RAF & Navy hardware looking quite modern nowadays

[citizensm1th]

NMNeil said:

Oilchange said:

When I was in the Army I learnt, much to my disgust, that the sugar cube sized explosive content in the Elsie anti personnel mine was designed to blow the leg off from the knee down.

Which appears to be an updated version of the German S mine, which was specifically designed to literally blow your balls off.

The thing that played on my mind the most was the tactical thermo nuclear chicken.

Poor little foghorn leghorn

[Evanivitch]

hidetheelephants said:

Tell that to the Royal Artillery; MLRS is rather less useful without submunitions, which were banned alongside mines.

Which is why it became GMLRS and a whole chunk useful again...

And to clarify, you can have submunitions, but they have to be reliably fused.

[Oilchange]

citizensm1th said:

Oilchange said:

When I was in the Army I learnt, much to my disgust, that the sugar cube sized explosive content in the Elsie anti personnel mine was designed to blow the leg off from the knee down.

Wars a grubby business so you may as well make it as efficient as possible

Yeah, when I was young I was ambivalent to guns, tanks and bombers, just part of war but landmines? They just weren't cricket.

[Psycho Warren]

LP12 said:

It is hugely accurate, very pointy (so good for CQB), but FAR too heavy IMO.

I am not so sure that the A1 was THAT bad - it just wasn't Squaddie proof (in terms of replacing the L1A1)

Being Navy, for half my career we had A1's and then A2's and to be fair, the A1's were mostly fine on the range but prone to failure in the real world where it matters. Lots and lots of cleaning seemed to help.

With the A1's I made a point of cleaning the supposedly clean range issued weapon myself as they were unloved and often not properly cleaned as they arent personally issued. Other wise, as I found out to my cost, you would end up having to do stoppage drills during your weapons test on the range which is annoying.

A2's never had an issue even in desert conditions.

Bullpup shape and handleability makes up for the excess weight but a lighter version, perhaps reengineered with a polymer or light alloy TMH like many modern rifles would save a bit of weight which in real world means a couple of extra mags able to be carried per bod which is a considerable advantage.

I liked the L85 for CQB, it was what we used on ship for CQB, but its a shame the design made left handed shooting impossible. But thats a bullpup issue generally - only a few modern bullpups are ambi. You can left hand fire with it tilted over 90 degrees but not recommended and still not very stealthy or tactical when coming around a right hand corner especially if you want to minimise exposure. Better than doing it right handed around a right hand corner but still st.

But then its ok for what it is and for the average sailor only doing the odd bit of CQB in the rare incidence of an intruder, fine. For more professional users, you would use a different weapon platform more orientated to CQB or use different tactics to negate the disadvantage.

[Psycho Warren]

citizensm1th said:

The thing that played on my mind the most was the tactical thermo nuclear chicken.

Poor little foghorn leghorn

Like one of these?

[NMNeil]

IroningMan said:

It can be interesting to reflect on some of the contrasts; from the commander's seat spraying a couple of boxes of 7.62mm downrange was a trivial business, and coax shooting wasn't often taken very seriously - beyond tracer burn-out you can't even see the stuff land, so meh.

Depends on how many rounds are in a box
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIlwHT4IdRc

[hidetheelephants]

Evanivitch said:

hidetheelephants said:

Tell that to the Royal Artillery; MLRS is rather less useful without submunitions, which were banned alongside mines.

Which is why it became GMLRS and a whole chunk useful again...

And to clarify, you can have submunitions, but they have to be reliably fused.

What are the requirements for the fusing; I remember the argument at the time was that making a device the size of a squash ball reliably failsafe wasn't practicable, but my memory may be playing tricks or it might just have been nonsense to begin with.

[Ayahuasca]

Oilchange said:

When I was in the Army I learnt, much to my disgust, that the sugar cube sized explosive content in the Elsie anti personnel mine was designed to blow the leg off from the knee down.

How did you feel about bayonets?

[hidetheelephants]

Ayahuasca said:

Oilchange said:

When I was in the Army I learnt, much to my disgust, that the sugar cube sized explosive content in the Elsie anti personnel mine was designed to blow the leg off from the knee down.

How did you feel about bayonets?

They don't like it up 'em.

[citizensm1th]

Ayahuasca said:

How did you feel about bayonets?

Great for cleaning your fingernails and can lead to highly amusing times when some dumb ass gets caught sharpening them.

I know they have been used recently but I for one think a bullpup type weapon is a tad to short for a bayonet.

It's a good moral booster though, fix bayonets certainly fires up the blood

[Evanivitch]

hidetheelephants said:

Evanivitch said:

hidetheelephants said:

Tell that to the Royal Artillery; MLRS is rather less useful without submunitions, which were banned alongside mines.

Which is why it became GMLRS and a whole chunk useful again...

And to clarify, you can have submunitions, but they have to be reliably fused.

What are the requirements for the fusing; I remember the argument at the time was that making a device the size of a squash ball reliably failsafe wasn't practicable, but my memory may be playing tricks or it might just have been nonsense to begin with.

At the end of the day, scattering HE across the battlefield with a fail-safe fuse is undesirable too! Someone could still do something stupid like throw it on a fire.

You want reliability, which is usually something at or beyond a SIL2 level. However, realistically things have moved on from the days of carpet bombing, grid square destroying, and into the realms of limited collateral and precision effects.

Should the need arise, I'm sure we could put something together quickly enough as we already have the payload capability available in missiles and artillery.

[LP12]

Psycho Warren said:

I liked the L85 for CQB, it was what we used on ship for CQB, but its a shame the design made left handed shooting impossible. But thats a bullpup issue generally - only a few modern bullpups are ambi.

I fired the prototype (in 4.85mm calibre) of what woud become the L85 at the then School of Infantry at Warminster in 1982. At that time the weapon was ambidextrous - ie you had versions with the cocking handle on both the RHS and LHS.

I was told that there were some concerns about Squaddies getting their hands on a fully automatic rifle (unlike the L1A1) that would lead to NDs and weapon safety issues. Hence the cocking handle was put on the wrong (RHS) side so as to make the weapon more difficult to bring into action.

Of course that rather screwed over left handed people (because the weapon can only be fired from the right shoulder) but, more importantly, really rather messed with right handers who are left eye dominant.

[Oilchange]

hidetheelephants said:

Ayahuasca said:

Oilchange said:

When I was in the Army I learnt, much to my disgust, that the sugar cube sized explosive content in the Elsie anti personnel mine was designed to blow the leg off from the knee down.

How did you feel about bayonets?

They don't like it up 'em.

Mm, never really thought much about it, honestly.

[aeropilot]

The sorry saga of the Ajax AFV has finally made the mass media then......yet another feather in the cap of MOD procurement......

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57348573

[BritishBlitz87]

Oilchange said:

Just the thought that "this amount was quite enough, we only want to take off his leg up to the knee."
Made me shudder.

I'd rather get sent home to my family missing a foot than missing both legs or not at all. Especially these days when prosthetic limbs mean you might not be stuck in a wheelchair.

Normally if you have an option to disable your attacker then killing them outright would be considered the morally worse thing to do.

[hidetheelephants]

aeropilot said:

The sorry saga of the Ajax AFV has finally made the mass media then......yet another feather in the cap of MOD procurement......

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57348573

I thought we'd got over the idea that deafening tankies was a good idea in the 1920s? Who signs off on this st and what share options were they handed by GD?

[Evanivitch]

hidetheelephants said:

I thought we'd got over the idea that deafening tankies was a good idea in the 1920s? Who signs off on this st and what share options were they handed by GD?

AFVs are still loud to this day. The question is usually less about how loud is it, and more how good is your hearing protection.

[Psycho Warren]

aeropilot said:

The sorry saga of the Ajax AFV has finally made the mass media then......yet another feather in the cap of MOD procurement......

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57348573

Not surprised at all. However some contractors will get very rich out of it and some senior army and civil servants will soon have board level jobs and cushy benefits packages from the companies they helped win the contracts.........

BritishBlitz87 said:

I'd rather get sent home to my family missing a foot than missing both legs or not at all. Especially these days when prosthetic limbs mean you might not be stuck in a wheelchair.

Normally if you have an option to disable your attacker then killing them outright would be considered the morally worse thing to do.

If we are being cynical then Probably not so good in this country when said soldier comes back, looses his job, gets denied benefits because of a screw up with the SVPA and benefits people over the pension payments. Then finally when rehabilitated, looses all disability benefits and help as they now class him as "not disabled" at a PIP assessment because he fought in agony to get up the deliberately placed 3 steps to the doctors office rather than refuse. Maybe then runs out of money, looses house, ends up in st accommodation, extra strain kills his marriage, ends up alone and penniless etc etc etc.

[Boom78]

hidetheelephants said:

aeropilot said:

The sorry saga of the Ajax AFV has finally made the mass media then......yet another feather in the cap of MOD procurement......

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57348573

I thought we'd got over the idea that deafening tankies was a good idea in the 1920s? Who signs off on this st and what share options were they handed by GD?

I don’t get this either, surely the prototypes were fully tested against a requirement before any commitment to buy and roll out were made? Seems v weird unless story is a load of nonsense? If story is true then can we reject the dross we’ve purchased? Basic contract guff

[aeropilot]

Boom78 said:

hidetheelephants said:

aeropilot said:

The sorry saga of the Ajax AFV has finally made the mass media then......yet another feather in the cap of MOD procurement......

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57348573

I thought we'd got over the idea that deafening tankies was a good idea in the 1920s? Who signs off on this st and what share options were they handed by GD?

I don’t get this either, surely the prototypes were fully tested against a requirement before any commitment to buy and roll out were made? Seems v weird unless story is a load of nonsense? If story is true then can we reject the dross we’ve purchased? Basic contract guff

Doesn't work like that in todays world, and hasn't for decades.
I suspect also that some fair degree of spec-shift by MOD has happened post contract if that is true about the ludicrous tonnage increase, no doubt without wanting to pay to redesign it properly to accommodate the changes.....