A few hasty points before I am off to do pitched battle with something that erected new signs announcing its "jointness" instead of clearing out the deficient thinking:
- Despite scandalous sums spent with H&K the L85 still stinks. ISTR that most of the troopies do not have select fire -- the UK was never big on trusting its enlisted swine and there are still a few generals who would as soon have them in red coat, forming square. SAS received a batch of the latest (which is this, three improvements each of which cost more than the original guns?) and promptly binned them... they use M4A1, not perfect but not bad either. They have exchanged their early ones for later models and have learnt from their US counterparts to use old (or HK) mags. The steel HK mag is the only good thing that came from all that L85 tinkering.
- If you get a chance (knowing you, you probably have) check out the short lived Valmet bullpupification of the AK series. It shares the AK's endemic problem of heat management, i.e., Mikey K didn't do any. But for compact firepower, and well built! it is hard to match. Valmet also tries in every one of their weapons to fix the sights. The AK sights are a carryover from the Mosin Nagant, as if nothing had been learnt about gun-aiming in fifty-some years (OK, they are more like the Mauserlike sights of the 1908 and later Mosins -- 49 years).
- RPK, pffffffft. Best used as a source of really big mags for your AKMS, if you ask me. But the RPD, now we're talking. Yeah, it lacks a QCB but it has very good human engineering (rare in the sovblock; the other MGs all rot). Oddly, the muj hated it. They liked the PKM -- better round but very prone to eating its own extractors (belt and chamber) at the wrong time. It would continue to work with one prong of the belt extractor gone (the busted prong would usually tumble out the ejection port harmlessly) but that of course increased the load on the other which would fail in short order.
- The FG is mostly interesting for the totally Teutonic, no-compromises approach to the design. Gawd, they used more engineering hours for what did they build, 2500 guns or something? No wonder they lost the war, with inefficiencies like that. I'm involved with a project to recreate a rare German fighter of the war, and we see lots of that. A part shaped from nonstrategic materials, attaches to a part that requires sixty precision machining operations on a duralumin forging!
- Yep, the Jugo "MG42" is a dead ringer for the original, even to the sights (changed on the common MG3 (German)/MG53 (Italian). The Spanish SAW styled after it is cute.
BTW, on the original subj of the thread, this weapons station (or one very like it) is on the standard Stryker infantry carrier, and other deficiencies of the machine notwithstanding, impresses all who use it -- even where the popup targets have RPGs. Problem, the slat armour limits its use for close in defence. Needs that fireball thing that some guy sells in SA as an anti-carjacking tool.
Weapons are cool. They are a professional interest, obviously. But... give me a chance to apply better training and leadership and I'll beat better weapons every time.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
The Protector Weapon Station
The AMRWS was developed by Vinghog, industrialized and further modified by Kongsberg Protech to become the Protector, Remote Weapon Station (RWS). The Protector, RWS design is today owned by Kongsberg Protech. Vinghøg is still a major sub-contractor. The Protector is now in high volume production for the US Army BCT programme and per January 2003, Kongsberg Protech has delivered more than 300 units for this programme.
XM151 Remote Weapon Station
Control Screen for XM151 RWS