Infantry Weapons of the Vietnam War

My pleasure. I’m here to inform!

Hmmm, reminds me of a certain General rank who, in a televison interview, was singing the praises of the Minimi and said, if I recall correctly, no less than three times that one of the advantages was that it could use STANAG (M-16) mags.
At the time I was sat with several Aussies who threw empty tubes at the tv while screaming “Then why did you take the ***** 16’s from us ?”

I have seen a video where an Austeyr shows that it can eject from the left side…
The only problem was that the shooter had the wpn set to and firing from his right shoulder !

Despite repeated requests from experienced Diggers for the sight to include cross hairs in the reticle the reply was that it was unnecessary/impossible to produce.
Then the Kiwis had the Steyr foisted on them, and surprise surprise - theirs had cross hairs !

The Kiwi Regt are still bitching about the wpn.

I sincerely doubt that hidden rug has had the dubious “pleasure” of firing the AUG…

Nasty, nasty, crap piece of plastic junk.

I may not have but Im very sure the Austyer is different to the AUG in many ways.

Name a significant one then…

Standard 5.56mm F88 Austeyr rifle similar to the AUG but with a bayonet lug under the barrel. The Austeyr has been deisgned to suit Australian Conditions.

And a specially designed one, Steyr F88 A4— ADI’s Austeyr F88 A4 will incorporate multiple Picittiny rails for the fitting of legacy systems such as the M203 P1 40mm grenade launcher assembly (GLA) as well as both commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) and military off-the-shelf (MOTS) sighting and numerous additional battle enhancement accessories.

End of story, winge all you want but the Austyer suits it’s conditions ( Australian that is ) and it works as well as any other rifle in service.

I think M.O.S have an particular teory, wich is “everything I dont like is crap”

Most issue AUG rifles have a bayonet lug, it is only diffy on the Austrian forces version due to user requirements.
Regardless, it’s hardly a significant difference is it ?

No it hasn’t.

And this differs significantly from the A3 receiver how ?

(My bold.)
Not having a go Hiddenrug, but on what experience do you base this claim ?

Don’t you think it might be the other way around ?
ie “because it is crap I don’t like it.”

I have a question to Hiddenrug which may sort out all querry about how good Austeyr is…

Mate, please tell me how many Austeyrs are in use with Australian SAS?

And now, what weapons are used by Australian SAS in non-urban conditions?
And what weapons SAS use in urban, anti-terror actions?

Shall I continue or … it’s enough?

I heard opinion - from Aussie paras that Austeyr is an ideal weapon for services which don’t need to use it often, engineers, logistics, technical etc.

Cheers,

Lancer44

:wink: None, nada, zero…

No, I dont.

It would obviously be a breach of Sy to publish an armoury tally even if I was in a position to do so, but I can confirm with 100% accuracy that 1SASR do have and do use F88 Austeyrs.

That’s interesting, why do you believe that ?

Correct, it’s their job to know and use any weapon. On the same basis DELTA and SEAL have soviet AKMS 74. Do they use them in actions? I doubt.

I know for sure that Steyrs were on trials with Polish GROM - rejected. Yes, they still have them and they are part of training armoury - but never in action.

Generally SAS operators have a free choice of firearms like almost every serious special forces in the world. The most popular is M4 or M4 with M203.
I don’t think F88 can match M4.

Cheers,

Lancer44

The F88 is not held for familiarity nor FWT, 1SASR oprs will be very familiar with the Austeyr as they will have carried it throughout their preceeding career.

There are a number of sound tac scenarios for their use and they were indeed carried in PNG. However I do agree with Lancer in that the M4 is a better wpn, and it is in general that carried by oprs in the Afghan.

And not only in Afghanistan.
Australian MOD’s webpage:
http://www.defence.gov.au/news/armynews/editions/1087/features/feature03.htm

http://www.defencejobs.gov.au/default.asp?p=170&pu=CAMPAIGN/SpecialForces

18sasrtraining1.jpg

DFT_SF_Forest.jpg

Because the scorny type of writing of M.O.S

I hope this is stating the obvious, but I will only form a strong opinion about something which I have personal experience of. I like to think that I’m in a position to assess various rifles in a fairly objective manner, since I have a wide range of experience.

If I say that something is crap, is not because I saw a picture, played call of duty, and subsequently formed a worthless opinion based on personal prejudices. It’s because I had the damn thing in my hands, gave it a good going over, and formed an opinion based on a comparison with many other things I have had in my hands.

If I have only handled something and not fired it, I will only make strong comments about the elements of it you can assess without actually firing. In the case of the AUG, I have actually fired it – which certainly didn’t improve my opinion of it in the slightest.

What most of you on here don’t realise is that there is a vast amount of absolute crap on issue in various armies, often adopted for political reasons and/or the prejudices of the selection board.

One that could be an interesting case in point for this is the new Israeli rifle,the Tavor, which is also a bullpup. The fact that they are foisting it on new recruits who have no previous experience of other rifles, and not issuing it first to front-line units (standard practice practically everywhere, and for good reason) leads me to deduce that it might not be any good, especially given the fact that it is a bullpup and that most people with experience of conventional rifles just do not like bullpups (also for good reason). However, since I have no personal experience of it I will not form a firm or strong opinion. The explanation of training time and training costs to convert from one weapon system to the other sounds like a convenient copout.

Oh, here’s another one:

The Galil looks very good on paper, and I was predisposed to like it, but I didn’t – it was extremely disappointing.

The nagant rifles looked awful on paper, but I’m rather fond of them and I don’t think they’re as bad as all that.