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Japan explains in their own, ah, unique way, the history of the L85. In animated form (starts properly around 0:46). Video

British troops are poised to go to war in Iraq. But after 30 years of development, £470m of taxpayers' money and countless modifications, soldiers still don't trust their standard issue rifle - the SA80. How did the military get something so simple so spectacularly wrong? James Meek unravels a shameful saga of arrogance, incompetence and indecision In 1985, in the United States, a firm called Microsoft came up with a gimmicky piece of software called Windows, said to be easier to use for non-specialists, as if the masses were going to start keeping computers at home. In Finland - Finland!...

Defence ministers are under pressure to scrap the troubled SA-80 rifle after an inspection team sent to Afghanistan found that, even after a refit, major faults still needed rectifying if it was to be used in combat again. The modified SA-80 has to be cleaned five times a day, according to Royal Marines officers The original SA-80, produced by Royal Ordnance, jammed repeatedly under fire in Sierra Leone and the Balkans. As a result, Heckler and Koch was paid £92 million to modify the weapon. But defence sources said the modifications had made the weapon virtually unusable in many combat...