The Squadron I deployed to Afghanistan with went from having a total of 12 Browning pistols to have 160 Sig P226's (so one per man) as soon as we arrived. The British forces in general have seen a massive increase in the issue of pistols in the last couple of years due to the nature of combat in Afghanistan. We also had the squadron weapons augmented by extra LMGs and UGLs, enabling the sniper section to be equipped as a rifle section in addition to their .338s (oh, the joy of watching one of the snipers lugging around both an LMG and a .338 on a foot patrol!)
As for L85A2s, we had enough for everyone to be assigned a rifle, including the LMG gunners and sneaky sneaky snipers. Of course, when I was at KAF UK forces didn't routinely carry their weapons on camp unless the alert state went up, preferring to leave them in armoury. Even when it did go up for a couple of weeks, most of us just carried our pistols around the place and kept our other weapons in our vehicles, seeing as being on camp meant we were the QRF, and if we were off camp patrolling it was a moot point.
As an aside, every British transport helicopter I have been in has had the crew with rifles as well as their pistols - they all have rifle racks fitted to the pilot and co-pilots seats and for the loadies. I also recall reading that Apache pilots carry L85 carbines in their cockpits.
GPMGs aren't individual weapons, they were generally vehicle mounted and simply dismounted and carried in lieu of a rifle if going on a foot patrol where it was felt the firepower would be needed.
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