British Troops retire the Browning Pistol and move to using the Glock

[walibe]

Most troops will never use a sidearm like this, myself included. Everyones personal weapons are still the SA80.

It's mostly aircrew and some officers that I have seen with sidearms plus sone specialists like snipers. Hopefully a few infantry can clarify who among them is issued one.

Why did it change? Serviceability and cost. It's always down to cost. Yes they tested three weapons at least but somewhere the cost figures are better for this over x life span than the browning. Have I seen German police with the Glock?

The SA80 is praised and slated in the services so I would be interested if that's looked at in the next 10 years. Does anyone here know? You guys seem to know your firearms !

[MrNeil]

I used the browning on many occasions Norway, GW1 and Bosnia .Never let me down easy to maintain and took a lot of weather abuse and had the right weight for me to handle with ease .The glock can't take that sort of punishment !!
The SA80 starting from the early day's was a right pain in the arse !! Magazines falling out when pressed against your chest .carbon build up and cocking handle breaking in some cases !! Though is was a very accurate weapon most problems were sorted by 2002 i think .
I like to add that i fired a glock 20 which is a 10mm variant that had a smooth recoil for a 10mm which i really liked but it was not avalible for the military but mainly security and law inforcement ;(

[MrNeil]

SA80 is due to be replaced by 2020 !!

[watercooled]

The Glock is designed to, and can, take a lot of abuse and still fire when the trigger is pulled, proven by widespread use. Anything to prove the contrary or just your thoughts?

The SA80s were basically re-manufactured by H&K when they were still owned by Royal Ordnance, an easy tell-tale sign of which is the comma-shaped charging handle, reliability is now apparently in line or exceeding that of the likes of the M16, and I've not heard anything to the contrary.

[Biscuit]

The Glock is designed to, and can, take a lot of abuse and still fire when the trigger is pulled, proven by widespread use. Anything to prove the contrary or just your thoughts?

The SA80s were basically re-manufactured by H&K when they were still owned by Royal Ordnance, an easy tell-tale sign of which is the comma-shaped charging handle, reliability is now apparently in line or exceeding that of the likes of the M16, and I've not heard anything to the contrary.

Yeah there is loads of videos on the web of Glocks being put through insane punishment and still working. Struggle to believe the browning would cope with some of the stuff.

[walibe]

The Glock is designed to, and can, take a lot of abuse and still fire when the trigger is pulled, proven by widespread use. Anything to prove the contrary or just your thoughts?

The SA80s were basically re-manufactured by H&K when they were still owned by Royal Ordnance, an easy tell-tale sign of which is the comma-shaped charging handle, reliability is now apparently in line or exceeding that of the likes of the M16, and I've not heard anything to the contrary.

I've used both variants and stoppages are rarer with the AS2. However I don't have a lot to compare it against but having spoke to people from all sorts of back grounds from special forces to RAF regiment to chef, the opinions of the weapon are so varied you would swear we all get issued different variants.

Personally I've never been able to find comfortable firing positions with the SA80 but that might be down to my t-rex like arms and lack of range time nowadays.

Interesting to know about 2020 penned replacement date. Off the shelf this time do we think or another revamp and an AS3?

[peterb]

The Glock is designed to, and can, take a lot of abuse and still fire when the trigger is pulled, proven by widespread use.

Not just a matter of widespread use, but the conditions under which it is used. Police use is under benign conditions, and backed up by an armoury for maintenance, after firing maybe one or two magazines.

The condition MrNeil refers to will be arctic conditions in Norway, and very dusty/sandy condition in GW1 and Bosnia, where maintenance will be in the field until it can be returned to an armourer.

That is not a criticism of the Glock, which may be just as robust, but MrNeil's observations are based on field conditions with the Browning.

The SA80s were basically re-manufactured by H&K when they were still owned by Royal Ordnance, an easy tell-tale sign of which is the comma-shaped charging handle, reliability is now apparently in line or exceeding that of the likes of the M16, and I've not heard anything to the contrary.

I think most servicemen are aware of the SA80's early (and sorry!) story! It will be interesting to see what the SA80's successor will be. Much will depend on the CONOPS at the time, one of the factors that resulted in the 5.56 calibre of the SA80, down from 7.62 of the L1A1 SLR it replaced.

[watercooled]

Yeah, sorry if that sounded patronising, wasn't meant that way. Slightly misunderstood the post.

In terms of personal experience, it goes for pretty much any weapon/kit. For example, I've been led to believe there are at least a load of duff HPs floating around the forces, one person I know claiming they'd generally see at least one jam/stoppage of some sort on a ten-man range for every mag fired. Not saying they're all like that, but their opinion of the 'SLP' is considerably lowered because of it.

[Jake_UK]

Hopefully a few infantry can clarify who among them is issued one.

One has already, see post #11.

Why did it change? Serviceability and cost. It's always down to cost. Yes they tested three weapons at least but somewhere the cost figures are better for this over x life span than the browning.

Spot on.

[Biscuit]

Interesting to know about 2020 penned replacement date. Off the shelf this time do we think or another revamp and an AS3?

Pure conjecture, but given the approach to changing the service pistol to a Glock and the expense involved in developing something new, I would hazard a guess they will go for something more off the shelf, or at most slightly modified version of something off the shelf.
I would be interested to know if they stay bullpup or if they go back to the 'traditional' AR15 style layout.
As I understand, one of the difficult to fix complaints of the SA80 is that the spent cartridge release port and bolt are unidextrous, this has been fixed on other bullpup such as the F2000.

[watercooled]

As I've said I also know people who have been issued the HP and have a far lower opinion of it, but one or two opinions are nowhere near enough to judge an entire weapon platform on, which is why I didn't mention it initially.

The Browning HP was also essentially off-the-shelf, albeit with some modifications.

I'd also be interested to see what the replacement weapon would be like, obviously bullpup allows a very accurate, manouverable weapon with a barrel longer than a M16, but overall shorter than an M4. The downsides are usability in some scenarios, largely due to ejection port, meaning the weapon can't be used left-shouldred for corner leaning, for instance (again, an observation for people who've used it, before anyone jumps on it), and there seems to be some concern with hearing loss, as the breach is right next to your ear vs standard layout weapons.

The likes of the F2000 do fix the handedness problem, but possibly at the expense of reliability. I don't know if it's a widespread, but the ejected cartridge feed seems to jam up occasionally.

I also wonder if they'll remain with 5.56 or move to a heavier cartridge?

[Biscuit]

I also wonder if they'll remain with 5.56 or move to a heavier cartridge?

Surely this depends on NATO?

[MrNeil]

The almighty L1A1 was a 7.62 This i loved and my dad who served 26 years in the forces said if he had to choose now he would pick this weapon .

[watercooled]

Yeah, and the US obviously carries a lot of weight, but it will be interesting to see if it does change. Of course, there are more than a couple of weapons using 5.56 so an immediate replacement programme across NATO would likely be prohibitively expensive, especially considering some NATO members have only recently refreshed their AR platforms, but keeping 5.56 a standard, and slotting something else in for future systems might be an option?

I don't for one minute buy the Future Weapons guff of '6.8 has basically the same recoil as 5.56' or the staged demonstrations of stopping power vs steel knockdown targets (shoot near top with weapon/calibre you want to show off, shoot near/below pivot with one you want to discredit or shoot basic ballistic helmet with new epic weapon, shoot armour vest with old one), but 5.56 has its weaknesses. Maiming/injuring a high percentage of targets doesn't work so well when you're faced with fanatical fighters who are more than willing to disassemble their own body with explosives, and the tumble effect doesn't work so well at near point blanc range (300yd or so).

@MrNeil: It's rare I hear anything bad about the old SLR (come to think of it, I don't think I have heard anything bad!), and I expect the newly introduced L129A1 will be well liked.