident, an RAF Wessex was hit nine times over Croslieve mountain, west of Forkhill, in 1983, by rounds fired from a .50 Browning machine gun, allegedly recovered by the IRA from an Allied aircraft that crashed on Lough Neagh during World War II.〔Harnden (2000), p. 360〕 The Libyan shipments of weapons for the IRA in the mid-1980s included 18 DShKs 12.7mm machine guns, which further enhanced the anti-aircraft capabilities of the South Armagh Brigade.〔 These weapons were used for the first time against a British Army helicopter in June 1988, when an Army Air Corps Lynx was hit by 15 rounds and brought down by an IRA unit near Cashel Lough Upper.〔Harnden (2000), p. 361〕 Another incident occurred on 20 February 1990, when an IRA team composed of at least 20 volunteers attempted to attack a helicopter at Newtownhamilton, but their efforts where thwarted when a van, a car, and several masked men manning a light machine gun were spotted by an RAF Wessex on a reconnaissance mission. After a hot pursuit in which some vehicles and some IRA volunteers escaped, three of the men were tracked to Silverbridge, where the Wessex landed three soldiers and two RUC constables. The men were arrested, but the security patrol was suddenly overwhelmed by a stone-throwing crowd of 40 residents, who forcibly released the suspects. One of the men arrested was Jim Martin, who had recently been part of a scheme to smuggle anti-aircraft missiles from the United States. He was still at large and living in the area at the time of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. In later searches in the area, security forces recovered two AK-47 and a Heckler & Koch rifles and two light machine guns. The AK-47s had been used in the killing of Chief Superintendent Harry Breen and Superintendent Bob Buchanan in 1989.〔Harnden (2000), pp. 396–397〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Newry Road」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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