L1A1 in the Twilight War

[Jason Weiser]

A question to our UK readers?
I know officially, the L1A1 was history by '94 (or so Wiki tells us), but what are the chances that late mobilizing TA battalions (or some TA battalions in general, especially the Saxon equipped units) might have still soldiered on with the L1A1, or had L1A1s issued throughout to replace lost L85s?

[Rainbow Six]

I would be surprised if there weren't significant numbers of SLR's kept in storage at least to the end of the 90's, so whilst I don't have any concrete evidence to support this, in my opinion chances of some units still having L1A1's in the Twilight War would be high. Maybe not so much in TA Infantry Battalions, which I would imagine might have fully switched to the L85 but certainly in non Infantry units, both TA and Regular, particularly those in the UK.

[CDAT]

As I am American I can not say about that specific rifle, but can say that when I joined the US Army in 1993 official the M9 had replaced the M1911 in 1985 and had been sent to all units, my first unit still had the M1911, weither by oversight, the unit draging its feet or what I can not say but it was almost ten years after every Army unit had the M9 before we got it. So I would say it is very possable for some to be left, even have a unit that had some in there arms room or what ever they call it.

The second thought that I had is that the L1A1 is the UK counterpart to the US M14, all M14's were pulled from general service but most were placed in storage and have been brought out for Afganistan. I could see the UK doing the same as they are at least (if not more) intelligent as the US Politicians.

[Raellus]

Considering the RL teething troubles of the early production L85s, especially given the v1.0 timeline, I can imagine that the SLR would have had quite a resurgence during WWIII.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Although this is what I saw in the Australian Army when they replaced our L1A1 SLRs with the F88 Austeyr, I could see a similar occurrence in the British Army.
Here, the F88 was accepted for service in 1988 with most of the early issue going to Regular Army Infantry regiments. Non-Infantry units and some Reserve units only started to receive the F88 in the early 1990s with widespread distribution being achieved by the mid-1990s.

In this case, the obsolete rifle took about 6 years to be completely replaced in service and keep in mind the Australian Army was small, around the 40,000 mark for total personnel (both Regular and Reserve).
The British Army appears to have taken about 8 years to effect their changeover because even though their priority would have been much higher due to NATO commitments, they had about 6-8 times the number of battalions that the Aussie Army had.

So with that said, even if the last batch of SLRs were phased out of British service in 1994, they would still be in the system for some time due to two reasons in particular: -
1. it takes some time to dispose of tens of thousands of items particularly when it comes to military weapons!
2. a decent stockpile would have been held as war reserves for several years
So if the Twilight War starts up in the mid-90s, I can image the SLR would be available to the British military in substantial numbers.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by CDAT

As I am American I can not say about that specific rifle, but can say that when I joined the US Army in 1993 official the M9 had replaced the M1911 in 1985 and had been sent to all units, my first unit still had the M1911, weither by oversight, the unit draging its feet or what I can not say but it was almost ten years after every Army unit had the M9 before we got it. So I would say it is very possable for some to be left, even have a unit that had some in there arms room or what ever they call it.

We had a similar experience with weapons when I was in. The first unit, 2/7 INF, had M1911s and M16A2s. In Korea, we had M9s, but a mix of M16A2s and M16A1s with A2 handguards. Later, when I got to the 82nd, we had M1911s and M16A2s (later replaced with M4s).

What really surprised me was the lack of SINGCARS when I first got to the 82nd. I thought that (after SOCOM-types) the 82nd got the best stuff first.

[Ironside]

There were L1A1s kept in storage but there was a large fire in 1983 at the Central Ordnance Depot at Donnington in Shropshire, and the majority of the L1A1 spare parts were destroyed.

This seems to have speeded up the deployment of the SA80.

There was another fire there in 1988!

[rcaf_777]

I found out that Canada had it stock plié up till 2002

[dude_uk]

Yes and no. Its dependant on a lot of factors. Cutting it short,You would not see the SA80 being handled by units outside the UK. I would expect war production to mount up and for a brief period the vast amount of kit would be the last created, (So Challenger 2's instead of 1, Warrior instead of FV432 etc)

The initial order for the SA80 was for 300,000 rifles (Including LSW's). This was to be completed by 1991. (This is manufactured by, not issued to all units by 1991).However these were to be divided between all 3 services. So what needs to be factored in:

1) Is there a pre-war second round of manufacturing?

2) Is there a wartime round of manufacturing?

Someone on this forum once said that the UK kept large quantities of Lee-Enfields greased up and in storage for a VERY long time. So keeping large quantities of L1A1's and L4's in storage would fit. I would expect them to be issued to hostilities only raised units designed for UK home defence.

I could see the UK doing the same as they are at least (if not more) intelligent as the US Politicians.

We sold our last aircraft carrier!

[.45cultist]

I know a handful of inch kits were imported here, but metric kits buried them. A gentleman I know who carried one in a former UK client had to settle for an IMBEL kit rifle. BTW, he misses the aluminum land rover too! "If we got stuck, everyone got out and picked it up and moved it onto better ground."

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by dude_uk

We sold our last aircraft carrier!

Technically we still have an aircraft carrier at the moment (Illustrious, although not for much longer) - it was the aircraft that could fly off her that we got shot of!

[mpipes]

I picked up a mismatched L1A1 parts set at some point in the 90s and had it built on a semi inch pattern receiver. Cool thing about it...the butt stock has two kill marks, small 'x', carved in it. A collector I know got a former British issue L1A1 imported from Canada in the late 80s that had seven.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

Technically we still have an aircraft carrier at the moment (Illustrious, although not for much longer) - it was the aircraft that could fly off her that we got shot of!

What do you plan to do with your F-35s? (Bin 'em, I say...)

[Targan]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

What do you plan to do with your F-35s? (Bin 'em, I say...)

Ouch. Australia has committed rather a lot of money to the F-35 program. Will the end result be that bad?

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

What do you plan to do with your F-35s? (Bin 'em, I say...)

The F35's are slated for the two new Carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, which are currently being built and are scheduled to come into service towards the end of the decade (at the earliest), but there's a lot of speculation that Prince of Wales will go straight into storage / reserve rather than ever see service, potentially leaving the RN with the Queen Elizabeth as the only carrier in service.

Our only carrier currently in service is HMS Illustrious, which flew the Harrier until we got rid of all of our Harriers a couple of years ago, leaving us with an aircaft carrier but no aircraft that could be flown off her, so Illustrious is currently serving as a helicopter carrier while HMS Ocean is in refit and is due to be retired later this year when Ocean's refit is completed, leaving us with no aircraft carrier whatsoever until Queen Elizabeth comes into service.

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by Targan

Ouch. Australia has committed rather a lot of money to the F-35 program. Will the end result be that bad?

You've just reminded me that the latest edition of Air Forces Monthly has what seems to be quite a detailed article on the current Royal Australian Air Force. Must pick a copy up this week.

[.45cultist]

I just read a story saying the Queen Elizabeth is expected to launch in 2015. Could they be prioritizing her build? The story also said the sailors would have a smart phone app to find their way around, I went . Granted I'm only an former Air Force Transportation guy, but wouldn't it's crew become familiar with their ship?
Back on topic, I'm inspired to make a former Brit NPC with an L1A1 parts gun now. I've been thinking of a civilian party centering on a small gun club. This would have a mix of careers linked to a useful postwar skillset.

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by .45cultist

I just read a story saying the Queen Elizabeth is expected to launch in 2015. Could they be prioritizing her build?

I'm no expert but I think we're both right. The shell of the ship (ie something that wont sink if put in water) will be ready either later this year or next year at the latest. However there is still then several years of work to be done before it begins to resemble a completed ready for service warship. According to wiki timeline is likely to be something like this:

2009 - construction began

July 2014 - ship launched

July 2014 - May 2016 - internal construction completed, with crew ready to come aboard May 2016 (at which point they might need their smartphone app!)

Oct 2016 - sea trials begin

2018 - F35 operations begin

2020 - ship attains "operational military capability"

Construction on the Prince of Wales began in 2011 so logically she should be two years behind the Queen Elizabeth. There was an article in one newspaper that usually knows what it's talking about (not the Daily Mail) a while ago though that said the Navy were informally referring to Prince of Wales as HMS Portsmouth Pier because she would never leave dock.

[.45cultist]

The war rushes fitting the ship and the crew finds a few L1A1's in their locker! And the war renders the smartphones rather dumb..... best of both topics here.

[rcaf_777]

Here is what happened to the Canada's FN stockpile

http://forums.navy.ca/forums/index.p...=34042.20;wap2

Here is link for those of you who want to know more about Military Service Rifles used by Canada

http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/weapons/rifles.htm

[.45cultist]

My response is a COC violation, at least part them up and export what isn't needed for DMR support. Too bad a Canadian citizen can't have one! The DMR idea will make it into my game though.

[pmulcahy11b]

My impression of the F-35 is that it is a limited aircraft with a limited mission -- primarily penetration of heavy radar and SEAD. (I actually think it would be better to use the F-35 as a Wild Weasel, something that has been discussed in various think tanks and publications like Jane's and Combat Aircraft magazine.) It has a limited ordnance load and not much ability to defend itself -- to me, it comes out looking more like a super-F117 than anything else. And it's way too much money than we have to spend right now -- not much bang for the buck.

Oh well -- at least it's not a Raptor...

[.45cultist]

It sounds like this shiny new tech contributes to the Twilight war premise, it rapidly becomes paperweights and scrap.

[James Langham2]

I'm back with a new user name - I will try and upload a newer version of my UK small arms guide that might be useful as soon as I can.

IRL many SLRs went to places like Sierra Leone (including some that inquiries into Bloody Sunday had been told were destroyed).

Unlike the USA we have not reissued the older rifles but bought a new rifle in 7.62 as a DMR.

[Targan]

Wait, why do you need a new username, James?

[James Langham2]

Originally Posted by Targan

Wait, why do you need a new username, James?

Forgotten old password and no longer have access to my old e-mail account.

[kato13]

PM me with your old email address and I will update it to your new one.

edit
You can keep posting on the new account until we confirm you have access to the original one. I will merge both into your original account.

[Brother in Arms]

I used to work for the much derided century international arms/ century arms international. And while I didn't work there in the 80's (mid 2000's)
So hopefully I can give ya some history regarding them here in the US. But ill try to only cover the "L1A1 type" rifles.

But I began my gun studying and learning at that time. Throughout most of the 80 and early 90's all saw in the US for FN FAL type rifles were British L1A1's built on mostly metric (IMBEL and FMAP Argentine recievers, and some had Imbel but modified to accept INCH magazines!!)

Most I saw had the black Marynol (spelling?)Furniture though some had wood both British and Austrailian and most had black stoving on them but some were blued. Some later ones had crummy thumb hole stock on them for import purposes and had the flash hiders cut off and the barrels recrowned.

For the most part these early guns while mix masters (jokingly called MINCH for Metric and INCH) but where pretty solid rifles. Specifically because century didn't make or subcontract the receivers to US companies. Most of these guns used metric magazines but I saw some that used INCH. With the Inch cut guns you could sometimes use Metric mags in them also but they were wobbly.

Century eventually they started building guns with US receivers but the quality was really hit or miss, some decent and some totally don't function and or cannot reliably. Here is a decent thread of some of those makers

http://www.militaryfirearm.com/Forum...nd-information


As for other common wealth rifles. I have hardly never seen any Canadian C1 or C2 rifles. they are very rare in any form here in the U.S. hardly ever as parts kits. Which makes me think the Canuks have probably hung onto them in storage. I have seen some Aussie rifles, but far more as parts kits later on say in the early 2000's. Also I have seen some L2A1 LMGs built as semi auto rifles. And a few parts kits. I did aquire some of the 30 round canadian magazines which are excellent unlike the 30 round L4A1 magazines from the 7.62 NATO BREN these are unreliable in the L1A1 but look super "Ally" as you blokes put it.

Keep in mind these where all Semi-auto only rifles unless converted to full auto before 1986 by licensed manufacturers of machine guns. That being said I have seen several that had been converted to select fire by back woods bubba gun hack types.

Eventually century couldn't easily get L1A1's anymore and started importing G1, R1A1,STG-58, but that really wasn't until the midish to latish 90's. They made a very small run of L1A1's when I was there in 2006 and I think it was the last of the inch parts. Though they where still making various Metric rifles till 2010 or so.

Hopefully that was useful to someone
Brother in Arms

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Just to add a few comments to what Brother in Arms had to say, for some clarity, here in Australia the L1A1 is the Self Loading Rifle (most commonly aka the SLR) and the L2A1 is the Automatic Rifle (less commonly aka the AR). I'm not sure if the other Commonwealth nations followed the same nomenclature.

The problem with the L4 Bren mags is the spring, it's not strong enough.
They were designed as top loaders so didn't need as much force to push the rounds down whereas the C2 and L2 30-rd mags were designed as bottom loaders and needed a more powerful spring to push the rounds up. We had orders specifically forbidding any mix & match of the mags from the two because while the L2 mag works well enough on the L4, the reverse doesn't "reliably" hold true.
Having said that, I never actually saw many proper L4 mags in use in Australia. Most of the L4 Brens I saw or used were issued with L2 mags

Also, in regards to converting the SLR to full auto, it's not that much of a problem if you "know where to look". The SLRs are built the same way as the FAL rifles, that is to say, they are capable of full-auto from the start because the trigger mechanism wasn't designed to prevent full-auto. This is the reason the "matchstick trick" worked
The indent for the full-auto setting is still built into the receiver even though the British decided to redesign the FAL as a semi-auto only rifle.

The SLR has a pin inserted at a specific place to prevent the trigger mechanism from engaging the full-auto setting and it uses a slightly longer trigger plunger than the AR. I don't know for certain if the SLR trigger plunger is the same length as the plunger used in the FAL (taking into account metric to inch conversions) but they might very well be about the same length.
I'd hazard a guess and say removing this pin is the most common way of backyard gunsmiths converting the SLR to full-auto.

(While the Aussie SAS certainly used this knowledge during the Vietnam War to convert some SLRs to select-fire, they also converted a number of the ARs by removing bipods and other extraneous features. These cut down ARs are often incorrectly attributed in books/magazines as SLRs modified in the field to allow full auto. An understandable enough mistake given the almost identical look of the two, the only certain way to identify the modified ARs from the modified SLRs is to check the rear sight)

[rcaf_777]

Originally Posted by Brother in Arms

I have hardly never seen any Canadian C1 or C2 rifles. they are very rare in any form here in the U.S. hardly ever as parts kits. Which makes me think the Canuks have probably hung onto them in storage.

As stated above the Canadian C1 rifle, C2A1 LSW and the Navy's C1D rifle were retired from active service in 1984, and placed in storage till 2006 when he stockpile was destroyed. The same fate happen the C1 Submachine Gun Canada's version of the Sterling submachine gun.

As they were stored with no though of further use and the fact that they were classified illegal weapons under Canadian law, destruction was the only option, and Canada has also publicly stated that is dose sell guns on the open market.

I believe that if Australia had sold any of their L1A1 to civilians they would have handed in and destroyed after the Port Arthur massacre, in which 35 people were killed by a lone gunman with a AR-15 Carbine.