18 Mar 13

England’s famous SAS (Special Air Services) Regiment has reluctantly concluded that, as a main battle rifle, it government’s notorious SA80 rifle, chambered for 5.56×45 (223 Rem), is a consummate failure, at least in current Mideast conflicts.

The party line, for public consumption, is that the bullpup SA80 is “world class,” and that the 5.56×45 round possesses “great power and accuracy.” This kind of syrupy propaganda is routinely churned-out by a faithful gaggle of office-weenies who have never set foot in any AO and don’t even carry a gun. It is believed only by the naive and foolish.

The sad truth is, of course, the exact opposite and is commonly known by real troops, who are actually in the AO. The SA80 is a piece of trash, unreliable and prone to breakage! So unpopular is it, it has not found its way outside the UK. Nobody wants it! It is a rifle in which all unite in speaking ill.

For serious long-range shooting (200m-500m), common in current Mideast conflicts, the 5.56×45 round, in any configuration, lacks the energy to put people down and keep them down. A hit at those ranges will surely produce a wound, sometimes even a fatal one, but complaints of thus-wounded insurgents continuing to fight effectively are legion!

We’ve known this since Vietnam!

Troopers, of course, as soon as they arrive in the AO quickly learn how to enhance their chances of personal victory. So, SAS troopers have been “exchanging” their SA80s for FN/SCARs in 7.62×51 caliber (308 Win) at every opportunity.

Curiously, they simultaneously abandon the official “shoot to wound” policy, generated by cynical political gas-bags, safe an sound in their London offices, who couldn’t care less about troops. Only in the UK (and America) can you find anything so abjectly stupid!

Of course, this “upgrade” is all being done quietly. In fact, the information is officially classified, lest those up the food-chain be compelled to sheepishly admit they’ve been wrong all this time. In today’s world, such bona-fide personal honesty would be unthinkable!

American troops have the same problem. The M4 is more reliable than the SA80, but is shoots the same 5.56×45 round. Elite American units also have SCARs, and LaRue OBRs. The rest are scrambling to get their hands on M14s, or ones with modernized Sage chassis, redesignated the M39.

Bureaucracies, even “elite” ones, are all the same. Foolishly, we imagine things as we want them to be, not as they are. So, when we want what we’re doing to be “okay,” we find everything we can to support our flawed thinking while pretending evidence to the contrary doesn’t exist. We inevitably manufacture an implausible explanation in order to obscure/dismiss the truth, because we desperately want to believe (and “sell” the idea to the naive), our dear, convenient lie. And, the lie invariably takes on a life of its own. Without fail, our explanation is thus simple, “logical,” and preposterous! We become “The King,” in “The King’s New Clothes.”

/John