The book [i]The Paras[/i] shows a picture of British paras in Borneo in the mid 60s armed with AR-15s or M-16s. I know that by the time of the Falkland War, SAS units often used the M-16, rather than their own L1A1 (one magazine article described an SAS officier who would sit in a lawn chair on a ship, and shoot at Argintine planes with his M-16). However, I was surprised to see earlier British troops armed with the '16.

Isn't it interesting that the grunts have to take whatever their country makes, while the SOF types get to use what they like, regardless of origin?
You see Britishers using the .223 and our SEALs using H&K's and .308 rifles.

Brits acquired a number of M-16s in the mid sixties.  Used them in their various jungle campaigns.  Lighter weight than the L1A1. Their theory/opinion was the 16 was a better gun for jungle warfare.

And right now, the British have a emergancy "loan" of 2000 M16A2's from the US to equip the Paras on any mission where real combat might occur, while HK rebuilds their L85 Enfields yet [i]again[/i].  Last November, when a squad of British soldiers were abducted by gurillas in Sierra Leon, the rescue force from 1st Para that took them back were armed mostly with M16's.

It is funny that most of the antiM16 crowd  think the M16 is a poor jungle rifle because the round is allegedly easily deflected by vegetation.

lightweight rounds like the 223 are EASILY deflected by vegetation, enough vegetation can make even a 308 tumble (now thats one for argument)
im not antiM16 or 308 in anyway, but even a strong wind will push the 223 off target

Thats because the SF types get to go back to a base after every mission and change their weapons. Line Battalions dont have that luxury normally.

LAgunman2K:

I had a 30-06 bullet deflected by some grass once.  Surprised the hell out of me.

Some research indicates that small, high velocity rounds are less likely to be defelcted by brush, etc., than larger, slower rounds.

I am reading "Bravo Two Zero". Its about the SAS in the Gulf War and they were using Armalites in .223.



Six

The British have some old ARs, when they say Armilite they are right- they have the remains of 5000 Armilite built ARs bought in 61' for service in Malaya before Colt bought them off of Fairchild Republic.

The Brits call the M16 series "Armalite" because that's who they originally bought them from.  So when a Brit troop says, "Armalite" he's talking about the AR-15/M16.  

Originally the "Armalite" was used to replace/supplement the Sterling SMG in the jungle.  So most troops had the L1A1 (then itself quite the new weapon), and guys that would normally have had the Sterling had "Armalites".  The Australians did the same thing with the Ownen SMG in Vietnam.  They replaced them with M16's.  The "Armalite" was pretty popular because of it's weight, and because it was much more effective than the 9 mil.    

The same reliability problems cropped up in Borneo that would later plauge the M16 program in Vietnam.  You don't hear about the M16 in Borneo much because the US wasn't there, most troops actually had the L1A1, and on the whole the "Armalite" was better maintained by the Paras and SAS, than the drafted US rifleman of VN.  I've seen several pictures of Brits armed with "Armalites" who taped assembled cleaning rods to their handguards so they could pop out stuck cases.  This seemed fairly common, as it wasn't the same guy or even the same unit (both Para and SAS).  That would indicate that the reliability problems were widespread enough that it wasn't an isolated case, and that they delt with it the best they could.  Why the US didn't look at the British experience with the rifle and at least issue cleaning kits when they bought them is another matter.  In the end we threw money at the rifle and came up with fixes for most of the problems.  

Ross