The King is dead, long live the King! Britain is changing its small arms system.
Soon the iconic look of the British soldier with his characteristic weapons The bullpup configuration may be a thing of the past. Pictured is a British soldier with an L85A3.
In early spring, the UK Ministry of Defence made several announcements regarding changes to the army's small arms system. Let's explore what these changes are, why they are being implemented, and what their implications will be.
The first news The more significant and interesting one, we'll discuss it later. The second one came later, but let's start with it.
The British Army, as part of Project Shamer, plans to procure a rifle to replace its current primary sniper rifle, the Accuracy International L115A3 Long Range Rifle chambered for the .338 Lapua Magnum cartridge. The rifle has been in service since 2008, and 580 have been delivered to the British Armed Forces. It is essentially a military variant of Accuracy International's Arctic Warfare Magnum rifle, a development of the legendary Arctic Warfare from the same manufacturer. These weapon systems are already legendary, having been tested in numerous conflicts, in a wide variety of climatic conditions, and are in service with the armies and special forces of dozens of countries.
The L115A3 Long Range Rifle is a fine weapon, a continuation of the line of excellent sniper rifles.
So, in this case, they're replacing an excellent and proven weapon. Clearly, it needs to be replaced with something better, otherwise what's the point? And what conceptually new and advanced do the British military want from the new system?
What the British military wants is... multi-caliber capability. The rifle must be able to fire the same .338LM as the L115A3, the standard NATO 7.62x51mm military rifle round, and perhaps the .300NM. The British haven't yet decided on the latter round. Curtain call.
Accuracy International has a long and successful history of collaborating with the British military. Pictured is a sniper from the British Army's 1st Parachute Battalion in Kosovo with an L96 rifle.
There's just one question: why? And there's no answer. The specifications aren't yet competitively priced, just preliminary. In other words, the tender has only just been announced, and the potential buyer is simply notifying its intent, with all the details of the future procurement not being disclosed. Only the approximate (estimated) cost of the project is known for certain: 20 million pounds sterling or 26,7 million US dollars. In other words, the procurement documentation doesn't answer the question: why would a purely sniper weapon need the functionality of a designated marksman munition, which solves conceptually different tasks at a different level and in different combat situations.
A picture to help you understand what kind of ammunition we're talking about.
A cost-cutting project? Definitely not; the system will only end up being more expensive. Replacing two or more systems in the military's arsenal at once? Also no; according to official information, the new system will only replace one rifle. The desire to have some kind of universal snipers with a universal "tool" for all occasions? Perhaps, although it's already generally accepted that 7.62x51 caliber designated marksman systems are self-loading. What a sniper pair trained to shoot at a distance of a kilometer would do with a bolt-action rifle chambered for a rifle-machine gun cartridge is unclear.
The first information about the project was published back in the spring of 2025. Weapon selection and testing are expected to continue throughout this year, with the winner to be announced next year, in 2027. This is all theoretical, of course, assuming deadlines are met, funding is approved on time, etc. The contract covers the delivery of not only the weapon itself but also a full set of accessories, silencers, bipods, carrying cases, and service throughout the weapon's service life. It will likely be after 2027 that the British plan to use the three-caliber sniper rifle will become clear.
An Enfield EM-2 during army trials in the first half of the 1950s. To say the weapon was revolutionary in concept for its time would be an understatement. But it never made it into service. History It's long and sad, and in defense of the British, one can only say that the Americans did a bit of dirty work for them here.
The second piece of news, which actually hit the news scene a little earlier, is more interesting. It also concerns the British Armed Forces' small arms system, specifically its core and backbone—the main battle/assault rifle. The British Ministry of Defence announced that, through Project Grayburn, it aims to select a replacement for the legendary SA80 (the L85) by 2030 and replace it with a new assault rifle.
The Grayburn project has been discussed before, but there was a period when it seemed more dead than alive. In fact, no funding decisions have been made yet. The Ministry of Defense has essentially simply indicated that it's not abandoning the idea. Therefore, many project details remain unknown, as they simply don't exist yet. For example, the military hasn't yet decided whether to retain the weapon's current 5.56×45mm caliber or consider the new-fangled 6.8×51mm Common Cartridge, which the US Army is already transitioning to.
Three generations of British bullpups: the L85A2 itself, the experimental XL64E5 (almost a direct ancestor of the SA80), and the aforementioned EM-2. Some say the L85A2 is more German than English, but there's no denying it...
One thing is clear: the islanders have finally decided to stop "digging up the stewardess" and bury the SA80 project. In this article, I've used the term "legendary" twice in relation to weapons systems. Well, legendary status can be achieved in different ways. And the SA80's legendary status is completely different from the L96's.
The creation of the British state-owned Royal Small Arms Factory, built using the then-fashionable bullpup design, began entering service in 1985. The project, in one form or another, chambered for various ammunition, had been in development since the 1960s. Its progenitor was the Enfield EM-2. After the triumphant adoption of the SA80, the Royal Small Arms Factory folded in 1988, and production was transferred to the Nottingham Small Arms Facility.
Soldiers of C Company, 1st Battalion, Staffordshire Regiment, 1st British Armoured Division, in the Iraqi desert in January 1991. The soldiers didn't take to the new rifle, fortunately the war was short-lived.
The weapon almost immediately earned a reputation for being finicky and poorly functioning. Complaints about the new weapon poured in from units and subunits. This could all be attributed to the soldiers simply not being accustomed to it and not having mastered it... But the weapon was supposedly designed using a proven gas-powered design. Plus, in 1991, the British military took part in Operation Desert Storm, and the flood of complaints about the weapon system, which was no longer a novelty, turned into a tsunami. It got to the point that British gunsmiths in the late 1990s admitted their inability to perfect the rifle and bowed to the Germans. Heckler & Koch specialists spent 2000 to 2002 refining the system and apparently succeeded. Officially, at least, the reliability issues, if not completely resolved, were at least less acute.
You take apart an AR-18 and an L85A2... They're all very similar. One works, the other not so much. Well, admittedly, the L85A2 has already been "polished" by the Germans, so it seems to work too... But that's not certain.
Where the British went wrong isn't entirely clear. The progenitor, or rather, the forefather of the concept itself, the Enfield EM-2, apparently didn't have any serious reliability issues. Most of the SA80's design was clearly borrowed from Stoner's AR-18, which also had no such reliability issues. So, they're a real genius, but in the wrong place.
British special forces long ago decided that standard army rifles weren't quite right for them. Pictured is a Royal Marine Commando with an M-16 during fighting in the Malvinas Islands.
In fact, the process of a slow-moving replacement has already been underway, and for some time now. Back in 2000, when the Germans were only promising to revive the SA80, the Colt Canada C7 (C8SFW) variant of the Canadian Arch was adopted. This carbine, most similar to the American M4, was designated the L119A1 and has been the mainstay of various British special forces for a quarter of a century. And in 2023, the Ministry of Defence went even further and adopted the KS-1 rifle from the American arms manufacturer Knight's Armament Company. Designated the L403A1, it is not an addition to the arsenal or an elite weapon, but is intended to completely replace the SA80's descendants in the British Royal Marines and the Ranger Regiment (yes, the British have had their own Rangers since 2021).
The "Canadian M4" variant was followed by a full-size rifle, the L119A2. Pictured again is a Royal Marine commando with an L119A2.
Overall, colossal changes are coming to the small arms system. For starters, the SA80 required a change to the regulations, as some drill commands with the bullpup couldn't be performed as with a full-size rifle. Now, it seems, they'll have to change them back. It's still unclear what cartridge it will be chambered for, when it will be completed, or how much it will cost. It's clear that it will most likely be an AR system, and very likely not a British design. Apparently, the officials in the building on Whitehall are well aware of this, as they immediately announced that one of the key conditions of the contract is that all rifles be manufactured in the UK. The Ministry of Defence proudly announced that localizing foreign production or expanding local manufacturing will create 100 to 150 jobs. England is losing the remnants of its own weapons school, but 150 workers will be assembling American "Arks" or Czech "Brens" (the press is also listing the Czechs as replacements for the SA80)... That's the news from Foggy Albion.
And this is the L403A1 in the hands of a British Ranger in 2024. Apparently, this isn't the last AR system in the British arsenal.
Information