UK to Issue 7.62 rifles for Afghanistan

Kyler · Post by **Kyler** » Tue Dec 29, 2009 5:59 pm

Posted on Jane's Defense Weekly website today, the UK MoD will be ordering 440 7.62x51mm semi-automatic rifles for ground soldiers in Afghanistan after repeated requests from soldiers in country not being able to fire back at insurgents due to the lack of range of their current 5.56mm rifles.

The new rifle is made by Lewis Machine & Tool in the United States. It is essentially a AR-10 rifles with quick change barrels and a quad picatinny rail system.

I know special ops have been using these 7.62mm for awhile and in some US regular army and marine units. This do a job of letting the UK's soldier reach out and touch someone with out needing a sniper rifle or heavy machine gun.

http://www.janes.com/news/defence/jdw/j ... _1_n.shtml

hammy · Post by **hammy** » Tue Dec 29, 2009 7:51 pm

Its what comes of equipping your infantry to fight the Soviet Hordes in West German suburbs and woods .
And a belief that you can avoid casualties and "win" by sitting behind sandbags while letting off the odd long shot into the heat haze .
Do you have to keep these things inside a plastic bag too , or will they actually stand up to a bit of dust without jamming ?

Kyler · Post by **Kyler** » Tue Dec 29, 2009 9:19 pm

At work, I am not finding a ton of info about the rifle. Since it is based on the AR-10, and from what I can find it operates on a gas-inpinginment system like a normal AR, it will need a fair amount of cleaning. Though I don't believe AR needs as much as the current assualt rifle the UK armed forces are using.

marcelo_malara · Post by **marcelo_malara** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 1:21 am

Wouldn´t it be easier to buy 500 FALs?

Bgile · Post by **Bgile** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 1:42 am

marcelo_malara wrote:Wouldn´t it be easier to buy 500 FALs?

That would be too easy.

Kyler · Post by **Kyler** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 4:29 am

Ahhh, the FAL doesn't have a free floating barrel, it is heavy as hell, mounting modern optics is complicated, and the L129 has the ability to quickly change barrels
for long distance shooting.

So the FAL while an improvement on long range shooting over the L89, a modern sharpshooter rifle is much better.

lwd · Post by **lwd** » Wed Dec 30, 2009 3:56 pm

Here are some follow up links for those interested:
http://www.lewismachine.net/media.php

This page was messed up when I looked at it but looked like it might have interesting info:
http://www.defensereview.com/bushmaster ... lecarbine/

http://www.68forums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11175
http://www.gunsandammomag.com/cs/Satell ... pon+System+

Naval History Forums

UK to Issue 7.62 rifles for Afghanistan

UK to Issue 7.62 rifles for Afghanistan

Re: UK to Issue 7.62 rifles for Afghanistan

Re: UK to Issue 7.62 rifles for Afghanistan

Re: UK to Issue 7.62 rifles for Afghanistan

Re: UK to Issue 7.62 rifles for Afghanistan

Re: UK to Issue 7.62 rifles for Afghanistan

Re: UK to Issue 7.62 rifles for Afghanistan