Real world data on the SA80

[Ed L.]

I don't know how many of you are fans of the British motoring show ''Top Gear'' but Jermey Clarkson is a huge military buff, in fact, he did a whole show dedicated to firearms in which he is suited up with the British Armed Forces and goes through a exercise in urban combat.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4e7KBpkS8E

You're kidding, right?

Did you watch it?

It combined misinformation with an antigun overtone.

Watch the last 15 minutes or so.

[ICANHITHIMMAN]

Gosh I didnt know. Thats to bad for the Brit soliders. I never had any worrys about my M16A2 or my M4. I cant fathom what that must feel like to be sent in to harms way with that weapon. Better than a club but gee.

[PanzerJaeger]

I am sure you can find negative articles on the M4/M-16 on the web, many of which reflect the early years in Vietnam before initial issues were corrected.

Indeed. Your second article even had some criticisms of the AR versus the SA80.

The media
has been buzzing
about problems with the SA80A2 in
Afghanistan, and we have not been able to
pin down any specific problems from the
general comments made. Reports on the
failure of the M4 Carbine to perform are
abundant as well, and there is at least one
comment shared with your faithful correspondent
from someone who was there for
comparison testing, that the M4 Carbine
failed miserably, while the SA80A2 had
virtually no problems. All of this will come
out in the wash of course.

[Littlelebowski]

Indeed. Your second article even had some criticisms of the AR versus the SA80.

What are you getting at?

[TOrrock]

Politics tends to trump common sense.

The British Labor Party rammed through adoption of the EM-2 because they didn't want to bow to US/NATO.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtjVf724G7w

It was yanked pretty quickly when Labor got thrown out and a Conservative gov't came in, and the L1A1 FAL variant was adopted.

Every major country has it's own home grown service rifle, it's a mark of national pride, for better or for worse....the Spanish went through the same thing with their adoption of the CETME Modelo L; the difference being that when they couldn't get it to work right they just said screw it and bought HK G36's.

You'd think that with all the urban combat that the Brits saw in Northern Ireland that they'd go with a carbine or rifle that could be fired from either shoulder when using cover.

The British MoD paid HK more money to "fix" the SA-80 than it would have cost to replace it with a Colt Canada/Diemco M4 type.

But, it's British!

[PanzerJaeger]

What are you getting at?

Nothing at all. It was just interesting to read a comment like that in light of the blog post at the beginning of this thread - no problems from the SA-80 while the M4 floundered. There is a lot of static and anecdote out there...

[armakraut]

They should have just contracted with Sterling to make a proper AR-18 that took AR magazines, or just bought canuck colts (like the SAS).

[SteyrAUG]

The British MoD paid HK more money to "fix" the SA-80 than it would have cost to replace it with a Colt Canada/Diemco M4 type.

Didn't they actually own HK at the time?

[SteyrAUG]

They should have just contracted with Sterling to make a proper AR-18 that took AR magazines, or just bought canuck colts (like the SAS).

Yep, especially since IIRC the SA-80 was basically am AR-18 internally anyway. But I suspect why they didn't is because the AR-18 was heavily associated with the IRA.

Would have been like giving our guys AK-47s after Vietnam.

[Todd.K]

LOP with a modern shooting stance and body armor seems to be a problem with all the bullpup designs.

It almost makes a Mini14 attractive, almost.

What if we put the Mini in one of those drop in bullpup stocks?