Section Infantry Weapons

[Little J]

As far as I know, HK no longer does anything in the UK... But hopefully I'm wrong on that and someone will correct me.

[Little J]

All absolutely correct, fun fact, it's often quoted that HK developed the numerous fixes for the L85A1, the vast majority were identified by the SASC at Warminster

My favourite is the mag release guard, HK get credited with that even tho it's the same part that RSAF retrofitted back in 91

[marktigger]

All absolutely correct, fun fact, it's often quoted that HK developed the numerous fixes for the L85A1, the vast majority were identified by the SASC at Warminster

My favourite is the mag release guard, HK get credited with that even tho it's the same part that RSAF retrofitted back in 91

Thought it was Command workshops Kinnegar?

[Little J]

REME, Enfield / Nottingham... Everyone did what they could to correct the glaring oversight didn't they?

[mrclark303]

REME, Enfield / Nottingham... Everyone did what they could to correct the glaring oversight didn't they?

I recall speaking to a mate of a mate in the mid 80's, who took some of the first issued L85A1's to test in Norway on one of the regular Mountain and Arctic Warfare selection courses.....

He said they were truly f#@king terrible!!!

Sums it up really, utter junk. We could have simply licence manufactured M16A2's, with the crap three round burst replaced with the A1's simple select fire mechanism.

A proven and matured rifle that actually bloody worked as advertised and had just been selected for the US Army and Marine Corps


The trouble is the L85A1 juggernaut was too big to fail by 1985, ready or not, jamming, falling to bits, whatever.... it was going into mass production / issue and nothing was going to stop it, disgraceful politically driven procument......

[mr.fred]

We could have simply licence manufactured M16A2's, with the crap three round burst replaced with the A1's simple select fire mechanism.

Wasn't that the rifle that got lots of US soldiers killed in Vietnam with stoppages and failures?

[Little J]

Sums it up really, utter junk. We could have simply licence manufactured M16A2's, with the crap three round burst replaced with the A1's simple select fire mechanism.

A proven and matured rifle that actually bloody worked as advertised and had just been selected for the US Army and Marine Corp

FN FNC, we already had a working relationship with FN... And it could be fitted with the SUSAT

[mrclark303]

We could have simply licence manufactured M16A2's, with the crap three round burst replaced with the A1's simple select fire mechanism.

Wasn't that the rifle that got lots of US soldiers killed in Vietnam with stoppages and failures?

No, that was the early M16, the A1 modification of the rifle fixed all the issues of the original, i.e forward assist, lower fencing to protect the mag release, chromed barrel and chamber, upgraded hammer, buffer assembly and extractor.

The A2 was a further refinement ( if you ignore the the three round burst function), introducing a case deflector, a heavier barrel, modified sights and upgraded furniture.

It was an excellent refined rifle, modified with the benefit of 20 years of service evolution.

Had the UK adopted it ( with the M16A1's select fire mechanism) then the British armed forces would have had a reliable and capable rifle from the start, instead of the utter dog's dinner L85A1.

[BB85]

Was the issue with 3 round burst it's reliability? If army doctrine was to never use the fully automatic mode anyway I can understand why 3 round burst would be considered an option as you get the benefit of landing 3 rounds on the enemy before the recoil and muzzle rise takes the aim off target and empties the magazine.

[mrclark303]

Was the issue with 3 round burst it's reliability? If army doctrine was to never use the fully automatic mode anyway I can understand why 3 round burst would be considered an option as you get the benefit of landing 3 rounds on the enemy before the recoil and muzzle rise takes the aim off target and empties the magazine.

The three round burst basically came from US experience in Vietnam, were conscripts were tempted to simply fire for effect, rather than return aimed shots. While it's an understable safety blanket to mag dump in the general direction of enemy fire, it will likely mean you don't actually hit anything and just burn though your ammo...

From a UK perspective, a three round burst was dropped early on in the X85 development programme, in favour of simple select fire. The reason being that the professional British Army ( like the USMC) have always put great faith and training in marksmanship, so aimed single shots, or controlled short bursts are the order of the day.

A well trained soldier being quite capable of triggering off short accurate ( for government purposes) bursts, were the situation requires it, without being treated like a child and forced with a three round mechanism.

The three round burst on the M16A2 gave the rifle an awful stiff trigger, the simple select fire mechanism on the A1 being much better.

5.56mm is capable of fairly accurate suppressive fire on automatic, utilised by a trained soldier, something proven over and over again against suicidal attacks by the Taliban on outposts, were fire for effect was employed more and more.

[NickC]

The US Army standard M4A1 has the option to fire in the fully automatic mode.

A few 5.56 intermediate round rifles use constant recoil, firing from open bolt, with in effect zero recoil to make them fully controllable in full automatic fire.

Knight's Armament classify theirs as a Light Assault Machine Gun (LAMG) with heavy barrel to take heat generated in full auto, another example is the Ultimax 5.56 built in Singapore designed by Jim Sullivan, one of the original engineers of the AR 15/M16.

If one was to say firepower was the main criteria required, there is a strong argument that the Ultimax is the best 5.56 assault rifle avaiable.

[RunningStrong]

7th September interview with Mr Leuba of Knight's Armament Company on their KS-1 5.56 assault rifle chosen for the special operations units for British Army and RM. MoD placed a an order for 1,640 Knight's Stoner 1 (KS-1) rifles, designated the L403A1 in UK service, with an option to acquire a further 10,000 falling under the new £90m contract over the next decade.

The rifle comes with a short barrel, 348mm (13.7in) necessary to keep overall length of rifle within bounds, a consequence of moving from the bullpup design of the EM-2 to the more conventional design as with the Stoner M16 plus the longer more sophisticated suppressor. The KS-1 Mod 2 gas system precisely controls the operating gas pressure, with dual ejectors for increased reliability, a high-strength extraction mechanism, improved cam pin hole diameter and advanced lug pattern design with the E3.2 bolt for functionality and durability. In testing, the KS-1's E3.2 bolt has endured over 50,000 rounds of use without breakage.

Traditional sound and flash suppressors come with serious disadvantages due to the back pressure created as rifles become fouled faster, cyclic rates increase due to retained bore pressure, causing reliability problems and the shooters are exposed to significantly more toxic gasses than when firing unsuppressed rifles. The Knight's 556 QDC/MCQ-PRT sound and flash suppressor fitted to the KS-1 under trials of nearly 450 rounds before failure in testing of continuous cyclic-rate full-auto fire with a belt-fed machinegun.

[NickC]

Apologies for above error saying EM-2, was the SA80/L85

[mrclark303]

Apologies for above error saying EM-2, was the SA80/L85

Thanks for posting Nick, there's certainly been a quiet revolution going on with moderators, some facinating technology going on at the moment.

I had a good look at one the UK made shortlisted moderator's for the UK SF community last year, unfortunately the main manufacturers seem to have it in the bag now, but boy has the technology moved on in the last 10 years.....

[mr.fred]

a quiet revolution going on with moderators

...very good...

[SgtBeard]

My first post here, please excuse me if this is the wrong forum area for my questions.

I need to find this info:
What was the smoke screen hand grenade of the British army around year of 2010?
When was the L132A1 smoke hand grenades introduced?

Thank you for any assistance in this matter!

[Little J]

Anyone who's moaned about the L85's bayonet. I have some bad news for you

[mr.fred]

Having to choose bayonet or suppressor is a bit sucky. Anything hanging off the hand guard would have to be kind of long and awkward.

[mrclark303]

Anyone who's moaned about the L85's bayonet. I have some bad news for you

Are we following the US and stopping bayonet training I wonder.

Apparently not a requirement of the programme....

[Caribbean]

Anyone who's moaned about the L85's bayonet. I have some bad news for you

Looks like it's back to the British Mk 1 Pointy Stick

[NickC]

Ohio Ordnance in January introduced the 24.5 lbs Reapr LWMG (their take on modern MG-42/MG-3) in .338 magnum.

US as a result of experience in Afghanistan looked for a LWMG with double the range of 7.62 NATO round MGs and picked the .338 Norma Magnum with its 300 grain bullet, double the weight of 7.62 bullet, for an effective range of approx. 1,700 m. In 2020 SOCOM bought some 20 lbs Sig Sauer MG338, the very big advantage over the 84 lbs M2A1 .50 Browning is weight.

Whether there is a conops for UK for a similar requirement for a long range MG at the cost of introducing yet another new round (another question might be is did US chose the right long range round), will be interesting to see if it catches on and begins to partially replace the M2s.

[mrclark303]

Ohio Ordnance in January introduced the 24.5 lbs Reapr LWMG (their take on modern MG-42/MG-3) in .338 magnum.

US as a result of experience in Afghanistan looked for a LWMG with double the range of 7.62 NATO round MGs and picked the .338 Norma Magnum with its 300 grain bullet, double the weight of 7.62 bullet, for an effective range of approx. 1,700 m. In 2020 SOCOM bought some 20 lbs Sig Sauer MG338, the very big advantage over the 84 lbs M2A1 .50 Browning is weight.

Whether there is a conops for UK for a similar requirement for a long range MG at the cost of introducing yet another new round (another question might be is did US chose the right long range round), will be interesting to see if it catches on and begins to partially replace the M2s.

Possibly the first genuine potential contender to replace the GPMG, the excellent Fn Mag has reigned supreme for 50 years.

It would be useful for many applications, infantry, vehicle and MBT...

[mr.fred]

Possibly the first genuine potential contender to replace the GPMG,

That would be an appalling choice to replace the GPMG, the size and bulk of the gun and ammunition rules it out as a light MG, even if the gun itself is a similar weight.
Given improvements in fire control on AFVs, a round somewhere between .50 and .30 doesn't seem a bad idea, but this as a vehicle gun doesn't seem ideal.

[mrclark303]

Possibly the first genuine potential contender to replace the GPMG,

That would be an appalling choice to replace the GPMG, the size and bulk of the gun and ammunition rules it out as a light MG, even if the gun itself is a similar weight.
Given improvements in fire control on AFVs, a round somewhere between .50 and .30 doesn't seem a bad idea, but this as a vehicle gun doesn't seem ideal.

I disagree, it's going to be no heavier, it's not an LMG anyway, it's a HMG hybrid. You have to view this in another way, .338 will defeat all body armour and lightly armoured vehicles, if it's using armour piercing rounds, than it's capable of defeating or crippling AFV's.

The ammunition is heavier, but this will be used in a much more directed and accurate way, short bursts and single shots out to much longer ranges with modern optics.

Forget Gimpys fire for effect out to 1000 yards, things have moved on.

[mr.fred]

I disagree, it's going to be no heavier, it's not an LMG anyway, it's a HMG hybrid. You have to view this in another way, .338 will defeat all body armour and lightly armoured vehicles, if it's using armour piercing rounds, than it's capable of defeating or crippling AFV's.

The gun is a similar weight, but the ammunition is heavier per-round. The gun is bulkier, needing to be broken down into three pieces for transport. This impacts heavily on the ability to be used as a LMG by a single soldier.
The GPMG stands for General Purpose Machine Gun. General purpose meaning that it can be used by a single solder as a light machine gun (LMG) or as a crew served weapon that these days could be termed a medium machine gun (MMG)

For defeating AFVs, it is less capable than a .50 M2, so any AFV resistant to that (and most are) will be more resistant to .338. You get a small improvement against lightly armoured vehicles vs .30 calibre guns but nothing that I'd class a worth losing the LMG capability for.

The ammunition is heavier, but this will be used in a much more directed and accurate way, short bursts and single shots out to much longer ranges with modern optics.

So less a machinegun and more an automatic rifle? Even less capable of replacing the GPMG then. It's all very well talking about "stowed kills" and "efficiencies" but you have to look at how many rounds are expended per casualty in modern wars and how far away the soldier sees his opposite number, on average, to see the lie of it. It's a niche weapon for a niche role that may have some utility, but replacing the GPMG, as a GPMG, isn't it.

Forget Gimpys fire for effect out to 1000 yards, things have moved on.

Vickers guns were capable of delivering effective fire up to 4000 yards, but their lack of mobility is what led to them being replaced. If something is going to replace the GPMG, it's much more likely to be lighter and more mobile while delivering similar effect at fleeting targets than a wannabe sniper-ish gun intended for use against unaware targets at extended ranges.
There's quite a bit in Hatcher's Notebook looking at the difference in requirement between a rifle cartridge and a, crew served, machine gun cartridge, but it always ends up that the additional capability isn't worth the effort