L1A1 in the Twilight War

[Jason Weiser]

A question to our UK readers
I know officially, the L1A1 was history by '94 (or so Wiki tells us), but what are the chances that late mobilizing TA battalions (or some TA battalions in general, especially the Saxon equipped units) might have still soldiered on with the L1A1, or had L1A1s issued throughout to replace lost L85s

[Rainbow Six]

I would be surprised if there weren't significant numbers of SLR's kept in storage at least to the end of the 90's, so whilst I don't have any concrete evidence to support this, in my opinion chances of some units still having L1A1's in the Twilight War would be high. Maybe not so much in TA Infantry Battalions, which I would imagine might have fully switched to the L85 but certainly in non Infantry units, both TA and Regular, particularly those in the UK.

[CDAT]

As I am American I can not say about that specific rifle, but can say that when I joined the US Army in 1993 official the M9 had replaced the M1911 in 1985 and had been sent to all units, my first unit still had the M1911, weither by oversight, the unit draging its feet or what I can not say but it was almost ten years after every Army unit had the M9 before we got it. So I would say it is very possable for some to be left, even have a unit that had some in there arms room or what ever they call it.

The second thought that I had is that the L1A1 is the UK counterpart to the US M14, all M14's were pulled from general service but most were placed in storage and have been brought out for Afganistan. I could see the UK doing the same as they are at least (if not more) intelligent as the US Politicians.

[Raellus]

Considering the RL teething troubles of the early production L85s, especially given the v1.0 timeline, I can imagine that the SLR would have had quite a resurgence during WWIII.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Although this is what I saw in the Australian Army when they replaced our L1A1 SLRs with the F88 Austeyr, I could see a similar occurrence in the British Army.
Here, the F88 was accepted for service in 1988 with most of the early issue going to Regular Army Infantry regiments. Non-Infantry units and some Reserve units only started to receive the F88 in the early 1990s with widespread distribution being achieved by the mid-1990s.

In this case, the obsolete rifle took about 6 years to be completely replaced in service and keep in mind the Australian Army was small, around the 40,000 mark for total personnel (both Regular and Reserve).
The British Army appears to have taken about 8 years to effect their changeover because even though their priority would have been much higher due to NATO commitments, they had about 6-8 times the number of battalions that the Aussie Army had.

So with that said, even if the last batch of SLRs were phased out of British service in 1994, they would still be in the system for some time due to two reasons in particular: -
1. it takes some time to dispose of tens of thousands of items particularly when it comes to military weapons!
2. a decent stockpile would have been held as war reserves for several years
So if the Twilight War starts up in the mid-90s, I can image the SLR would be available to the British military in substantial numbers.

[pmulcahy11b]

As I am American I can not say about that specific rifle, but can say that when I joined the US Army in 1993 official the M9 had replaced the M1911 in 1985 and had been sent to all units, my first unit still had the M1911, weither by oversight, the unit draging its feet or what I can not say but it was almost ten years after every Army unit had the M9 before we got it. So I would say it is very possable for some to be left, even have a unit that had some in there arms room or what ever they call it.

We had a similar experience with weapons when I was in. The first unit, 2/7 INF, had M1911s and M16A2s. In Korea, we had M9s, but a mix of M16A2s and M16A1s with A2 handguards. Later, when I got to the 82nd, we had M1911s and M16A2s (later replaced with M4s).

What really surprised me was the lack of SINGCARS when I first got to the 82nd. I thought that (after SOCOM-types) the 82nd got the best stuff first.

[Ironside]

There were L1A1s kept in storage but there was a large fire in 1983 at the Central Ordnance Depot at Donnington in Shropshire, and the majority of the L1A1 spare parts were destroyed.

This seems to have speeded up the deployment of the SA80.

There was another fire there in 1988!

[rcaf_777]

I found out that Canada had it stock pli up till 2002

[dude_uk]

Yes and no. Its dependant on a lot of factors. Cutting it short,You would not see the SA80 being handled by units outside the UK. I would expect war production to mount up and for a brief period the vast amount of kit would be the last created, (So Challenger 2's instead of 1, Warrior instead of FV432 etc)

The initial order for the SA80 was for 300,000 rifles (Including LSW's). This was to be completed by 1991. (This is manufactured by, not issued to all units by 1991).However these were to be divided between all 3 services. So what needs to be factored in:

1) Is there a pre-war second round of manufacturing

2) Is there a wartime round of manufacturing

Someone on this forum once said that the UK kept large quantities of Lee-Enfields greased up and in storage for a VERY long time. So keeping large quantities of L1A1's and L4's in storage would fit. I would expect them to be issued to hostilities only raised units designed for UK home defence.

I could see the UK doing the same as they are at least (if not more) intelligent as the US Politicians.

We sold our last aircraft carrier!

[.45cultist]

I know a handful of inch kits were imported here, but metric kits buried them. A gentleman I know who carried one in a former UK client had to settle for an IMBEL kit rifle. BTW, he misses the aluminum land rover too! "If we got stuck, everyone got out and picked it up and moved it onto better ground."

[Rainbow Six]

We sold our last aircraft carrier!

Technically we still have an aircraft carrier at the moment (Illustrious, although not for much longer) - it was the aircraft that could fly off her that we got shot of!

[mpipes]

I picked up a mismatched L1A1 parts set at some point in the 90s and had it built on a semi inch pattern receiver. Cool thing about it...the butt stock has two kill marks, small 'x', carved in it. A collector I know got a former British issue L1A1 imported from Canada in the late 80s that had seven.

[pmulcahy11b]

Technically we still have an aircraft carrier at the moment (Illustrious, although not for much longer) - it was the aircraft that could fly off her that we got shot of!

What do you plan to do with your F-35s (Bin 'em, I say...)

[Targan]

What do you plan to do with your F-35s (Bin 'em, I say...)

Ouch. Australia has committed rather a lot of money to the F-35 program. Will the end result be that bad

[Rainbow Six]

What do you plan to do with your F-35s (Bin 'em, I say...)

The F35's are slated for the two new Carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, which are currently being built and are scheduled to come into service towards the end of the decade (at the earliest), but there's a lot of speculation that Prince of Wales will go straight into storage / reserve rather than ever see service, potentially leaving the RN with the Queen Elizabeth as the only carrier in service.

Our only carrier currently in service is HMS Illustrious, which flew the Harrier until we got rid of all of our Harriers a couple of years ago, leaving us with an aircaft carrier but no aircraft that could be flown off her, so Illustrious is currently serving as a helicopter carrier while HMS Ocean is in refit and is due to be retired later this year when Ocean's refit is completed, leaving us with no aircraft carrier whatsoever until Queen Elizabeth comes into service.