BRITISH ARMY: Infantry Equipment of the 1980s

[@WanderlustZero]

SA80s, woollie pullies, DPM camo and Saxon... Cold War classics! I miss those days

[@mikegillard7283]

He didn't mention the forward assist or the fact that the SA80 provided hours of entertainment if you dropped it, lego bricks came to mind!

[@BashingBambi]

It didn’t have a forward assist in the A1, that was an attempt to improve reliability on the A2. Unfortunately it wasn’t much use as a forward assist and I believe that it’s no longer taught that way. The reason a forward assist is a bad idea is simply because if a round won’t feed why try and jam it into the chamber! It should be discarded and the next round in the magazine chambered.

[@alangordon3283]

It wasn’t anything like that.

[@mephistoXFC459V]

"The underlying assumptions are that our defence requirements will remain largely unchanged into the next century. Specifically, [...] the Warsaw Pact will remain the most prominent threat to Britain." 🤔

[@johnallen7807]

And 5 years later the Berlin wall came down and in 1991 the USSR disintegrated lol.

[@johnnyzippo7109]

Agghhhh , some FRESH Mike Golf !

[@harrypalmer6228]

Back when the Regular Army was over 150k people

[@coolhandab5296]

I started laughing literally uncontrollably when the SA80 was first up. “Accurate, reliable.” Yep I wasn’t disappointed! Also claiming that 5.56 is better than 7.62 within 800 yards. Lol

[@johnburnett8297]

SA80 easier to use and more dependable than an SLR, almost pissed myself laughing.

[@kiwigrunt330]

The sort of thing a civil servant would say. (See what I did there?)

[@commissarmartin]

I'd never heard about the Merlin guided mortar round project. I assume it never came to anything or it would be more well known. THe British army are great at coming up with ideas for good kit and then totally failing to make it work or putting the money up to buy it!

[@JohnSmith-ei2pz]

The Army was welcome to that shyte rifle! We still had SLR or pick-axe handles in the raf!

[@iainthompson6147]

Cheers dits

[@bradleywayne3943]

I tried holding off from the comments, but about two minutes into the SA-80 I had to come down to the comments to see if any current or former serving Brits had any REAL say about the damned thing. Coincidentally, I recently came across an article out of an archived edition of a U.K. magazine from the 80s, 'Combat and Survival' I think, anyhoo even then those dudes were pushing all this B.S. and they were testing the M16, Ruger Mini-14 variants, FNCs, and a couple others I can't remember all the ones mentioned in the article. But even considering the bullshit we went through with the M16, the SA80 has by far way more wrong and for a lot longer and I believe was/is the absolute worst Individual Infantry Combat Rifle (Weapon System) ever to be issued to Military Troops in the world. Shit, they (U.K.) gave their satellite colonies Defense Forces the damned Ruger AC-556GB around the same time 'they' issued mainland forces with the SA80, and that tiny little island just recently traded out those mini-14s for G36's. Rotten just rotten, super happy I never had to carry the damned thing, anyway, just a little "Service Related Rant" from your Ole Uncle Brad, just trolling the Inter-Webs. You're welcome Internet. RLTW

[@Screwball70]

Oh shit im old, i remember the SLR, and we never got rid of the GPMG (jimpy). I dont know what the A2 was like but the A1 sa80 was a bit shit, just because i had extractor isues twice in two months, just no trust in the weapon system.

[@JohnSmith-ei2pz]

Well the MOD was always open to backhanders!

[@DanielsPolitics1]

Yeah, not sure about your long term planning assumptions

[@kevinburt44]

I always thought the SA in the name stood for Seriously Awful!