British L129A1 Sharpshooter Rifle
Forgotten Weapons
•
7m 11s
With the British military's return to Afghanistan in the Global War on Terror, it was found that the very long engagement ranges made it necessary to have a 7.62mm designated marksman's rifle, in addition to the 5.56mm scoped rifles in service. This was not unique to the British military; the US came to the same conclusion and addressed it by reissuing M14 rifles in new stock systems. The British, however, put out a tender for a new 7.62mm rifle in 2009 (the FAL being not sufficiently accurate to meet this need).
The final contenders for the role were the H&K 417 and the Lewis Machine & Tool LM7 rifle - basically a Stoner SR25 or AR-10 using the original Stoner quasi-direct-impingement action. LMT was chosen as the winner and formally adopted as the L129A1 in October of 2009, with rifles entering field service by May of 2010.
The L129A1 has proven effective and popular enough that the British military is currently looking to expend its role to that of sniper support weapon. This would involve a change in anticipated targets to enemies wearing body armor, which the current 7.62mm projectiles are not particularly good at defeating. A new projectile is in development with a steel penetrator tip (in principle similar to the 5.56mm SS109 projectile) to allow the L129A1 to fill this new role as well.
Up Next in Forgotten Weapons
-
Thorneycroft: A Victorian Bullpup Rif...
The Thorneycroft was the first military bullpup rifle, developed in the United Kingdom in response to combat experiences in the second Boer War showing the British infantry rifles to be overly long and cumbersome. Scotsman James Baird Thorneycroft figured he could address this by moving the actio...
-
Could a Tankgewehr Really Take Out a ...
The Tankgewehr antitank rifle was developed by the Mauser company and adopted by the Imperial German military as an emergency measure to counter the introduction of tanks to the WW1 battlefield. The question is, did they really work? Could a 13.2mm AP bullet from a Tankgewehr really perforate the...
-
The Swedish Suomi M-37/39 Submachine Gun
When the Swedish military decided that 1937 seemed like a pretty good time to be getting some new submachine guns, they arranged to purchase a version of the m/31 Suomi from their Finnish neighbors - which they called the M-37. Since the standard Swedish military pistol (the Husqvarna m/07) was c...
