Loughgall. The choice of guns?

 In my experience,the IRA's choice of a variety of guns for operations was haphazard.

From the earliest days of my involvement with militant republicanism at the helm,I pointed to the need to save IRA lives and create an efficient military machine which I styled the New Model Army after Cromwell.

Weapons were standardised,volunteers were instructed to dress in mufti and a higgledy-piggledy bunch of misfits became a standard military machine after the Security Unit was set up to punish treachery and disobedience.

At Loughgall,even though the operation had been betrayed,were made obvious the fruits of my endeavours with the main volunteer organisations and their leaders.

At Loughgall,weapons had been standardised and they were "able to hand one another a magazine".

The pump action shotgun,as at Ballygawley two years earlier was to be used to blast open the wooden front door lock and wooden internal doors. It was, therefore,loaded with No.5 or Mo.6 cartridges.

However,unlike earlier escapades to seize police weapons this "full frontal assault" as demanded by the rules of war to give "your opponent a fair chance" had been betrayed and eight members of the IRA were killed.