Weapons in the uk - in a t2k scenario

[headquarters]

I thought of this topic and wanted to ask the board memebers what are their thoughts. If we already did discuss and I forgot - sorry. (I did search the threads though).

As I understand there are about zero firearms owned legally in Great Britain with the exception of a small amount of shotguns and hunting rifles registered by hunters. Police and military/TA armouries are few and not very large.

As I understand it sports/competition arms are kept under lock and key by the various clubs and are restricted to a few types of precision rifles etc.

What is the actual density of fireams in the UK?

What would happen in the event of a T2K scenario in terms of the populace arming themselves?

Would you have a melee based campaign setting - more or less??

I only ask relevant to the game.. Please give me your opinions.

[simonmark6]

I'm happy to try and answer this, but I hope it doesn't collapse into an argument about UK gun laws. I know that wasn't the intent of the post so:

In 2007, England and Wales had 3,400,000 registered firearms. All of these would be shotguns and rifles, mostly in private ownership. Numbers for Scotland were 240,000 and Northern Ireland, 380,000. Average number of guns per 100 people would be about 6.

This was 2007, in a TW2K environment there would be more guns although semi-automatic guns with magazines would already be gone after the Michael Ryan massacre. The Lockerbie massacre happened in 1996 and led to legislation to ban handguns. The ban and collection of weapons didn't really start until 1997 however so it might not have been as successful in a TW2K world and, indeed, it may not have gone through in a world with escalating threats of violence.

In general, you can have five shotguns on a shotgun licence as long as they have a capacity of three rounds. Larger capacities go on your rifle licence. All rifles will generally be bolt action or low capacity semi-automatic and pump-action in no greater than .22 calibre although pistol calibre lever action guns are also present. Bolt action and lever action can be of most calibres and magazine capacity is not limited. Semi-auto rifles of larger calibres can be used but have to be converted to single shot so that the action must be manually cycled every shot (making them awkward bolt actions)

Gun clubs usually have small calibre target rifles of .177 and .22 calibre. Usually.

Another place you could get limited firearms would be a Cadet hut: many big guns were pulled in after the IRA started raiding them for weapons so most would be air rifles or .22 with the odd Lee Enfield or single shot SA 80.

Looking at a TW2K scenario, guns could be relatively commonplace: the population has reduced from 60 million to about ten so they could be very common, as much as 1 in 10 or less to really rare, it depends on how many were lost or damaged in the chaos.

I'd guess that lots of guns were cherished over human lives in the chaos and that there would be a lot more guns per 100 survivors than there are now. Most will be double barrelled shotguns and .22 rifles but there will be enough other guns to make things dangerous.

Ammunition is another issue: I doubt there'd be a lot of bullets left unless there was a local reloading industry. If I remember rightly, you can't keep more than a hundred rounds of any calibre.

Hope this helps.

[Rainbow Six]

OK, looking at this purely from a T2k point of view (I have absolutely no interest in getting into a debate / discussion about UK gun laws) it is a subject that I have tried to account for when working on my Alternative SGUK, particularly for the larger marauder groups.…I have no idea of any sort of statistics as to gun ownership (Edit - thanks simonmark6 for detailing that), however it is unquestionable that private gun ownership is much more restricted / controlled in the UK than it is in some other countries, although the situation in T2K (V1 or V2) might slightly different than it is in real life…a bit of history…in my opinion (others may differ) the policy on private ownership of weapons was heavily influenced by two events – the August 1987 Hungerford shootings, which led to the 1988 Firearms Amendment Act, which banned the ownership of semi automatic and pump action weapons and the March 1996 Dunblane shootings, which led to the 1997 Firearms Amendment Act. It was this Act and its subsequent Amendment that effectively outlawed the private possession of handguns ( said I had no interest in getting into a discussion but as part of the context of the history, the Dunblane shootings took place in a school in Scotland and created a shockwave that went through the country. I still have vivid memories of that day (I lived about twenty miles away from Dunblane) - a person whose name I can still remember without looking it up (I wont repeat it here) went into a primary (elementary) school and shot dead sixteen children and a teacher (whose name I can also remember).

You’ll see from the dates that the 1988 Act would have undoubtedly been in place in the T2K timeline but the 1997 Act is much more debatable – would the shootings have still taken place? Maybe. The War would have started by 1997 so would the Government reaction have been the same? Unknown. Even if it had been, I think the dates are such that there may have been more handguns present in private ownership than there were / are IRL.

In general though, even if you don’t have the 1997 Act in place, options for arming the general populace are going to be much, much more limited than they are in other countries. Civilian weapons would be available in small numbers – I haven’t been for some years but well after the turn of the Millenium I used to go clay pigeon shooting at a place that had several dozen (at least) double barrelled shotguns and ammunition to go with them…enough to arm a decent force…there is a gunshop close to where I live, another close to my parents house – my father buys lead shot from that one to use as nose weight for model aircraft…so I think there would be some civilian weapons…just not significant quantities (certainly not in single locations) and not military type (assault rifles, etc). There will also be weapons that are already in criminal hands as there is in real life.

There may also be a number of military and police issue firearms that might fall into the wrong hands for a number of reasons – troops turning marauder is probably the most obvious (and would probably be the most potent type of marauder group), but there could also be corrupt suppy types selling them, weapons being “lost” in the general chaos and confusion following the nuclear exchanges. In some circumstances it wouldn’t take much to make a marauder group a significant local power…finding an abandoned truck that has twenty SA80’s and several thousand rounds of ammo would probably be more than enough in some cases. You’d probably also see much more armed police as well, whilst there may have been an expansion of the Home Service Force which may have seen the issuance of more military weapons at a more local level (the HSF was essentially a form of Home Guard which was limited in size and eventually phased out totally at the end of the Cold War). Obviously both the police and the military may be overrun by the mobs in some places, losing their weapons in the process. In some areas you could possibly add small numbers of US weapons to the mix sourced from the USAF bases in England (although I think it’s highly unlikely you are going to find groups armed with large numbers of M16’s and M60’s).

A trope I’ve used in my own Alternative Survivor’s Guide to the UK has been French DGSE agents supplying weapons to marauders and separatist groups to try and keep the UK destabilised on the basis that the longer the UK remains in chaos the greater the chance France has to emerge from the War as the dominant power in Europe. After the nuclear exchanges I could see impromptu militia forces being raised…if they wanted to the Government could probably arm them with weapons taken from storage…L1A1’s, maybe even Lee Enfields (the way Milgov issued M16EZ’s to groups in the US). I’ve also used the idea of HMG unwittingly arming a marauder group after being duped into thinking they were a legitimate group.

I do think though that guns will be the exception for many groups. What you are likely to see is the rank and file armed with melee weapons, knives, sometimes taped to a broom handle, baseball bats, improvised weapons such as cricket bats, pool cues, and some firearms, probably carried by the leaders – maybe a couple of handguns, shotguns, and if they’re lucky one or two military or police issue weapons…an L1A1, a Sterling SMG or an MP5 SMG (MP5’s were, and in many cases still are, standard issue to most police firearms units). Expect ammunition to be in short supply. The larger, more organised groups, e.g. the one that did manage to find the truck with 20 SA80’s in the back, will have the potential to be significant local players as I mentioned above, whilst larger groups, if they can arm themselves sufficiently, can become regional powers.

[Bullet Magnet]

Since the Dunblane thing you mentioned was in 1996, it's possible the asswipe that did it could have been called into service (I have no idea on the UK's policy on the draft) and sent over to the continent. The whole thing might have not happened. I guess it depends somewhat on when in 1996 it happened.

[Brother in Arms]

Im pretty certain that No.4 Enfield, STEN, BREN, PIAT would all rise for the grave and rear there ugly head like the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse. Im also guessing more than a couple M27A1 Thompson and MP-40's could show up as well.

From what I have heard from some residents of the South Boston Area apparently the STEN was common in Norther Ireland. Of course the AKM, G3A3, Coveted AR-18 show up there as well, But I doubt they would be just handing them out

A UK ex pat told me he had several firearms that he took to Scotland in the early 80's and he had a hunting rifle made from a Model 1917 Enfield but re chambered from .30-06 to 7.62NATO, restocked bedded and mounting a German scope.

This makes me want to watch the original T.V. show SURVIVORS!

[Brother in Arms]

I was thinking about how grenade Grenade launchers were relatively rare in UK in the 1980's. It would be really cool to work in some old flare/gas grenade launchers maybe with home made munitions??


No.1 Mark 1 flare, tear gas gun:

http://www.sturmgewehr.com/dalbert/M...yFedLabs-2.JPG

1.5" Federal Gas Riot gun:

http://www.sportsmansoutdoorsupersto.../used-firearms

Smith and Wesson 210/276:

http://www.icollector.com/Smith-Wess...-stoc_i8788333

One of these would be an interesting "ENIGMA" weapons to have in the game for to add a little color,flare, smoke and gas into a game.

Oh or how about a Martini Greener Light Harpoon Gun???? Those have always really got my creative juices going.
http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Greener_Light_Harpoon_Gun

Just some weird ideas about some old stuff that might turn up and or add some pin ache to the weapons that might be floating around.

[mpipes]

Does everyone think the UK troops would have tried to muddle through with the dreadful SA80? The upgrade program was just getting going in 1997, and with some 350,000 to repair, they were not getting far till much later.

In my pondering, I just don't think the SA80s would have been used long by front line troops. In its unimproved state, the gun is neither reliable or well liked, having at least 50 identified faults. The L1A1s could have been pulled out of storage, but they would have made getting in and out of a Warrior or helicopter a bit of a challenge. To be sure, a lot of L1A1 would be issued, but I'm not sure mechanized infantry would have liked lugging it around.

Personally, I think the bulk of the Brits in Germany would have ended up with former East German AK-74 variants converted to 5.56mm. The UK arms industry was not, in my opinion, in a state so as to be able to turn out an acceptable substitute in the numbers required, so the UK would have to have to get weapons from someplace. The Germans literally had tens of thousand AK variants sitting around, and no where near the manpower demands for all of them in 1996. The other alternative would be the US M-16A1 or A2 and its Canadian copy, but I believe most US manufacturing capacity would be directed to getting new US units armed.

Any thoughts?

[StainlessSteelCynic]

My thoughts on the SA80 family.

There were definitely problems with the L85A1 but they were not as dreadful as the media and the haters like to make out. A lot of the criticism was opinionated and ill-informed and regurgitated by people who had never been in the military or studied military firearms.
To quote Ian Hogg from the book "Military Small Arms of the 20th Century" published in 1990,
"…the first five years of this rifle's service have been disastrous. A number of manufacturing defects showed up in service conditions, and it was not until the closure of the RSAF at Enfield and the setting up of an entirely new production line, with new computer-controlled machine tools, at the new RSAF Nottingham, that the quality of the production weapons began to improve. It will take some time for the poor reputation gained by the initial issue weapons to be overcome; the only consolation is that the same sort of thing has happened to other military rifles in the past, and they have managed to live down their early reputation and prove their innate reliability. It is to be hoped that the L85A1 will do so as well."

The serious problems like the exposed magazine release and bad plastic for the furniture could be corrected easy enough. The reliability problems were largely caused by poor quality of materials and poor quality manufacture. As noted by Hogg, many of these issues were problems stemming from the first production line at RSAF Enfield. Once the production was switched to a new centre at Nottingham, some of the production quality issues cleared up but they still used low grade materials for much of the manufacture. These problems did not go away so easily and resulted in the rebuild programme in 2000 that lead to the L85A2.

Having had the opportunity to use the L85A1 over several days in early 1990, in my mind, the only significant long-term issues were it's inability to lose heat quickly when it was fired continuously and the weight compared to other 5.56mm rifles. Even the problem of the bolt group flying out the back during disassembly could be overcome by proper training in strip/assemble of the weapon.
All the other issues were a result of badly managed development/production, probably as a result of the desire to rush it into service as a British answer to the 5.56mm rifle (when it was originally meant to fire a 4.85mm round).

I personally believe that in the 2nd Edition timeline, with a potential war looming the product development would have been accelerated and these teething problem would have been corrected so the rifle could be issued to frontline troops. The rebuild programme of 2000 would have occurred much sooner because HM Government would not be cutting back on defence spending as they did in real life.

As for carrying the L1A1 and embussing or debussing a vehicle or helicopter, it's not really an issue, you learn how to carry your gear so it doesn't cause a problem. The squaddies you should really feel sorry for are the ones who had to carry the Charlie G or the Milan.
And as for mech infantry not liking carrying the L1A1, they did it in the past and in regards to the 2nd Ed. timeline it was the very recent past. Most of them would just be changing back to a rifle they had been carrying only a few years earlier when many of them were still carted around in the FV432.

[CDAT]

So a question, reading over this is L used like we here in the states us M or Mk? By that I guess I am asking is L1 and L2 totaly different weapons just L2 came out after L1, where L1A1 would be the updated version of the L1?

[Rainbow Six]

I don't know the origins of it, but an L is used to denote British Army weapons (apparently it stands for Land Service) and is used for everything from pistols to 165mm guns. As others have stated it can get confusing for the same combination of numbers and letters can refer to different weapons, so it's used in conjunction with a description, e.g. L1A1 Self Loading Rifle. A higher number does not automatically mean that weapon is newer - e.g. the L118 light gun came into service long before the L85 assault rifle or the L105 pistol (I suppose it's the same as the US, with the M4 being newer than the M16).

Wiki has a listing of the more common L numbers

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...apon_L_numbers

[StainlessSteelCynic]

The L numbers came out of a formal agreement between four major English speaking Western nations, the UK, the USA, Canada and Australia.
I can't find the specifics but the agreement dealt with ground forces equipment and to a lesser extent, commonality of ground forces gear.
Ground forces equipment manufactured or adapted for service by the various countries would be given an alphanumeric label with a single letter prefix to identify its origin as follows: -
the UK - L prefix
the USA - M prefix
Canada - C prefix
Australia - F prefix

Various items adopted for service that were procured from one of the other countries generally tended to keep its original designation although this was not by any means guaranteed.
In Australia, you could easily see these alphanumeric labels in action in the Infantry, particularly in regards to our GPMG. We had a US machinegun with a British tripod using a Canadian ancillary sight and we fed it with Australian ammunition.
So you had the M60 GPMG on the L4 tripod using the C2 sight with F (something or other) ammunition.

As far as I have been able to find, the X prefix was decided upon for experimental items although the only definite cases I have seen have been from the USA and Australia so this may very well have been informal.

The various nations use this alphanumeric label also to track changes in a given item. The most obvious case of this can be seen with the AR-15 series of rifles, it started in US Army service as the M16, then updated to the M16A1, M16A2, -A3 and -A4.

So for the UK, the modification and adoption of the FN FAL saw it given the designation L1A1, Australia adopted the L1A1 without any significant changes so it retained its L1A1 designation. I believe Canada made some minor changes to the sights and thus designated their version the C1A1.

When Australia did make a change to the L1A1 rifle, there were two variants. For the first, changing the design to a support weapon required the use of a heavier barrel, a new rear sight and the fitting of a bipod. This resulted in the Automatic Rifle, 7.62mm L2A1.
For the second, it was decided that the change was not significant enough to warrant a totally new designation. The change involved shortening the barrel length and the butt length to allow ease of use for Papua New Guinean troops who were generally shorter than the Europeans the rifle was originally designed for.
This shortening of the L1A1 resulted in a hybrid designation, it's known as the L1A1-F1.
At one point we locally manufactured a somewhat modified version of the M72 LAW rocket under the designation M72A2-F1.

Bare in mind that the labelling procedure goes something like this: Self Loading Rifle, 7.62mm, L1A1; Automatic Rifle, 7.62mm, L2A1 and so on
Things get really crazy when the various labelling committees lack imagination (or perhaps, interest?) so different items are given the same designation.
For example, in Australia during the 1960s-80s period we had the following: -
submachinegun, 9mm, F1
truck, cargo, 5ton, general service, F1
radio set, PRC-F1
grenade, fragmentaion, F1

So you can have situations like one guy in my first unit who was a driver and typically issued an SMG as a personal weapon. He was a range sentry for one exercise and was given a radio for that job. He was driving the F1 truck, carrying the F1 SMG and given the F1 radio for comms.