SA80
The SA80 (Standard Arm for the 1980s) is a family of related arms that include the British Army's standard combat rifle and light support weapon. They were introduced to service in 1985, and will likely remain the primary infantry weapon until 2015.
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For much of the pre-WWII period the German army had relied on the machine gun as the primary infantry weapon, with rifles as a support weapon only. However in close combat both weapons proved largely ineffective, the machine guns being too heavy and powerful to move in "snapshot" situations while walking, and the rifles having far too slow a rate of fire to put up any effective supression on quickly dodging targets. Combat teams increasingly started using the sub-machine gun in place of rifles, and by 1943 "close combat" troops were common in the German army.
While they served well in this role, the sub-machine gun's lack of power was a concern. Such weapons were useful only in the short range role, leaving the infantry with a weapon with a reasonable rate of fire but useless in anything but the short range, or alternately a weapon with good range but useless in close combat. The answer was a weapon half-way between the sub-machine gun and rifle, one that was fully automatic but used a less powerful round to control recoil.
Using a new "cut down" version of their standard 7.92mm round known as the Kurtz (for short), a new rifle was designed for this role. When it was introduced in late in WWII as the Sturmgewehr 44 (StG44), it quickly created an intense demand that was not met before the war ended. Today this concept is known as the assault rifle.History
StG44
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The Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield started working on two generally similar designs known as the Experimental Model 1 and 2. Both were bullpup style weapons with the magazine and chamber placed behind the trigger and grips, leading to a shorter overall design (by about 20%), used 20 round magazines with "stripper" reloads, included simple conical optical sights for fast shooting, and had carrying handles built into the top. They could fire semi-automatic or fully automatic bursts, and the .280 round was accurate to about 800 yards. The two differed primarily in details, but the EM-2 was eventually selected as the better design (though some say mostly due to it looking less space age), and entered limited service in 1951 as Rifle, Automatic, Caliber .280, Number 9 Mark 1.
It was at this point that the US put forth its own designs for NATO standardization, using the .308" (7.62mm) round in their M-14 rifle. Matters came to a head in 1951 in a shoot-off, with the US claiming the British round was underpowered, and the British claiming the US round was too powerful to be used in a full-auto mode. A series of lengthy debates followed, which were finally settled in an unlikely fashion when Canada stated they would use the British .280 round, but only if the US did as well. It was clear this would never happen. Winston Churchill felt a NATO standard was more important than any qualities of the gun itself. The EM-2 could not be easily adapted to the .308 round, so instead the British were forced to adopt a licensed version of the FN-FAL from Fabrique Nationale, itself an adaptation of their own .280 rifle design re-chambered for the .308.
It soon became clear to the US that the British had been correct all along, and the M-14 proved incapable of being fired in fully-automatic mode due to recoil. This meant the US had spent a lot of money changing from one semi-auto system, the Garand, to another, the M-14. Other forces found themselves with the same problem, leaving NATO with semi-auto weapons facing the true assault rifles, notably the famed AK-47, being built by the Soviets and deployed world-wide.
Into the story comes Eugene Stoner and the CONARC project to develop a new light-weight weapon for US use. His design combined the StG44's carrying handle, ejector port cover and hinged design, added a gas-operated firing mechanism from a Swedish rifle, and used an inline stock for better control in automatic (as opposed to most designs where the stock is bent down from the barrel to raise the sights up to eye level -- in the M-16 and EM-2 the sights were mounted on the carrying handle instead). The result was the AR-15 firing a .223" (5.56mm) round, which handily beat the other designs tested by CONARC. After special forces used it in Viet Nam and worked out some early deficiencies, the new M-16 rifle became the standard US weapon.
Needless to say others in NATO were less than happy with this turn of events. Once again the British Army started looking at new designs, this time with even lighter rounds. Their research suggested that a slimmer bullet of the same general weight as the M-16's 5.56mm (.223") would result in the same ability to be fired in fully automatic, while having much better penetration and ballistics. The result was the .190" (4.85mm) round fitted in "necked down" but otherwise standard 5.56mm cartridges from the M-16.
The Royal Small Arms Factory once again developed a rifle to fire the new round. The new L64/65 was outwardly similar to the EM-2, but adopted a firing mechanism very similar to Armalite's latest AR-18 design. The first examples were available in 1972.
In 1976 it was decided to try NATO standarization once again, and the various newer rounds were tested head-to-head starting in 1977. The British round proved to do what the designers had imagined, completely outperforming the standard US 5.56. However Fabrique Nationale also introduced a new 5.56mm round at the competition, the SS-109, which had performance equal to the British. In the end it was selected largely due to similarity with existing US weapons; a theoretical advantage only, but a politically useful one.
The L64 was re-chambered with the 5.56mm round, creating the L70. The MoD asked for a series of minor changes, and the SA80 family was born. Deployment was to have started in 1980, but the Falklands War interviened and the FA-FAL was retained for the duration. The weapon officially became standard in 1985.
In service the weapon quickly gained a very bad reputation. Poor placement of the magazine ejector button meant the magazine would sometimes fall out while walking. The safety was operated by the trigger finger, making for slow "rapid shoot" response. But the worst problem was that the gun constantly jammed, due both to a poorly designed cocking handle that sometimes deflected empty cartridges back into the ejector port, and general flimseyness and sensitivity to dirt.
In 1997 the SA80 was dropped from NATO's list of approved weapons. This appears to have been the final straw and an upgrade program was finally started. In 2000 Heckler und Koch, the new owners of Lee-Enfield, were contracted in to fix the problems. By 2002 the upgraded versions were fully deployed.
The SA80 family is made of three weapons, the L85A1 IW (Individual Weapon), the L86A1 LSW (Light Support Weapon) and the bolt-action L98A1 CGP (Cadet General Purpose). All three are similar in most respects, they all fire the 5.56mm NATO round from a 30-round box magazine, and mount the SUSAT (Sight Unit; Small Arms; Trilux), a 4x optical sight with a tritium-powered glowing action for night sighting.
The LSW is a section-level light machine gun. For this role it adds a bipod and a longer barrel that also improves muzzle velocity for longer range. The gun is otherwise identical to the basic L85.
The CGP replaced the gas-powered mechanism with a straight-pull bolt action version. They were built in order to allow Cadets to train on something similar to the IW, while not being fully-automatic, which was prohibited by law until recently. Contrary to the poor reports for the IW, the CGP is considered by many to be the best bolt action mechanism ever.
The Heckler und Koch "upgrades" are a matter of some debate, as the program replaced almost all of the internal workings of the rifle for $160m and can hardly be considered an upgrade. The L86 received an even heavier barrel, while the CGP was no longer needed due to changes in the law. The new A2 versions of the L85 and L86 are outwardly similar to the original A1 versions.
In a further Heckler und Koch upgrade a certain number of L85A2 rifles are now being fitted with the HK AG36 40mm grenade launcher in a configuration similar to the M16/M203.
M-16
L64
L70 and SA80
Description
IW Specifications
LSW Specifications
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