New British Army Rifle?

[User702]

Having finally made it to the back pages of the latest Private Eye (it's my breakfast reading material!) I saw an article relating to the UK's defence spending and the dire warnings that have resulted in it dipping below 2% of GDP.

In amongst the list of things that we are saving money with (buying Apache direct from the US for half the cost of getting Westland to build them, buying the F35, renting the C17s, keeping Trident, etc) I saw that we are apparently going to be purchasing a new rifle to replace the L85A2. My ears/eyes perked up at this because, let's be honest, the SA80 is a horrible, heavy, unergonomic thing.

What are we buying? Is it the tried and tested M4? Maybe the FN SCAR? is it the Colt Canada C8? Maybe (please, please, please) the HK416? Could it be anything that has decent ergonomics, be easy to take apart and good to shoot for lefties as well as normal people?

It's the Desert Tech MDR apparently. Another bloody bullpup. I hate bullpups.

At least we are buying it (apparently) instead of spending a fortune developing it.

[froggy]

At least we are buying it instead of spending a fortune developing it.
Actually I find it pretty sad that a country with such a fine weapon development tradition doesn't have the means & resources to develop their own product ...

[dave_303]

At least we are buying it instead of spending a fortune developing it.
Actually I find it pretty sad that a country with such a fine weapon development tradition doesn't have the means & resources to develop their own product ...

+1 to that

If this is true (I know there has been talk of replacing the L85A2 by around 2020, however, as always money matters.
I'm pretty damn sure it will be another bullpup, which model, etc.. no idea.

[20series]

Have there been any trials for this supposed replacement??

Alan

[User702]

We do have the means and resources to develop it, but if we did do that, it would end up being late, massively over-priced and rubbish*. Just like the SA80**.

I'm almost glad we are finally getting round to the idea that buying stuff off the shelf is better than spending a fortune with BAe to reinvent it (*cough* Type 45 destroyer *cough*). I seem to recall that, if we had bought the rights to the Aegis cruisers from the US, we could have bought twice as many, they would have been more capable and the workforce could have been paid to stay at home AND we still would have saved money.

The UK does not do defence procurement well.

* compared to other individual weapons systems.
** represents the views of the author only, not the armed forces as a whole.

[froggy]

I'm almost glad we are finally getting round to the idea that buying stuff off the shelf is better than spending a fortune with BAe to reinvent it

Granted it does make sense to out-source some products however your statement sadly reflects perfectly the ambitions, or rather lack of it, in terms of defence & position as an independent country. So before we turn to the US supermarket for everything , let bear in mind that the British Defence industry is still worth GBP 35 Bns/year, accounting for 10% of the manufacturing output and still clinching to be the 5th largest in the world...

[JS569]

I'd like to see a push towards a different calibre-perhaps 6.8 spc as a more rounded intermediate cartridge.

If you look at many of the Bullpup designs they have been around a fair while now:
-Aug
-FS2000

The Tavor is the newest mainstream bullpup that comes to mind. There are plenty of suitable platforms available, my money is that we'll go with a european producer

[huntervixen]

All very true, thing is Froggy we (the Brits anyway) haven't developed a true service rifle since the EM2, this was dropped purely to satisfy the US and their T65 cartridge, apparenly the EM2 was quite a handful when prototypes were "up-gunned" to 7.62x51, not satisfactory at all.

Obviously the L1A1 was a Fal and the redesign of this was a joint effort between Britain Canada and Australia, all three countries suggesting alterations to suit their national requirements....the result was an unquestionably fine service rife of the first order

Now you can't paint the L85 family in any other light than "serviceable" when you study the genesis of the L85, from prototype to today, its just a horrifying mess, BAE Systems effectively got paid to manufacture a load of crap......then got paid again to make it work as it should of in the first place! and the A2 was rolled out as a huge success, hurray we now have a rifle that works

So the way forward is this, select a current rifle that works/ let the Military decide what they want and licence manufacture it in the UK...... NOT BY BAE SYSTEMS

[DW58]

Tenders closed last year for the Modular Assault Rifle project - the result has not been announced yet - this was a multi-calibre/mult-barrel length proposal. Whether this was to be a project across the entire British military to replace the L85A2/L22A3/L86A2/L119A1 or just in specific areas isn't yet clear.

[huntervixen]

Tenders closed last year for the Modular Assault Rifle project - the result has not been announced yet - this was a multi-calibre/mult-barrel length proposal. Whether this was to be a project across the entire British military to replace the L85A2/L22A3/L86A2/L119A1 or just in specific areas isn't yet clear.

Well, if I was responsible for drawing up the requirement this would be the brief:

The ability to easily change calibre at some point in the not too distant future, excellent ergonomics/quad mil spec rails on the forend and full length rail on the receiver, fully selective fire, accurate out to 600m and superb reliability, so what fits the bill?