IDZ and The British FIST

It's not just the US Land Warrior, seems others have taken an interest in the "one man army" scenario. The human F-16's of the ground force.

Germany IDZ (INFANTERIST DER ZUKUNFT): www.army-technology.com...

The British FIST - FUTURE INFANTRY SOLDIER TECHNOLOGY: www.army-technology.com...

[edit on 30-12-2005 by the_renegade]

Any system that incorporates the SA80 is appropriately called the FIST, since that's what the soldier would end up having to use for self defence.

Originally posted by Winchester Ranger T
Any system that incorporates the SA80 is appropriately called the FIST, since that's what the soldier would end up having to use for self defence.

Care to elaborate? The FIST is what the British call there project. The US doesn't call it Land Warrior because the soldier uses an XM8.

What Winchester is referring to are the known defects of the L85 and L85A1 rifles. These indeed could lead to catastrophic failures in combat. But after the HK makeover to A2 standard the rifle by all accounts seems to be a fine (though still butt-ugly IMO) system, both by the operators and gun folks. In official army tests the L85A2 allegedly even beat M16 and G36s in terms of reliability (though apparently none of the tested rifles survived all of the tests). But however good the A2 now is, it may never lose its bad reputation.

I know the IdZ version 1 is already in service, does anyone know about status of the FIST and Land Warrior programs?

Originally posted by Lonestar24
What Winchester is referring to are the known defects of the L85 and L85A1 rifles. These indeed could lead to catastrophic failures in combat. But after the HK makeover to A2 standard the rifle by all accounts seems to be a fine (though still butt-ugly IMO) system, both by the operators and gun folks. In official army tests the L85A2 allegedly even beat M16 and G36s in terms of reliability (though apparently none of the tested rifles survived all of the tests). But however good the A2 now is, it may never lose its bad reputation.

I know the IdZ version 1 is already in service, does anyone know about status of the FIST and Land Warrior programs?

Yeah, agreed.

Winchester is well known for taking every opportunity to piss all over anything the UK does, just check out PTS and his threads whinging about something in the UK. What makes it worse, is that he claims to be a UK ex-pat living in the US.

Although to be fair, early models of the SA80 were terrible. I'm still not sure if it has passed the desert tests they were known to have failed before GW1 (I seem to remember talk of the MoD buying AK-74s from Russia to equip our troops for GW1 because of the desert failures of the SA80).

When I was in the RAF, one of my mates in basic had been in the army, and did a tour in Northern Ireland in the late 80s. While on patrol in a Catholic area of Belfast, a young kid jumped out from behind a wall, and "shot at" him with a toy gun (kids eh, who'd have 'em?!). So, he chased the kid, tried to jump the wall, and didn't quite make it... On the way down, he dropped his SA80, which hit the ground and went "bing" - bits of plastic all over the place, rendering his rifle useless.

Not quite what you want in your personal weapon I would think...!

Well assault rifles are not supposed to be dropped....
If I dropped any rifle the sights will screw up and chances are there will be dammage..
If I stamp on the barrel of any rifle most likely it will dent and make it useless..

Originally posted by devilwasp
Well assault rifles are not supposed to be dropped....
If I dropped any rifle the sights will screw up and chances are there will be dammage..
If I stamp on the barrel of any rifle most likely it will dent and make it useless..

I wouldn't think that so much these days. Rifles are built to take a beating, dropping it probably won't do much to it, might through the sights of a touch.

[edit on 31-12-2005 by the_renegade]

Originally posted by the_renegade
I wouldn't think that so much these days. Rifles are built to take a beating, dropping it probably won't do much to it, might through the sights of a touch.

[edit on 31-12-2005 by the_renegade]

Dropping it eill probably screw up the zeroing and sights.

Originally posted by stumasonYeah, agreed.

Winchester is well known for taking every opportunity to piss all over anything the UK does, just check out PTS and his threads whinging about something in the UK. What makes it worse, is that he claims to be a UK ex-pat living in the US.

I suggest you address the subject and not the poster. The shortcomings of the SA80 even in its latest A2 guise are the subject of many field reports.

Otherwise you serve no purpose here.

Originally posted by the_renegadeI wouldn't think that so much these days. Rifles are built to take a beating, dropping it probably won't do much to it, might through the sights of a touch.

[edit on 31-12-2005 by the_renegade]

The thickness and quality of the metal used in the SA80 is such that simply squeezing on the sides of the receiver will cause the weapon to malfunction.

Report link from Feb 2003 on the SA80A2 - it really is an expensive paperweight.

www.freerepublic.com...

[edit on 1-1-2006 by Winchester Ranger T]

Originally posted by Winchester Ranger T

Originally posted by the_renegadeI wouldn't think that so much these days. Rifles are built to take a beating, dropping it probably won't do much to it, might through the sights of a touch.

[edit on 31-12-2005 by the_renegade]

The thickness and quality of the metal used in the SA80 is such that simply squeezing on the sides of the receiver will cause the weapon to malfunction.

Report link from Feb 2003 on the SA80A2 - it really is an expensive paperweight.

www.freerepublic.com...

[edit on 1-1-2006 by Winchester Ranger T]

The A2 is one of the most reliable weapons that I have ever fired, and I have plenty of experience of using combat weapons intcuding the much-vaunted M16 series. Note that this is combat experience, not read-about-it-in-an-article experience. All of the reports on the weapon experiencing stoppages come from the recent policy of reporting every single stoppage. No weapon is 100% stoppage free, but the SA80A2 is as good as it gets at the minute. I have used M16s less than the A2, but have experienced more stoppages with it. No one shouts about the AK47 having stoppages, but they do happen.

Loads of troops give huge praise to the SA80A2, but these are often overshadowed by the odd "I-had-a-stoppage-with-my-weapon-once" stories, because the media like to have something to moan about.

Winchester, I usually have a lot of time for your posts, I think you know what you're talking about most of the time (unlike some who post here). However, maybe you should get some practical experience with the SA80A2 before you condemn it.

The "new" British Army's FIST programme is just an updated version of the much heralded "Soldier 2000" concept.

As of January 10th, 2006, at 2125 hours (UK time), the project is currently 6 years behind.

Many projects are over budget (no surprise) some items of kit are so heavy they cannot readily be married to available kit;

Heads-up display for combat helmets are not readily available..............

I could go on and on and on and on..................... but would be the point?