Platoon Weapons

[Biggus]

The January 28, 2013 edition of Aviation Week and Space Technology on page DT5 has this to say about one of the reasons the British Army recently decided to replace the Browning High Power with the Glock 17 pistol, "...the sliding fire mechanism means less recoil, allowing greater accuracy when shooting at a higher cadence...".

So that is why those things are designed like that.

(I wonder how Ian Hogg would have responded to that statement.)

I sense the spirit of John Moses Browning spinning in his grave every time I read that sentence.

I see merit in having light machine guns and precision rifles in a common calibre, but only in the sense that in an emergency, the precision rifleman might have a source of ammunition in lieu of what would always be high-cost, high precision equivalents. I can't imagine an infantry platoon would enjoy humping a belt-fed .338 instead of a 7.62x51mm.

The one glaring ammunition issue that I can see that would benefit very quickly from minimal changes is in relation to 40mm UGL ammunition. I'd like to see a longer range 40x46mm round adopted, such as the MEI Mercury. It is probably the best stand-in for the old 51mm mortars as used by the British Army of yesteryear, and it imposes a very modest weight penalty for nearly twice the range.

[Compost]

The one glaring ammunition issue that I can see that would benefit very quickly from minimal changes is in relation to 40mm UGL ammunition. I'd like to see a longer range 40x46mm round adopted, such as the MEI Mercury. It is probably the best stand-in for the old 51mm mortars as used by the British Army of yesteryear, and it imposes a very modest weight penalty for nearly twice the range.

Brit Army revealed intention to test 40x46 Extended Range and compatible ammunition back in Oct 2013. See: http://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOT...3:TEXT:EN:HTML

Meanwhile US Army has seemed with little publicity to be perservering with XM-25. Junior members of ABCA may have been simply waiting a decision or decisions by the seniors.

However it is worth noting that on 12 Sep 2013 Australian Munitions – a subsidiary of Thales - released a media statement regarding an agreement with STK of Singapore “ to cooperate in Australia and New Zealand for the development, manufacturing and marketing of ST Kinetics’ world-leading 40mm low velocity, extended range, and air bursting ammunition. " http://www.australian-munitions.com....0Australia.pdf

Six weeks later on 22 October 2013 STK announced sale of 40mm HV ammunition to Canada, and also that STK 40mm LV airburst (possibly LV/ER airburst) ammunition had been selected for the US Army Foreign Comparative Testing program. http://www.stengg.com/press-centre/p...40mm-solutions

Have not found any recent internet mention of ABCA interest in 40x46mm LV/ER or 40x51mm MV ammunition.