Should British Army upgrade?

[shootinropez]

After many years of using the "trusty" SA80 (including two variations that the government has spent £395million upgrading), is it time to move on to something bigger and better?

In my opinion, yes. It is becoming alarming, the amount of malfunctions and non-reliability issues that soldiers are seeing in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Another reason to upgrade-calibre. The 5.56 NATO isn't putting people down. It's OK in CQB where the shots are close up and regardless of calibre, the guy is going to go down. However, when it gets to 100, or 200meters, it becomes an issue. Soldiers are having to double tap-one to put them down and one to make them stay down (and if they're all messed up on drugs-probably a couple more).

I think we should move to a gun like the HK 416 or 417. Or perhaps the FN SCAR-H or Magpul ACR (Before you say its the same calibre-no it's not there's a 6.8mm version).

WHat do you guys think?

 

[Spooly]

maybe bubblegum geo 3's? would look sweet on the battlefield and would dazzle the doped up taliban

 

[shootinropez]

Spooly as much as i think this would look hella cool, probably wouldn't KILL NO FOO's (in a literal sense, on the pball field i'm sure it'd kill any fool)

 

[Spooly]

[quote="shootinropez, probably wouldn't KILL NO FOO's (in a literal sense, on the pball field i'm sure it'd kill any fool)[/quote]
true!....could bring back the bren gun!?

 

[fillingham]

Give em all cowboy hats and winchester 94's that'll confuse the hell out of them, then strike, catch jerry with his trousers down, yes
what what

 

[Spooly]

they dont like it up 'em!

 

[shootinropez]

Spooly although the BREN was an awesome weapon-it was a light support weapon-much to heavy and not nearly versatile enough to become the standard firearm of a soldier.
fillingham as fun as that sounds, doesn't really help the situation

SIDENOTE: just looked it up. it would be about £200-300 million to get rifles to the army, is this worth that sort of money?

 

[Richiemonk]

The H & K upgrades on the A2 have made a world of difference. The rifle is now light and reliable. No need to change it now. Also the poeple who pay the bills will never splash out on a new one after shelling out on upgrades....I have shot both and from experience can say that the A2 is class!!

And yes i do shoot it 4 a living

 

[fillingham]

well we shouldn't go colt, the yanks will never let us hear the end of it, i think we should either go with HK or FN, the good thing with HK is that our forces would look so agg, see what i did there?

 

[rocknroll]

Yes it'd be nice if the british army was to ditch the SA80 and replace it with something more up to date. I think despite the upgrades that have been done to the SA80 in my eyes it'll always be outdated compared to what is being used in the current war zones.

Personally, i don't think it'll happen for a long time as the cost of the new rifles and re-training every single soldier would make top brass think twice about doing the replace.