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A tip of the hat to our new member's photos of them with their personal weapons and kit. The urban warfare camouflage on the Chieftan tank is very cool. I wonder what the building occupants thought about having it as a next door neighbor? Question for Ian: how good was that L86A1 SAW? Everything I heard about them has not been good. The L86A1 SAW was said to be even less reliable than the L85A1 rifle. From what I have heard, the 250,000 of them in-service have been brought up to L85A2 and L86A2 standard (essentially remanufacturing them) and these are very good guns. |
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They were worse than useless. Completely unreliable even on sunny day range conditions. I was not around for the 'improved' version but a few of my mates said they were improved but still not good. Too well made was the complaint, meaning that they were too fickle to be reliable in field conditions.
On Jan 13, 2008, at 2:21 PM, MasterGunner01 wrote:
Olde Daze Photos
Reply
| | | From: MasterGunner01 |
A tip of the hat to our new member's photos of them with their personal weapons and kit. The urban warfare camouflage on the Chieftan tank is very cool. I wonder what the building occupants thought about having it as a next door neighbor? Question for Ian: how good was that L86A1 SAW? Everything I heard about them has not been good. The L86A1 SAW was said to be even less reliable than the L85A1 rifle. From what I have heard, the 250,000 of them in-service have been brought up to L85A2 and L86A2 standard (essentially remanufacturing them) and these are very good guns. |
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I saw that the Special Operations folks were using the
Armalite AR-15/M16 series weapons through the Falklands War. Did MoD
change them over to the L85/L86 weapons, or were they allowed to use weapons
that actually worked?
When H&K got the contract to upgrade the guns to the
L85A2/L86A2 configurations, they basically rebuilt the entire weapon to make it
work. Now, how the hell Royal Ordnance came up with this piece of dung in
the first place is a mystery. I remember that during Gulf War I in 1990,
that the L85A1/L86A1 were such junk that L1A1's and L4-series Brens were taken
out of war reserve stocks to augment them. That doesn't say a lot for the
design.
My favorite about these pieces was that the gas regulator
could be installed the wrong way, thereby cutting off the gas port, and giving
you a straight-pull repeating rifle (some might say that was an
improvement). The fix was to drill and tap a hole in the barrel opposite
the gas port, use a punch to push the detent ball down and readjust the gas
regulator, then seal the hole with a set screw! What a Mickey Mouse
solution is that? |
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I guess ths U.S. isnt the only country to issue less than satisfactory weapons. |
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They have always been able to use some latitude in their weapon choices. And indeed many of them did use M16's in the Falklands and many other ops. But they were just as likely to employ H&K G3's, AR10's etc etc. But some of the things that would have to be taken into consideration would be ammo availability in that theatre of operations, ability to not stand out from other units in the area, the correct size hammer for the job in hand and of course reliability of said hammer. During the Gulf War the L1A1's were brought out of reserve not for the war directly but to replace the SA80's some TA units had been issued in case those had to be requisitioned as 'spare parts' for in theatre weapons. In fact this was not required as although unreliable, the parts were robust. The Bren did not exist as a 'Bren' at that time. It had long since been converted to 7.62mm and designated as the LMG. It was favored and requested by some units not as a light machine gun but as a good long range marksman (not sniper) weapon for hitting soft targets at 800m +. The original SA80 was a bastardization of the 50's EM2 rifle project which was a good idea but had been overtaken by technologies since then. Like all western countries, military memory is only as good as the last campaign. Meaning equipment always seems to be designed for the previous war and not the next. Britain through the 60's, 70's and 80's was still thinking small colonial wars in the remnants of empire. The US was tied to the vietnam experience in its thinking and the French were still wrried about 'ze nazis.
If you are going to a slaughter.......bullets and water.
On Jan 13, 2008, at 10:43 PM, MasterGunner01 wrote:
Olde Daze Photos
Reply
| | | From: MasterGunner01 |
I saw that the Special Operations folks were using the Armalite AR-15/M16 series weapons through the Falklands War. Did MoD change them over to the L85/L86 weapons, or were they allowed to use weapons that actually worked? When H&K got the contract to upgrade the guns to the L85A2/L86A2 configurations, they basically rebuilt the entire weapon to make it work. Now, how the hell Royal Ordnance came up with this piece of dung in the first place is a mystery. I remember that during Gulf War I in 1990, that the L85A1/L86A1 were such junk that L1A1's and L4-series Brens were taken out of war reserve stocks to augment them. That doesn't say a lot for the design. My favorite about these pieces was that the gas regulator could be installed the wrong way, thereby cutting off the gas port, and giving you a straight-pull repeating rifle (some might say that was an improvement). The fix was to drill and tap a hole in the barrel opposite the gas port, use a punch to push the detent ball down and readjust the gas regulator, then seal the hole with a set screw! What a Mickey Mouse solution is that? |
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Since the U.S. has switched over to the NATO calibers (5.56x45 and 7.62x51) it seems we've also gotten our share of real "clunkers" in the ordnance department. The M60 GPMG was built in large numbers and had some bad features in the design, but the M60E3 and M60E4 cured the problems -- just in time to be replaced in frontline service by the M240 (called L7 GPMG by UK and MAG-58 by Belgium). The biggest machine gun failures were the M73/M219 and M85 tank machine guns. These guns were supposed to be short overall length receivers for tank installation and the M85 had two rates of fire -- fast for air targets and slow for ground targets -- and none of them really worked well. In-service, the M73/M219 were withdrawn rather quickly and the M85 was replaced by the venerable M2HB. The Armalite designed AR-15/M16/M4-series is a mixed bag. Given a choice, many soldiers and Marines prefer the 7.62x51 NATO rifle to the 5.56x45 NATO. The only limitation is the weight of the ammunition. The gas system of the AR-15/M16/M4-series has always been a week spot and this has been corrected with gas piston-type gas systems in such weapons as the HK416 (an M4 carbine with a new upper receiver with gas piston system). A similar rifle, the Barrett M468, has a redesigned upper receiver that's been rebarreled to the 6.8x43 SPC (special purpose cartridge). The 6.8 SPC (aka 6.8 Remington) uses a .270 caliber bullet that delivers twice the kenetic energy to the target and leathality is increased by 1.5 over the standard 5.56x45 NATO round. On both guns, the M4 or M16 lower receiver assembly stays the same and the upper receiver is changed out. For the 6.8 SPC cartridge a new, steel magazine of 25-rounds capacity replaces the 30-round aluminum capacity magazine of the M4/M16. The genesis of the current L85/L86-series guns goes back to the Armalite AR-18. The AR-18 was supposed to be the "poor man's" M16 because it utilized precision metal stampings, plastics, and spot welding to make. It was a good idea, but in reality the AR-18 did not live up to its promise. I had a semi-auto AR-180 and its faults were glaring: (1) the plastic furniture was fragile; (2) the folding butt stock attachment would crack at the hinge and the latch spring frequently broke (the cover was riveted in place preventing easy change of a broken spring); (3) standard M16 20-round and 30-round magazines would not fit unless they had a different magazine latch slot cut in them (otherwise they were the same); (4) the latch mechanism for the upper and lower receivers was prone to opening at embarassing times in the field; (5) the 3-prong flash suppressor was subject to the same kinds of damage as the original M16 3-prong type; (6) the AR-18 was built by different manaufacturers and quality from good to shoddy; (7) the trigger and hammer pins had a tendency to "walk" out of the lower receiver; (8) the only improvement was a revised gas system that was without the problems of the AR-15/M16. The last manufacturer of the AR-18 was Sterling Armaments, Ltd. in Dagenham, UK. Prototype AR-18's were converted to bullpup configurations and became the basis for the L64/L65-series weapons in the mid to late 1970's. The L64/L65 were predecessors to the current L85/L86 series guns, but in a 4.85x49 caliber. The 4.85mm went away and the guns were redesigned to fire the 5.56x45 NATO round. There was a lot of money spent on the L85/L86, but how the reliability issues weren't fixed by the L85A1/L86A1 production models is criminal negligence. It took another manufacturer (H&K) to fix stuff that should have been done 20 years before! |
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