The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016 ... mpetition/

"un-confirmed" news of the HK416 being the Famas' successor.
The HK416 was already issued for many years to the FS (13 RDP, 1er RPIMA, CPA, FuMaCo) and the Gendarmerie intervention Group (GIGN) so I guess it makes sense.
Anyway, the readers' comments "The contract terms are fair. France just has to hand over Alsace-Lorraine" are nearly more interesting ...

...have they ran out of K98 spares already?

H & K used to belong to British Aerospace----possibly still does.
Fred

FredB wrote:H & K used to belong to British Aerospace----possibly still does.
Fred

Nope, not since the nineties.

Hm,shame-if the French can wait 1-2 more years....and ask one more time for this...
I never got it why Radom factory skipped this possibility...or they were told to sit and do f**k all
This is Polish MSBS system also known as Radon-name in line after Tantal,Beryl etc
Some good videos on utoobe

or maybe the Poles were "punished" for prefering US planes instead of ours ?

Rafale is v-good-but was not the option.Grippen yes-but was "politically incorrect" fooking PR prawns....

France is in the same situation as the UK when it comes to future service rifle procurement with the closure of the Manufacture d'Armes de Saint-Etienne (MAS) factory in 2002. They don't have the capability anymore to mass produce a Service Rifle.

Fedaykin wrote:France is in the same situation as the UK when it comes to future service rifle procurement with the closure of the Manufacture d'Armes de Saint-Etienne (MAS) factory in 2002. They don't have the capability anymore to mass produce a Service Rifle.

I know 2025 is a while away, but what do you reckon we'll be getting as a replacement Fedaykin? I'm leaning towards us going to an AR variant myself.

It is a nebulous question, one choice could be L85AX. HK can supply new receivers so I don't see why they couldn't supply the guts of the rifle as well. That means we don't have to change all the infrastructure from training aids through to rifle racks. Then again it is a heavy and ergonomically compromised rifle.

So I would agree AR platform is most likely these days, my money would be on Colt Canada C8. It is already in service with UK armed forces and is apparently popular. The documentation is in place for the rifle already and it is known to be a good implementation of the core design. Then again our defence agreement with France could have bearing, operating the same rifle as them has real synergies. Putting in an order at the tale end of production for France could offer real savings, we could even embed troops with the French army beforehand to build up operational experience and doctrine not unlike what we are doing with the F-35 fighter jet by deploying pilots with the USN, USMC and Aeronavale.

Don't be surprised to see the 2025 date pushed to the right, the Army has other expensive stuff to buy and with the reduced size of the forces might get away with pushing it back. A major driver will be sustainability of the rifles, you can only repair them so much before they are too worn out. By all accounts the SLR at the end of their lives were increasingly dangerous to use due to the high round count through them.

So those are my thoughts and opinions on the matter, sadly anything SA80/L85 has a nasty habit of degenerating into flame war but I am happy to have grown up debates about it.