Most people look at a rocket mounted on a helicopter and their imaginations end there. In Libya, rebels seeking to oust dictator Moammar Gadhafi don’t have that luxury. They see rocket pods and think: that would look good mounted on my flatbed truck.

Our pal Brian Conley’s Alive In Libya website brings us this video, in which Abdulsalam Elshein of the “Free Libya Martyrs Brigade” explains how his colleagues in the city of Dorna stripped captured helicopters of their rockets and outfitted them on trucks the rebels drive to fight Gadhafi’s forces. (Elshein refers to these as “C5 rockets,” but I think he might mean the Soviet-made S-5 model.) Anti-Gadhafi machinists welded the rocket pods to the back of Elshein’s unarmored truck. Instant missile launcher, Mad Max-style.

“It is an effective weapon with high accuracy targeting,” Elshein says, “and praise be to God, it has an effect on the enemy.” (Translation is here.)

This is hardly the only example of Libya’s DIY weapons tech. Some string together Grad rocket pods, power them with a car battery and fire them with harvested doorbells. Others scavenge ancient guns and artillery out of decaying army depots, ending up with antique Lee-Enfield bolt action rifles. They don’t have much experience placing accurate fires, and Elshein admits he doesn’t have much training on his new rocket-enhanced truck.

But still, on Monday, they broke free of Gadhafi’s siege of Misurata and started marching to Tripoli. Score one for DIY.

H/T: Steve Hynd