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Posted: 10/18/2006 8:14:51 PM EDT
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I know that the British SAS and the Australian SF and SASR prefer the M4 over the bullpup rifles their countries issue to the infantry L85 and AUG respectively. The reason for this is often cited as the M4 "fits the operational requirements better" or something like that. can anyone expand on what that means exactly? I know it means the M4 is better for what they do, but can anyone tell me why? I personally prefer the M4. I am just a curious person. Thanks! |
The L-85 have been running pretty tip-top ever since HK came in and fixed the rifle. The SAS and SASR use the M4 because it has rails, you can mount an M203 a heck of a lot easier and dismount it a heck of a lot easier. You can custom out an M4 from here until Christmas really with just about every thing you can think of. I think once the AUG A3 is released we'll see some bullpup country spec-ops start to go back to the bullpup. |
To be completely accurate, they (at least the SAS) use the Diemaco (now Colt Canada) Special Forces Weapon (the British nomenclature is L119A1), which they adopted after exhaustive worldwide (arctic, desert, tropical, etc.) tests of the available options. This is discussed in The Black Rifle or Black Rifle II. The testing cost more than the weapons adopted as a result. There's more information at the top of THIS PAGE "Diemaco's C8A1-SFW (Special Forces Weapon) beats out the HK G36 and SIG SG551 for a British Special Forces contract. The weapon receives the designation L119A1." |
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The L-85 is more reliable since HK redid them, but by the time that happened, the SAS had moved on. In fact, the SAS has been using M-16 series rifles since the 1970's. I have read that the Australians were also dissatisfied with their license built AUGs, thus their use of the M-4. I don't know about the Australians, but the Brits have been using M-16s since before there was such a thing as an M-4 or rails on a rifle. |
+1 The SEALS I worked with briefly in Iraq had 10 pounds of shit on their 10.5 inch barrel ARs. Everything on that list. I wish I would have taken a pic of one, they looked ridiculous. Reminded me of the pic Stickman posts with the 400 pounds of crap attatched to it. The only thing missing on the SEALS rifles would be the swiss army knife and a can opener. 
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| I was a US liaison officer with the Australian and New Zealand SAS in Afghanistan early in the war. They all carried the M4s, but did not have a bunch of crap attached to their rifles. The New Zealand troopers used older versions of the Aimpoint on their desert painted M4s. US issue M4s at the time pretty much conformed to the SOPMOD kit (standard would have been rail system, forward vert grip, ACOG NSN TA01). The Australians did have some AUGs-I was told by several of them that the Lithgow produced AUG was not as good as the Austrian product. |
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They all liked the M4 better. The Aussies had problems with their AUGs and I know the UK SAS guys dislike bullpups in general. I was told by several AUS SAS officers that Lithgow just did not seem to have gotten the synthetic components right in their AUG and that they had problems with cracking, etc. Personally I dont like the direct impingement gas system of the M4, but the ergonomics of the M4 are hard to beat, plus the modularity. I really like the piston operated HK and Leitner Wise systems-much more reliable and much much less heat in the action. |
| The Austrian STG77 or AUG is used by their spec-ops with great fan fair and you will see SASR guys with AUGs in the field as not all carry the M4 all the time. If you hunt down stuff on www.youtube.com you'll see them use their camo painted AUGs in various training videos. |
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