New rifles for Irish DF-fantasy and/or reality?

Avgas

This thread keeps going, eh?

Got nothing to add on the left-handers needs raised above...

But I attach a link here which was a fairly nice powerpoint by a Swedish fella on trends in NATO standardisation...makes the point that powered rails...powering all the gizmos from one source is where its headed... which leaves me a bit puzzled...what type of battery source and where located.. and also what if that goes down/fails?

See http://www.cpm.ca/september/weapons/NATO%20Small%20Arms%20CAN%20Nov%20-09.ppt.

Does this mean we should be thinking a powered rail for any future rebuild kits for our AUGs?

Morpheus

how many soldiers would be left handed?

7-10% of the population seems to be the agreed stipulation of lefties in our society.

that doesnt correlate to 7-10% of the army though, i reckon its maybe a few hundred people, its probably just not economical.

my mate is a marksman - i.e. better shot than I am . . .with the AUG and guess what? he's a southpaw... it was no leap of faith for him or other lefties i know to use the weapon. personally i prefer it the way it is, Ive no desire for getting hit by hot brass from TWO directions on the range

Locust

Yeah people can be trained to shoot left or right, training can overcome what once felt natural. I suppose its no harm to learn ambidextrous shooting either!

iceage

Lefty here, fired the SLR and prior to that the .303 left handed no major issues bar the odd hot brass down a sleeve. Only regret is I never handled the SA80 which would have seen me trained to firing it right handed as left handed is a no-no.

Had the absolute pleasure of firing the M16 back then as well.. lefty/righty was a doddle with it, that and the differance in weight. I was very impressed with it overall and have been ever since.

It wasn't me!

Not all left handed people shoot left handed and not all right handed people shoot right handed. The issue is a question of manual dominance versus ocular dominance and the most comfortable way to shoot is rather more complicated than just manual dominance. Personally, I hate shooting right handed. I can do it, but it's not comfortable and while I tend to shoot well, I get more fliers shooting right-handed. Personally I think it should be a facility, as the extra cost wouldn't be great, but that's just from the perspective of me as a right handed person who shoots left-handed, and always has done.

Morpheus

just issue the bren to all lefties... problem solved

Morpheus

Just remembered this...
there are a stack of FN's still kept in stores.

We were discussing the role of a DMR as we still qualify people as Marksmen on the range.

what about taking a small number of FN's out of storage,

give them a few small cost effective modifications such as:

picatinny rail,
scope,
medium contour barrel
Lightweight butts

DMR there you go

Did we ever agree that the irish defence forces REQUIRE DMRs at section or platoon level?

.22 Lover

Diddent the FAL/SLR have a wandering zero problem?

It wasn't me!

.22 Lover wrote: »

Diddent the FAL/SLR have a wandering zero problem?

No idea, but if it did, it'll be a problem with either the fore-end or the sights and mounting system. If they were to be issued as DMRs, the fore-end would have to be made stiff and altered to allow the barrel to free float, and the sights would have to be affixed solidy with a good strong set of mounts, probably on a fixed piccatinny, so it wouldn't be a problem.