Weapons in the uk - in a t2k scenario

[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.