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Booties ditch SA80 for C8


brown dog

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Or like that belter at Shrivenham, Lt Col (retd) John Starling who insists that the SA80 in any guise is the best individual weapon, its weight shows that it is robust... He is dismissive of any weapon under 10lb. His position means he preaches his phallacies to thousands of young and impressionable officers and soldiers. 

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8 hours ago, SchmidtP3 said:

Or like that belter at Shrivenham, Lt Col (retd) John Starling who insists that the SA80 in any guise is the best individual weapon, its weight shows that it is robust... He is dismissive of any weapon under 10lb. His position means he preaches his phallacies to thousands of young and impressionable officers and soldiers. 

How funny and bizarre, when I went through it was a predecessor in his post (an Irish bn from memory) who preached the exact same sort of anti-area-suppressive-fire pish as that USMC hick quoted by shuggy earlier; insane rabidly zealous support for LSW based on a line that was very similar to the quoted hick, the gist being: 'why spray bullets everywhere? What could be more suppressive than steady aimed shots at heads?' 

.... we all sat there, then a pre-ceasefire NI,  Gulf 1 and Balkan audience, wondering how he'd reached his rank clearly without having even the slightest inkling that the other side might not be too happy about passively letting that happen - and that they get a roll of the dice too.  'You won't, err sir, you won't be able to just lie in the open and take steady aimed shots at an enemy who both doesn't want to be shot and is trying by every means to kill you too" "Nonsense!!!"

It left us dissonantly wondering what experience he actually had. I had the same reaction to the USMC dit, he sounds unlike any member of that Corps I ever worked with; suppression by headshots sounds gung-ho cool in an office (if you step past the naivety/rank mismatch if delivered as a serious proposition without a hint of irony), but if you want to understand the real meaning of suppressive fire (don't!) be near any US callsign that thinks it's been contacted 😭😂😂

They must force-feed every Shriv inf weapons incumbent with same the kool-aid.😂

 

 

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23 hours ago, brown dog said:

 

The Army has been seduced by precision...

That could lead us down a whole new rabbit hole with coordinate category!

 

But to bring it back on track... Is direct impingement still considered the better method of cycling the action over gas piston? 
 

And unless I’m out of the loop and they’ve already begun, it will be very interesting to see what is trialled to replace the A3. Not that it doesn’t serve a purpose currently, more that at some point they will reach a stage where they’re not repairable/upgradeable!

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Thankfully such biased opinions from Defence Academy staff and others do not influence decisions where it matters. Like I said, the conclusion from an exhaustive series of trials was that the LMG just wasn’t very good - either at hitting the enemy, or at suppressing them. There was a good article about the trials in Soldier magazine. I will see if I can find it.

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13 minutes ago, Dr. Strangelove said:

That could lead us down a whole new rabbit hole with coordinate category!

 

But to bring it back on track... Is direct impingement still considered the better method of cycling the action over gas piston? 
 

And unless I’m out of the loop and they’ve already begun, it will be very interesting to see what is trialled to replace the A3. Not that it doesn’t serve a purpose currently, more that at some point they will reach a stage where they’re not repairable/upgradeable!

Coordinate categories? 😂 yup, we've lost our way with the never ending chase for precision; somehow we've come to psychologically cope with 'fire mission Soviet Union' coming one way - all area effects munitions 'doing' sqkm-  being matched by a few very very precise unitary warheads going the other way...  our 12  precision bangs will carry the day!   If my BAR article for the Granby issue doesn't get edited beyond recognition, you'll get to read me bang my drum on that theme in rather more detail!

 

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9 minutes ago, Dr. Strangelove said:

That could lead us down a whole new rabbit hole with coordinate category!

 

But to bring it back on track... Is direct impingement still considered the better method of cycling the action over gas piston? 
 

And unless I’m out of the loop and they’ve already begun, it will be very interesting to see what is trialled to replace the A3. Not that it doesn’t serve a purpose currently, more that at some point they will reach a stage where they’re not repairable/upgradeable!

The general view from many official trials is that in well-designed weapons, DI has the better potential for accuracy, whilst pistons have the better potential for reliability. Of course, there will always be exceptions!

I am not aware of any plans to replace the A3 anytime soon. As long as H&K keep making spare parts, the system can be kept going pretty much forever.

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24 minutes ago, brown dog said:

Coordinate categories? 😂 yup, we've lost our way with the never ending chase for precision; somehow we've come to psychologically cope with 'fire mission Soviet Union' coming one way - all area effects munitions 'doing' sqkm-  being matched by a few very very precise unitary warheads going the other way...  our 12  precision bangs will carry the day!   If my BAR article for the Granby issue doesn't get edited beyond recognition, you'll get to read me bang my drum on that theme in rather more detail!

 

Indeed, and the kit we have to generate them doesn’t seem very fit for purpose!

19 minutes ago, Shuggy said:

The general view from many official trials is that in well-designed weapons, DI has the better potential for accuracy, whilst pistons have the better potential for reliability. Of course, there will always be exceptions!

I am not aware of any plans to replace the A3 anytime soon. As long as H&K keep making spare parts, the system can be kept going pretty much forever.

I’m no armourer but are there new receivers still around? It would seem as if they’d wear out eventually. Only 200,000 were converted to A2 so is that stock finite?

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37 minutes ago, Shuggy said:

Thankfully such biased opinions from Defence Academy staff and others do not influence decisions where it matters. Like I said, the conclusion from an exhaustive series of trials was that the LMG just wasn’t very good - either at hitting the enemy, or at suppressing them. There was a good article about the trials in Soldier magazine. I will see if I can find it.

Good to know. One of the worst modifications they made to the LMG was replace the rear sight drum (a very well made and finely adjustable drum) to the L shape two hole flip sight. Really saw a decrease in effective accuracy then.

The SA80 is pretty accurate, partly due to the piston system. But that weight, before you shove all the 'platform add-ons' is unwieldy and the ergonomics are pretty atrocious. Doing any safety, reload or IA drills makes you seem like you're having a fit. 

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3 hours ago, Dr. Strangelove said:

Indeed, and the kit we have to generate them doesn’t seem very fit for purpose!

I’m no armourer but are there new receivers still around? It would seem as if they’d wear out eventually. Only 200,000 were converted to A2 so is that stock finite?

My understanding is that there is no shortage of receivers. The armed forces are much smaller than they once were, plus there are now all of the LSW receivers which can be used for spares.

But you are right. One day we will run out of receivers, so at that point it will be time for a new rifle. There was talk at one time of H&K tooling up to make new receivers, but I have no idea if that was done.

Of course, the other thing that could change the equation would be if there was some big ‘leap-ahead’ in technology. It remains to be seen if the US NGSW programme will deliver that - we shall see, but the US Army track record on small-arms development is not a great one. And like it or not, Defence budgets will constrain choices.

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2 hours ago, Shuggy said:

My understanding is that there is no shortage of receivers. The armed forces are much smaller than they once were, plus there are now all of the LSW receivers which can be used for spares.

But you are right. One day we will run out of receivers, so at that point it will be time for a new rifle. There was talk at one time of H&K tooling up to make new receivers, but I have no idea if that was done.

Of course, the other thing that could change the equation would be if there was some big ‘leap-ahead’ in technology. It remains to be seen if the US NGSW programme will deliver that - we shall see, but the US Army track record on small-arms development is not a great one. And like it or not, Defence budgets will constrain choices.

I think you're wrong, it's regularly briefed out that we're well recruited. 😂

We'll all get Diemaco, once they suss the 'unlock' is to 'court' the right influence individual to include Diemaco in their portfolio-career resettlement options 🙊😂😭

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