As Nick implies, the days of “not invented here” are long, long gone.
I Apologise if I seem to have been disrespectful : That certainly was not my intent.
I’m quite simply baffled as to an apparently available and seemingly realistically simple solution being ignored.
I spent considerable time during the late 1970’s and early 1980’s following up on various compact firearms, having myself been rather intrigued with the Skorpion design.
Hence I am curious as to why an equivalent has yet to be adopted by both US and UK forces some thirty years later.
Respectful Regards, Uyraell.
The UK currently uses an EXTREMELY short carbine version of the SA-80 family for some uses (IIRC it’s issued to either tank crew or Apache aircrew, can’t quite remember).
The weapon is about 2/3 of the length of the standard L85A2…
I’ve just seen a picture of one of the short SA 80-s you refer to, Pdf27.
Yes, that weapon is damn short, though still larger than the Skorpion or Mini-Uzi. Then again, I’m taking the SA 80-short (aka L22_A1{?}) as being still able to fire the standard rifle bullet where the other two fire pistol rounds.
In which case,it would seem that the SA 80-short is a reasonable compromise.
Thank you for pointing it out. 
Regards, Uyraell.
Incidentally, I’ve read that cut down versions of M-14s in full caliber 7.62mm NATO are popular with some US special operators called the M-1A (?)…
The M1A is actually a civilian rifle made by Springfield Armory and is just a modified M14. The rifle in the image is called a SOCOM 16 which itself is a shortened Springfield M1A. I haven’t heard of them being used by the military but it isn’t hard to imagine someone using one with the resurgence of the harder hitting .308 (7.62x51mm NATO) round by military forces.