They should have the TMHs fitted properly too so they don't rattle.

The short answer - it's not "pull trigger 100 times, hear a bang 95 times", it's "pull trigger 20,000 times, get two stoppages".

It means that they created a definitive test for small-arms; the "battlefield mission". The full description is here, but in short it's 960rds in 36min for the LSW, 150rds in 8.5minutes for the rifle. You get a serious stoppage (i.e. not cleared immediately by an IA) - fail mission. More than one stoppage of any type - fail mission.

They ran a confidence trial of the new operational cleaning in the Omani desert, in a realistic setting: e.g. "Two Chinook helicopters flying, on each landing Royal Marines deploy and took up firing positions, then helicopters take off, land again, and Royal Marines re-embark – seven times (five with extreme brown-out conditions). Returned to range, lay weapons directly on the sand, left there for an hour in the hottest part of the day – up to 52 degrees Centigrade. Then straight to firing point, dustbowl with constant 20-knot wind
Battlefield mission test repeated with all 36: 5,400 rounds fired".

So: 95% reliability means that if you fired 20 Battlefield Missions (nearly 20,000 rounds), you'd fail in one of them.

By the way - the SA80A2 was 95% reliable in that desert trial; the M16 was 47% reliable (IIRC, it even got beaten by properly-cleaned SA80A1).

It's also worth noting that AIUI the Israelis ditched the FN FAL (basically, an SLR without all of those sand cutouts in the bolt carrier) because they thought it "wasn't reliable enough in the desert", and switched to... the M16.

What would the scale of issue be per platoon? One 'LSW marksman' per section or something like that?

That's pretty good shooting by current standards, especially with an iron sight. Were you using the aperture on the bog standard No.4 leaf sight or one of those precision things? I also think that most shooters take a bit mor care when using bolt action as you've proved.

Agreed, when the SUIT sight first became availalble/general issue, our Bisley shots preached that magnification 'could make a good shot better and a bad shot worse', my point is that the LSW on s/s is capable of good accuracy at longer ranges than we currently train for and a good shot with a better sight, could enhance the effective range.

As I understand it, the big problem in Afghanistan is seeing the enemy. If you cannot see the enemy it does not matter how “accurate” you are. Better optics give you a better chance of seeing the enemy and hence aiming at him.

I don't think current standards are very demanding though are they?

As an experiment I once helda shoot on X range at Sennybridge. There is a fig 11 at about 1000 yds (900m)

Using a standard Lee-Enfield No.4 and with a friend spotting for me with ordinary binoculars I shot at it slowfire from the prone unsupported position (i.e. Off my elbows.)

As I recall it took 17 rounds before I knocked it down, all rounds hitting within 2m of it, most within a metre or so. I would consider that to be "Effective Fire".

Now if you extrapolate that to a section that is three rounds per man and you've nailed it. It's do-able if marksmanship was encouraged more than it is. I've just completed TSC(A) (less the Infantry package) and the marksmanship element comprised 20 shots on an electronic range simulating grouping at 25m. No live rounds were fired at all.

I teach civvy shooters. They do a day theory and dry practice before heading to the range. We start them at 300yds with a bolt action rifle and Iron sights, they can all nail a fig 11 from hte start. With a bipod and scope they hit fig 11 at 600yds on day one. It's down to teaching.

Indeed, the first time they came into the workshop for me to inspect I felt sorry for the buggers who had to carry them. The L96 by comparison is a very lightweight weapon and I would have personally thought it would be the much more sensible option over the LSW. Spares of course are going to be an issue, I only recently started getting the damn minimi bolts through once again.

The L96 itself is heavier than it needs to be. I have a TRG22 which is in the same class yet is 3lbs lighter (from memory)

If the silly arrses who commissioned the LSW had had the sense to read up on the Bren and the BAR (closed-bolt, mag-fed. light weight squad automatic weapons, bith massively inferior to slightly heavier open-bolt belt-fed weapons of similar calibre), the LSW would never have gone to trials, let alone seen service.

The long, long catalogue of fixes that the designers had to apply to try and circumvent the laws of physics and deliver a nonsense spec is well worth reaearching.

Faced with the prospect of real war (GW1, GW2, AFG) it has been found wanting over and over.

Minimi at squad-level - which was being advocated 20 yrs ago by those who understood - represents a simple triumph of common sense infantry practicality, over cabbage-head gravel-belly Bisley-bollox.

Funny old thing: Unca Sam's Army (where they know a thing or two about firearms) has never even toyed with the notion of turning the M16 into a squad full-auto weapon.

As for designated marksman - more bollox. Teach them all to shoot straight.

The procurement staff of my generation should be deeply, deeply ashamed,

About a hundred years ago (1984-86), as a Capt, I was SO3 G3 Training at HQ SWDIST in Bulford..

I was respionsible for things like the Sniper concentration, the GPMG(SF) match, and the SWSAAM (2nd biggest shooting match in UK, after Bisley).

Got to meet an awfy lot of shooters; including the 2 GOCs I worked for who were - respectively - an LI gravelbelly, and an SAS deer manager (Quote Gen T.J of Fastnet race fame "I don't like target shooting. I want to see the thing I shoot, die")

I also learned that the Bulford ranges (2nd biggest range complex in UK, I think) were booked for 90% of the time, but were used less than 25% of the time.

"Howzat happen?" I wondered. So I did some research.

Lead time for getting ammo from Tidworth Ammo Compound?It was 48 hours. (a G4 matter)
Cancellations were mostly notified less than 24 hours out. (a G3 matter)

Try as I might, I couldn't get G3 and G4 tuned in to the same frequency.

So - as a Coy Comd, in Bulford, in 1990-91, within 20 minutes walk of Bulford ranges, my company could have shot every day - if (Bn having no ammo store in its barracks) I had dared to bury the necessary ammo reserve in my back yard.

CO couldn't give a stuff.

And every feckin year they cut the overall ammo allocation, because the Army as a whole, didn't use but a fraction of its training ammo.

Here we are in the 21st Century.

Any improvement ?

Funnily enough, both BAR and Bren fired from an open bolt.

And if our Transatlantic cousins never developed an M16-based LSW, what is this?
www.coltcanada.com/lsw-page.htm
world.guns.ru/machine/mg68-e.htm

Also, for many years the US Army designated one man in each fire team as an “automatic rifleman” who fired a standard M16 on full-auto, while the rest of the team used semi-auto.

Canader, think thats the concept with School of Infantry. Time will tell.

I wonder whether you chose the word "Army" deliberately. I also note that the US Army resisted optic sights for years, and insist that the current M16 and M4 are perfectly reliable (in the face of evidence to the contrary).

Uncle Sam's Misguided Children are looking at replacing Minimis with the "Infantry Automatic Rifle" in their rifle squads - i.e. going from belt-fed to magazine-fed. One justification appears that the M249 is too heavy and unwieldy once you get into close quarters.

Strangely, the solutions are similar to LSW. A heavy-barrelled rifle with a bipod, rather than a scaled-down machine-gun; FN, Colt, and HK have provided trials weapons.

www.defenseindustrydai...ion-05240/

In defence of marksmanship, here's what a good marksman can achieve...

www.military.com/news/...6032325324

PS Stonker - I agree. Teach everyone to shoot straight, not just "marksmen". Give everyone an accurate and reliable weapon, with a decent sight, and train them to use it well.

In that case, they are trying to square an un-square-able circle. A mag-fed squad weapon that is small and light enough to be suitable for CQB is unlikely to meet a requirement to apply a decent weight of fire at longer range.

1. I stand corrected: penalty of posting in haste. Having learned the Bren as a boy cadet in the years befor ABBA, I should have pressed-and-paused before speaking -. My point (badly made) is that because LSW IS a closed bolt weapon, it is thus prone to overheating when used at the rapid rate for prolonged periods. The Paras who put it through trials found it quickly got so hot that the firer could not place his cheek against the weapon to use the sights because he would burn his face if he did so. Closed bolt also makes the weapon prone to cook-off (workaround being to apply the holding-open device before moving between fire positions - as if Tommy didn't have enough to think about). Part of the problem was the design spec that set an unrealistic max weight for the weapon, thereby denying the engineeers the opportunity to use a heavier barrel for the LSW, as a more effective heatsink. The light weight of the barrel, combined with its length, also made it 'whip' when burst firing, resulting in split groups, so the designers had to incorporate a rail running along the barrel to give it sufficent rigidity to meet the desired accuracy standard. The whole thing had "FROGS, Box of, Size XXXL" written all over it during the development of the SA80 system (the start of which was trumpeted to my Pl Comd course in 1975, and finally bore fruit when I was running SWSAAM 10 yrs later)

2. The M-16 variants in those links are commercial offerings, that is rather different than being produced in response to a US Mil SPec. I am not convinced that they have ever seen active service, or if they have (given that the Colt Canada blurb talks about them being designed for 'Small Expeditionary Units' - like Special Forces) , it was not in line-infantry units. The only instance I can think of of a similar weapon actually being deployed into serious firefights, was an LSW variant CETME (Spanish-made, German-designed precursor to the G3) used by Portuguese forces in the fighting that preceded their withdrawal from their African colonies. I think they found mag-fed preferable to belt-fed in jungle/thick brush. Similar dilemma, I guess to the US discussed earlier

THe LSW certainly does overheat. First time I did a live firing section attack with it after about 120-180 rounds the fore-end was so hot that I needed a glove to carry it. This was a summer's day in Thetford nevermind somewhere hot.

the dutch had a lsw a heavy barrled m16 and they loathed it

Thats one thing I always hand to the Paras, they really do understand the argument 'Strength through superior firepower'