An Australian Morrow Project

[ChalkLine]

Hi guys. I've been thinking idly about an Australian Morrow Project (name to be decided) so I was wondering what specifically signature weapons the Project would use in Oz. Remember that The Morrow Project prefers to use weapons not associated with the armed forces.

Standard Military small arms of Australia during the Morrow Project's duration were;

- L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle (semi-auto FAL 'inch') 7.62x51mm
- F88 Austeyr Assault Rifle (Steyr AUG) 5.56x45mm
- EF88 Austeyr Assault Rifle (F90) 5.56x45mm
- HK416 Assault Rifle 5.56x45mm
- Sterling SMG 9x19mm
- Self-Loading Pistol 9 millimetre Mark 3 (Browning Hi-Power) 9x19mm
- Parker-Hale M82 7.62x51mm
- SR-98 (Accuracy International Arctic Warfare) 7.62x51mm
- Heckler & Koch HK417 Marksman Rifle 7.62x51mm
- F89 Minimi Light machine gun 5.56x45mm
- Maximi Light machine gun 7.62x51mm
- FN MAG 58 General-purpose machine gun 7.62x51mm

Note that Australian special forces tend to use similar weapons to US special forces so such weapons as the M4 are also found in the ADF

[mmartin798]

Originally Posted by ChalkLine

Remember that The Morrow Project prefers to use weapons not associated with the armed forces.

Is this a restriction you have in your game? No where in either 3rd or 4th edition can I find a mention that the weapons are not associated with the armed forces. Quite the contrary, in mentions that teams are likely to meet survivors that may have recovered military weapons and vehicles and that the teams are to be armed up to be at least as strong or stronger than expected resistance to achieve "peace through superior firepower" if necessary. Using standard weapons of the resident military also allows for easy sharing of ammo and spare parts in both directions. This seems to correspond well with the MARS role of Military Assistance as well.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Hey Chalkie,
Some minor corrections to your weapons list.

The Sterling SMG was not in general use, the suppressed version, the L34A1, was used by SASR. They also used a few variants of the MP5 series SMGs.
Other units used the F1 SMG. I am unaware of any units using the Sterling in its standard L2 variant.
Depending on your start time for an Australian version of the Project, then the Owen Gun could still be in armouries (it was still on issue in the 1960s and was in war reserve in the 1970s).

And while mentioning the war reserve, there were thousands of .303 SMLEs in storage until the late 1980s.
If you're including the L1A1 SLR, then you should also add the L2A1 Automatic Rifle version and also the M16A1, M16A1 with M203, the M60 GPMG and M79 (all of simliar vintage). And you should also add the 7.62mm version of the Bren Gun, the only one I know from personal experience was the L4A2 but there could have been other variants in Aussie service.
The Australian military were also using .38 revolvers into the mid-1980s although I would have to check some books to find out if they were Colts or Smith & Wessons.

Again, depending on your timeline, the HK416, HK417 and Maximi didn't come into service until the 21st century. Some units also had SR-25 marksman's rifles by the late 1990s (they were fielded in East Timor).
And if you want a little exotica for the military, the Army's OpFor training group had a number of AKMs and RPDs.

[ChalkLine]

I must admit I confused the Sterling with the F1 :hangs head in OCD shame:

I'm thinking of having The Morrow Project establish an Australian project and using XM8 series weapons and other HK Gucci kit

[StainlessSteelCynic]

There's a strong precedence in the region for HK smallarms. Aside from Pakistan manufacturing various iterations of the MP5 & G3, Thailand, Malaysia, Burma and even Papua New Guinea were using the HK33 and/or HK53 at some stage so there's already a presence that may have a positive influence on a decision to use the XM8 family.

I don't think you need to enforce the disassociation with smallarms in use by the military though, if I remember right, the Project did use such items as the M16A1, M203 and M60 which were very much in use with the US military at the time.

[ChalkLine]

I've got no idea where I got that 'the Project likes to remain distinctive' and I've only read the 4th edition, maybe it was on a blog somewhere.

I wonder if there should have been a small Project presence that picked up in a sudden so most caches are new but there's some old ones.