WI: NATO adopt the .280 British

[Landshark]

Why bother with the AR-10, it's about 150mm longer than the EM-2 and yet has a barrel about 100mm shorter. No, if they can get the .280 in, then the EM-2 is coming along as baggage, and it's a more compact weapon, and comes on the scene 5 years earlier too.

Because not all armies like bullpups. I would imagine most Commonwealth countries would end up using the EM2 and most European countries would go for a 7mm x 43mm FAL, though there'd be "defectors" on both sides. America might flirt with a .280 M14 but if the EM2 sees a bit of action in Korea they're more likely to opt for a .280 AR10, which raises the amusing idea of a .308 AR15 appearing in the 60's. Unless the Belgians change their mind about giving the Germans a licence to make FAL's the HK G3 would be in 7mm NATO, as would Spain's CETME and Italy's Beretta.

France and Switzerland are interesting though. Would they make the change to a NATO calibre or stick with 7.5mm? By the time the EM2 has been accepted France would already be using the MAS 49, perhaps though the French would change to the 7mm round in the late 50's when they were looking at more modern rifle designs?

 

[wietze]

Because:

A. This is the US here. If it isn’t made in America, then it probably isn't going to be used by US troops.

B. The Em-2 is a bullpup. If you speak to some people in the US military about bullpups you would think that any such adoption would automatically undermine the constitution of the United States.

Russell

A. ah yes the problem that plagued the us forever

B. are these the same people who call obama socialist? (something that makes me ROFL btw)

 

[ofotherworlds]

To be fair, part of the resistance of the US Army to bullpup infantry rifles is the fact that most US Army recruits are already fair shots with a conventional rifle. Training with a conventional rifle can build on this, while GIs would have to unlearn a great deal if they were issued a bullpup. This was even more true in the 1950s than it is today, though in a generation it may not be the case. By contrast, most recruits for Commonwealth militatries have never held a gun in their lives, so they don't have anything to unlearn. I do think that the .280 British, as a true intermediate cartridge, was a better round than the .308. Given that the .280 was originally designed for the P-14 Enfield would we see its production as a second line weapon for anyone?

 

[Landshark]

Given that the .280 was originally designed for the P-14 Enfield would we see its production as a second line weapon for anyone?

The .280 wasn't designed for the P14, actually the P13, the .276 of 1913 is a much larger round. Besides the P14 is a bolt action rifle, no way that's going back into production post WW2.

 

[Delta Force]

To be fair, part of the resistance of the US Army to bullpup infantry rifles is the fact that most US Army recruits are already fair shots with a conventional rifle. Training with a conventional rifle can build on this, while GIs would have to unlearn a great deal if they were issued a bullpup. This was even more true in the 1950s than it is today, though in a generation it may not be the case. By contrast, most recruits for Commonwealth militatries have never held a gun in their lives, so they don't have anything to unlearn. I do think that the .280 British, as a true intermediate cartridge, was a better round than the .308. Given that the .280 was originally designed for the P-14 Enfield would we see its production as a second line weapon for anyone?

Is that the same reason why the United States took so long to adopt optical and reflex sights compared to the European nations? It took until 2000 for the Army to even adopt a reflex sight for service, while the SA80 and Steyr AUG have had optical sights as an option since their adoption (on the AUG they are even standard). Optical and reflex sights have a demonstrated advantage in target acquisition and help adjust for parallax. I remember reading about how they had to adjust the British Army marksmanship test after adopting the SA80, which probably had at least something to do with the sights.

 

[Simon]

To be fair, part of the resistance of the US Army to bullpup infantry rifles is the fact that most US Army recruits are already fair shots with a conventional rifle. Training with a conventional rifle can build on this, while GIs would have to unlearn a great deal if they were issued a bullpup. This was even more true in the 1950s than it is today, though in a generation it may not be the case. By contrast, most recruits for Commonwealth militatries have never held a gun in their lives, so they don't have anything to unlearn.

I'd... really like to see some sources for those statements. Now they may very well be true but on the face of it they strike me as a little too pat.

 

[ofotherworlds]

The .280 wasn't designed for the P14, actually the P13, the .276 of 1913 is a much larger round. Besides the P14 is a bolt action rifle, no way that's going back into production post WW2.

IOTL India produced the Ishapore 2A1, which is essentially a .308 Lee-Enfield with better steel from 1963-1975. It was made as a second line weapon for use while they adopted the FAL for their front line troops. They couldn't afford to issue everyone a FAL all at once, they already had the tooling to make SMLEs, they didn't want their reserves to use a different caliber from their front line troops, and they found that .303 actions were not suitable for conversion to .308.

 

[Landshark]

IOTL India produced the Ishapore 2A1, which is essentially a .308 Lee-Enfield with better steel from 1963-1975. It was made as a second line weapon for use while they adopted the FAL for their front line troops. They couldn't afford to issue everyone a FAL all at once, they already had the tooling to make SMLEs, they didn't want their reserves to use a different caliber from their front line troops, and they found that .303 actions were not suitable for conversion to .308.

The UK isn't India. It doesn't have thousands of miles of remote frontier that need to be patrolled or a military of a million plus that needs to be armed, so the problem of affording enough rifles isn't a major issue. Also the Enfield pattern rifles weren't made in Britain, they were made in the USA for Britain, and by 1950 they'd been out of production for something like thirty years. Finally the .276 is a different calibre from the .280.

The .276 is considerably longer than the .303 let alone the .280.

BTW did you mean to have the word 'not' in the last sentence?

 

[ofotherworlds]

The UK isn't India. It doesn't have thousands of miles of remote frontier that need to be patrolled or a military of a million plus that needs to be armed, so the problem of affording enough rifles isn't a major issue. Also the Enfield pattern rifles weren't made in Britain, they were made in the USA for Britain, and by 1950 they'd been out of production for something like thirty years. Finally the .276 is a different calibre from the .280.

The .276 is considerably longer than the .303 let alone the .280.

BTW did you mean to have the word 'not' in the last sentence?

Yes the "not" was intentional. The 2a1s were newly manufactured rifles based on a Lee-Enfield type action, not old SMLEs rechambered and rebarrled for .308. The decision to make new rifles on the old pattern was made because the older steel of the SMLEs had trouble withstanding the higher pressures of the 7.62 NATO, and the extractor needed to be redesigned for a rimless cartridge.

And I was not suggesting that Britain would adopt a .280 p14, but that some second world countries would.

And my source for the bullpup thing is "conversations with high ranking retired officers". So it's nothing citable, just their reasoning passed on to me.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

The US is very unlikely to adopt a bullpup rifle during the 20th Century, as far as I know there never was a prototype of the M-14 in .280 British for the same reason. The top brass in the US Military has a allergy to new things even coming within a hairs breath of killing the Garand rifle in the mid thirties.

It stands to reason that if the M-14 or FN FAL in .280 had been adopted by the US in the late forties an updated version would still be in service. The effect that this would have upon the history of the last half of the 20th Century and the first decades of the 21st is unclear but it would be significant.

On a technical note the differences in muzzle velocity between the EM-2, M-14 and the FN FAL is negligible. Albeit the US Army Airborne would want the EM-2 for reasons too obvious to state.

 

[Landshark]

The US is very unlikely to adopt a bullpup rifle during the 20th Century, as far as I know there never was a prototype of the M-14 in .280 British for the same reason. The top brass in the US Military has a allergy to new things even coming within a hairs breath of killing the Garand rifle in the mid thirties.

Interesting. I wonder how things would have gone if the USA had used the M1903 throughout WW2?

 

[perfectgeneral]

I think that the FN FAL bullpup would have been better than the EM-2. Cheaper to build and more reliable. Had Britain compromised by accepting the FN FAL then they might have won over the US army as 'The right arm of the free world' was offered with a free licence to the US by FN Herstal. Rightly judging that sales outside the US would make up for this if the FAL got NATO approval. Had the UK and Canada adopted the FN FAL bullpup in .280 British, the US might have accepted the FN FAL vanilla in .280 British. As it was they stuck with the EM-2 and FN offered the FAL in .308 to follow the break in solidarity. So the FN FAL in .280 makes better politics as well as a great rifle.

Of course once the US and Belgium go for the FAL in .280 the UK and Canada can switch back to the EM-2. You still get .280 as standard. For the limited run the UK needed, the pound less weight meant more than the production cost. The .308 FAL weighed two pound more.

 

[MattII]

A. This is the US here. If it isn’t made in America, then it probably isn't going to be used by US troops.

That's if the US has a comparable piece of equipment, but in this case they won't.

B. The Em-2 is a bullpup. If you speak to some people in the US military about bullpups you would think that any such adoption would automatically undermine the constitution of the United States.

Not doing so would undermine the competitiveness of the GI though.

Because not all armies like bullpups. I would imagine most Commonwealth countries would end up using the EM2 and most European countries would go for a 7mm x 43mm FAL, though there'd be "defectors" on both sides. America might flirt with a .280 M14 but if the EM2 sees a bit of action in Korea they're more likely to opt for a .280 AR10, which raises the amusing idea of a .308 AR15 appearing in the 60's.

With bullpups coming in in the early 50s the US might react differently, especially if they can be in in time to see service in Korea, which would be a reasonable place to compare them to traditional-setup weapons.

 

[DD951]

Interesting. I wonder how things would have gone if the USA had used the M1903 throughout WW2?

Having Springfields instead of Garands probably wouldn't have really changed that much in terms of the big picture in WW2, although US ground forces most likely would have suffered somewhat higher casualties & had a harder time of things, considering how the higher firepower of the M1 somewhat compensated for the inadequacies of the BAR being pressed into the squad automatic weapon/LMG role it was never intended for. Just how much is probably something that'd be difficult to quantify unless someone could do a statistical analysis of the relative effectiveness of the two rifles & how that could effect things on the battlefield. If the M1903 had stuck around through Korea as well, things could have gotten notably trickier for the US forces when engaging Chinese infantry

 

[BELFAST]

Because:

A. This is the US here. If it isn’t made in America, then it probably isn't going to be used by US troops.

B. The Em-2 is a bullpup. If you speak to some people in the US military about bullpups you would think that any such adoption would automatically undermine the constitution of the United States.

Russell

There is not stopping the Americans making .280 ammo in America.

 

[Undeadmuffin]

I think that the FN FAL bullpup would have been better than the EM-2. Cheaper to build and more reliable.

Really ? Will the bullpup fn fal be more reliable than the em2 ?
And one of the advantage of the em2 was a greater accuracy than the two other models.

 

[173rd LRRP]

I was told when I was visiting the divisional museum of the 101st Airborne in 1965, that the reason that bullpup weapons were not adopted were a collusion between the gravel-bellies (the classical slow fire prone competitive shooters) and old time officers/NCOs that wanted something traditional for drill-and-ceremonies and rifle drill. Something like the E-2 would have been ideal for airborne/mechanized infantry use. The Aussies were using the FN (SLR to the Empire troops). Aussies, Poms and French use bullpups these days as do the Chinese.

 

[MattII]

As do the Irish, Croatians, Singaporeans and Russian and Belgian special forces.

 

[Thoresby]

Just off topic but why hasn't the US ever seriously looked at a bullpup option for it's various M4/M16 replacements efforts. Both the OICW,XM8 and the SCAR are conventional.

 

[BELFAST]

As do the Irish, Croatians, Singaporeans and Russian and Belgian special forces.

Steyr AUG bullpup


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