UK Award Heckler & Koch $95 million Contract For SA80 Rifle Upgrade
- Thread starter North_Sylva
- Start date
- Location
- Edmonton area, Alberta
Had a chance to handle the A3 and the A2 this summer. The new rifle has good improvements. And accurate enough for a Ghurka to win top shot at CAFSAC this year. So the new ones work at least.
ThatM305Guy
CGN frequent flyer
- Location
- North Texas
Saying the new variants suck because they came from the original is like people saying the m4 sucks because it came from the Vietnam era M16 *shakes head*
I guess that means we aren't getting anything from H&K for the civilian market in the near-to-medium future...with all their military contracts, we're on the farthest rear, back burner...
H&K is working hard to reduce the delay of delivery. But if you want a USP SUPER A1 .40S&W V9 in RAL5284, expect to wait 12 months or longer.
Looks like they are just buying enough for the combat arms people.
This is how the MOD thinks. Yes, SA80 is not the best, but it is useable. They need 50,000 rifles for the combat arms soon and it is difficult justify to have two different rifles in the system to the government, and they are running out of time. So they are wiling to basically buy 50,000 of the new "same thing". It is probably more "bang for the bucks" from the user perspective to get the newest but the 'corporate' view is they don't think it is worth the other money, the fight and other intangible/tangible problems, and there is not enough time
If the combat arms want their own more advanced weapons, is it doable? Hell yeh, the special forces and royal marines have their own Diemacos. Lots of countries somehow manage this kind of things. Upgrading and rebuilding the same thing is easier to justify by the MOD to the government ( look at the fiasco of the committee holding up the USMC's 20-% budget for the HK M27). When you propose a brand new solution, the justification is getting way more scrutiny and this means it is not getting done onetime . Advocating for new "dual" small arms system within the MOD doesn't seem like an essential career move either with high risk of failure, and there must be enough internal advocates for it. Either they were never there or got rolled over internally early on.
This really means the UK armed force will be using SA80 til 2030. Whatever the US wants to do with 6mm in the next 10 years won't begin to filter down to the rest of NATO until the 2030, probably not to France and Germany until 2040. We will be all retiring by that point.
This is how the MOD thinks. Yes, SA80 is not the best, but it is useable. They need 50,000 rifles for the combat arms soon and it is difficult justify to have two different rifles in the system to the government, and they are running out of time. So they are wiling to basically buy 50,000 of the new "same thing". It is probably more "bang for the bucks" from the user perspective to get the newest but the 'corporate' view is they don't think it is worth the other money, the fight and other intangible/tangible problems, and there is not enough time
If the combat arms want their own more advanced weapons, is it doable? Hell yeh, the special forces and royal marines have their own Diemacos. Lots of countries somehow manage this kind of things. Upgrading and rebuilding the same thing is easier to justify by the MOD to the government ( look at the fiasco of the committee holding up the USMC's 20-% budget for the HK M27). When you propose a brand new solution, the justification is getting way more scrutiny and this means it is not getting done onetime . Advocating for new "dual" small arms system within the MOD doesn't seem like an essential career move either with high risk of failure, and there must be enough internal advocates for it. Either they were never there or got rolled over internally early on.
This really means the UK armed force will be using SA80 til 2030. Whatever the US wants to do with 6mm in the next 10 years won't begin to filter down to the rest of NATO until the 2030, probably not to France and Germany until 2040. We will be all retiring by that point.
Max Owner
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
Thanx for this.
thats the selector switch the safety is above the trigger
more effort to replace and train everyone with all the sa80s by proposing a new weapon system probably
not saying that this is the best weapon out there but given public spend and hoops to jump through it might be the least effort upgrade they can make with the money they have
mebiuspower
CGN Ultra frequent flyer
- Location
- Morontario
Word from HK is the UK government is highly bureaucratic, the time it takes to adopt a new rifle would've taken extraordinary amount of both time and money, it was simply cheaper and quicker to approve an upgrade rather than complete replacement. Those rifles are worn out and needed to be replaced ASAP.
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