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Booties ditch SA80 for C8


brown dog

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I'm quite looking forward to the MOD's reframed narrative reminding us yet again that the user community simply doesn't understand how good SA80 is and that, despite no other Armies having bought it and now - the icing on the cake -  even our own booties voting on it with their feet - the entire commando brigade binning it - SA80 remains a world-leading rifle! 😂

 

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This system should have been bought into post SLR ( though why that was removed is beyond me ) 

AR15 (nee C8 ) performs perfectly well in most conditions (jungle tested fir years by the yanks,,,,)

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l remember a letter from an RM armourer published in the now sadly defunct Handgunner magazine, listing the deficiencies of SA-80. He’d been induced to write in by a “straw/camel’s back” moment that had just occurred: one of his booties had been cleaning an SA-80 in his presence, and - using nothing more than arm power and an issued pull-through - had managed to tear the barrel free from the receiver.

The sight of the bewildered man, receiver in one hand, barrel swinging free from the cord in the other, had compelled him to break silence.

maximus otter

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There is a true story about how the booties came to ‘choose’ the C8, but I am afraid that it can’t be told here; and I am quite sure that it will never feature in any official narrative. Suffice it to say that they have been pushing for an AR15 pattern weapon for 35 years and have finally got their way.

And please let’s not confuse stories about the old SA80 A1 with the A3. There is simply no comparison.

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18 minutes ago, Gluv said:

Meh ...I would still rather have the SA 80 . Not a fan of the AR family.

Maybe I'm just odd 🤔🙂

Gluv🇬🇧

Oh what a gift.....

I shall resist stating the bleed'n obvious. 😁

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6 hours ago, Shuggy said:

There is a true story about how the booties came to ‘choose’ the C8, but I am afraid that it can’t be told here; and I am quite sure that it will never feature in any official narrative. Suffice it to say that they have been pushing for an AR15 pattern weapon for 35 years and have finally got their way.

And please let’s not confuse stories about the old SA80 A1 with the A3. There is simply no comparison.

No amount of frittered away money will make it ambidextrous or light ... it's just a sh11t combat weapon .. 

put all the add-ons on it, and it's a weightlifting exercise..   

Tommy Atkins could give no sh11ts that his 15lb 5.56, that he can't fire left handed around cover and can't fit a bayonet to because of the UGL is,  at a theoretical level, less rubbish than it was .

...and no amount of newly-invented SA80 centre-chest cqb hold can overcome the fact that a combat rifle MUST be fireable from either shoulder......

I remember being on the wrong end of the LSW hard-sell propaganda for years... until one day someone, presumably who'd experienced it as a subby and knew the groundtruth, had risen in rank sufficiently to close the bloomin sh11te thing down ...

. I would suspect that's what's happened here; groundtruth people have, over time, now reached sufficient seniority that they have the empowerment to say 'enough'.

If ever their was a defence project that deserved a parliamentary enquiry...

 

I had a C8 as my personal weapon for 2 years, so I have pretty good insight on it  - and  you can tell that experience has left me firmly on the fence about the relative merits of the two rifles 😂😊😊😊

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And breathe! 😀

I completely agree that the C8 has positive points in terms of both weight and ambidexterity - those are obvious. I would also add modularity and the ability to fit an upper with a shorter barrel.

However in almost any other objective criteria in terms of accuracy, reliability, durability, whole life costs, equipment failure reports, hit probability etc. the result is either a wash or the SA80 A2/A3 is considerably better. 

The LSW and LMG were both binned based on objective evidence from an exhaustive series of instrumented live fire experiments, not on opinion thank goodness (that’s how we got the LSW and LMG in the first place). These trials showed beyond any doubt that the effectiveness of the LSW was no better than the IW; and that the LMG was absolutely hopeless.

Opinions are entirely valid of course, especially when they are based on real world experience. However evidence-based decision making has to be the right approach for procurement.  

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I was breathing ...until I read the LMG bit 😂😊😊

...best section inf weapon in existence if you don't buy it, and then test it with a 16" barrel  🙄🙄😂😂😭   

tried, en passant, explaining the negative skewing of the 16" barrel to an ITDU SASC WO1...but like all SASC, and I hate to generalise, but like all SASC, he was as thick as mince and had insufficient grasp on ballistics to understand that simply putting normal 20" barrels on the weapons would have completely overcome the perceived inadequacies.

Next you'll tell me the 51mm mortar was rubbish and best gone... on the evidence of some SASC fecktard who went SASC because he couldn't pass Senior Brecon.

 

I know... and breathe 😂😊😊😊

...I've just submitted a - rather more cogently argued -  article on similar, but different, silliness to BAR... you'll know it when you see it! 😂

 

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I believe that they tested the LMG with the longer barrel as well - and it was still hopeless.

On the contrary, the 51mm mortar was an absolutely superb weapon - great for smoke and illumination and highly deadly in skilled hands with HE. However there was not a competitive market for the ammunition and it would have been incredibly expensive to procure more. A real shame.

I will look out for the next issue of BAR!

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I have to agree the c8 on the face of it is a better rifle.  However having used the SA80 for  many years and now the C8  I much prefer the C8.

 

The LSW was actually a decent weapon when employed as a sniper support rifle.  As a support weapon it always was junk.

 

The LMG was great if you wanted to make a lot of noise and miss the enemy.  Still as a suppressive fire weapon it achieved its aim.  It was initially bought as a UOR weapon during the build up to Telic 1 where the 16 inch barrel and retractable stock were a bonus.  In a warrior rammed to the roof with ammo any space saving is a premium.

The 51 was exceptional, very easy to use with minimum training direct hots were easily achievable.  The 60 mm that replaced it is useless and hated by most.  Not even sure if it is still being used.  

As for the SASC some very capable individuals in there even some that have passed senior Brecon.  However they are instructors and experts in range management.  Not many of them claim to be ballistics experts.

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9 hours ago, topscots1 said:

The LSW was actually a decent weapon when employed as a sniper support rifle.  As a support weapon it always was junk.

The LMG was great if you wanted to make a lot of noise and miss the enemy.  Still as a suppressive fire weapon it achieved its aim.  

Leaving aside the SASC - actually, I can't 😂😊   quite bizarre that they are considered 'Small Arms' experts, when they have neither the selection or training to understand ballistics -the latter part, your words too - ... the cap badge contrasts interestingly with WO2s of the RA Gunnery Staff ... the finest cohort of that capbadge's SNCOs selected ahead of their peers for a year-long intellectual and scientific beasting, and most of whom will go on to be RSMs and LEs. ..and because of their selection and training, genuine experts in all aspects of the employment of their weapon systems ... whereas the SASC tend to be third XV who can't cut it against their bn peers and have therefore opted out of that race.  All they know, as you say, is range management; as madrassa-style pamphlet-heads, but they get involved in small arms trials..... in that context: mince and SISO.

LSW... I believe it was equal or less than SA80 accuracy wise. So good for nothing except being heavier, with the bonus of being yet another close combat weapon to which a bayonet cannot be fitted. (which should elicit a huge WTF!? from anyone thinking about the realities of close combat).  I seem to recall, the SASC also enabled its procurement with the wrong range drum....as they did with the ballistically mismatched ACOG reticle on the L129 rifle🙄    

LMG 'lot of noise and miss the enemy, but great as a suppressive weapon'....  an interesting juxtaposition of ideas there.  It was a suppressive weapon 😂 The idea of 'miss' is interesting too. Our Army has been seduced by the idea that precision can remove a requirement for 'area effect'...  very often targets are not 'well found'  or are dispersed or 'both the above' and there are tons of them (mass).  Precision weapons cannot deal effectively with such targets....  knowing roughly where in a hedgeline I think a target may be as I squirm for hard cover,  and roughly where his mates probably are, all to the nearest couple or ten of metres, doesn't favour a 'more precise weapon' ... particularly if there are,say, 70 of them and I'm trying to minimise my exposure to stuff coming the other way.... it favours an area effector that makes sure the fellow 2m away from where I  pointed the gat, and his oppos spread out around him all get a piece.   

I'm not even discussing 'aiming' accuracy in combat - but its also relevant that area dispersion at the target also mitigates aiming deficiency (eyes shut, ducking, trying to stay alive etc). Which is precisely why some armies have  burst fire rifles. Or also the thinking behind the G11, if you remember that.

The Army has been seduced by precision...as it confuses 'efficiency' with 'effect'.. and understanding that not all targets are 'well found' or well aimed at and, and that they may be widely dispersed (as we would be!) as well as overwhelmingly numerous (mass) has left the conversation.... a fine suppressive weapon is precisely what LMG was, and precisely what is needed as part of the toolset 

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I have to say though, most of the folks that I have met from ITDU have been proper warry types such as Royal Marines and line infantry, rather than SASC. They are a pretty impressive and professional bunch.

Suppression - there was some operational analysis done in Afghanistan of the suppression effects of various calibres. I am summarising, but it essentially concluded that ‘12.7 makes them run away, 7.62 makes them drop and 5.56 they ignore’.

I once saw an Army officer explaining the theory of suppression with the LMG at great length to a USMC colonel, which involved lots of drawn out detail and much waving of arms. The USMC officer listened carefully with a quiet smile and then said (in a southern accent): “That’s just great, but why wouldn’t y’all just kill him instead?”.

I find it kind of interesting that the British Army and the USMC have now arrived in much the same place, but from different directions. The UK are now using their IW as a LSW, whilst the USMC are now using their LSW/IAR (the M27) as an IW.

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2 minutes ago, Shuggy said:

 ‘12.7 makes them run away, 7.62 makes them drop and 5.56 they ignore’.

I once saw an Army officer explaining the theory of suppression with the LMG at great length to a USMC colonel, which involved lots of drawn out detail and much waving of arms. The USMC officer listened carefully with a quiet smile and then said (in a southern accent): “That’s just great, but why wouldn’t y’all just kill him instead?”.

Can we not do some 'woke' defence of SASC being reinterpreted as a criticism of ITDU?  🙄

To the first point ... sounds as though some of the variables have been discounted to deliver that soundbite....   other than target effect around you, how do you know you're being shot at?  The crack.  12.7 simply has a bigger passing noise ... so will have greater noise effect when missing.    ... intetesting read across to my early point on area effect, you are placing value on the area effect of ammunition that has missed 🤔 think about it.

It'd be interesting to compare 100m target effect on 60 soft targets with 2kg of 12.7 ammunition vs 2kg of 5.56. ...

 

To the second soundbite- the usmc quote is deliciously gung-ho, but precisely, literally exactly the same, unworldly flawed reasoning that was used to justify LSW.  Only muppets think suppression is passe.

 

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30 minutes ago, Shuggy said:

 

I once saw an Army officer explaining the theory of suppression with the LMG at great length to a USMC colonel, which involved lots of drawn out detail and much waving of arms. The USMC officer listened carefully with a quiet smile and then said (in a southern accent): “That’s just great, but why wouldn’t y’all just kill him instead?”.

Just thinking that on

...err, because I can't see exactly where they are

...because I can't aim at what I can't  see

...because, even if I can see them, I cant aim well, because I'm trying to stay alive

... because there are 50 of them firing at me, and my point-effect system only enables me to target them sequentially, by which time, given that I keep missing (see preceding points) and my point system doesn't mitigate missing, we'll be dead

 

...I'm bored!😂

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22 minutes ago, Shuggy said:

Yes - the theory is that it’s the noise of the crack that really influences suppression. So we are now using belt fed GPMGs to suppress - the idea is certainly not considered to be passe.

And still thinking on.. this is very afghanesque thinking. 7.62 is louder than 5.56. 

We've unlearnt the realities of peer or peer+ battle noise.

For the breaching op on Granby, VII corps (of which 1 BR Armd Div was a part) planned a 90,000 round four hour artillery fireplan designed to lift when 1 ID were 200 metres from Iraqi fwd positions.   

90,000 rounds of 155 + on you in 4 hours... and we corporately think section suppression depends on the loudness delta between 7.62 vs 5.56 crack and thump? 😂😭 it's enough to make you weep 😂😊😊😊

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It's almost funny to see the same sort of issues that you've had over in the UK about the wishes of some to adopt the AR15/M4 style wpn system are almost mirrored over here. Here it's partly put down to SF envy where the line battalions see the SF lads with the cool gear and want it too. We've now got the latest home grown variant of the old Steyr AUG, the EF88 in service and it seems to have fixed a lot of the issues with the previous models around weight and modularity (is that a word). The SF lot will retain the M4 wpn systems as it better suits their needs, especially when you consider justification points like compatibility with allied forces supply systems etc. There's been a reasonably good paper written on the whole F88 introduction into service, its ongoing evolution and the ongoing angst it's caused in some sections of the Army, I'll try and find the link.

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2 hours ago, KatoomDownUnder said:

It's almost funny to see the same sort of issues that you've had over in the UK about the wishes of some to adopt the AR15/M4 style wpn system are almost mirrored over here. Here it's partly put down to SF envy where the line battalions see the SF lads with the cool gear and want it too. We've now got the latest home grown variant of the old Steyr AUG, the EF88 in service and it seems to have fixed a lot of the issues with the previous models around weight and modularity (is that a word). The SF lot will retain the M4 wpn systems as it better suits their needs, especially when you consider justification points like compatibility with allied forces supply systems etc. There's been a reasonably good paper written on the whole F88 introduction into service, its ongoing evolution and the ongoing angst it's caused in some sections of the Army, I'll try and find the link.

Yup, the psychology of the thing is weird in both instances - the SF buy something because it's clearly better, and anyone following the same train of logical thought is 'SF-envious' and too stupid to understand the complexities that would explain to them why they need a heavier single shoulder weapon  😂  Rather changes the validity of the UK conversation when the UK maritime component actually finally just says 'no' to SA80.

Mirroring further.... the C8 is a really cheap weapon... far cheaper than both SA80 and Steyr Augs. The resistance is weird.

By the by, spent some time working with AATTI IV (think that was the acronym, got it on a boomerang somewhere! 😂) way back. Great blokes.

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