Senior army officers want the Government to scrap the
                    service's fault-prone main assault rifle because of fears
                    that it will cost the lives of British soldiers in battle.

                    The demands arose after it emerged that several
                    SA80-A2 rifles, the latest version of the weapon that
                    recently completed a £92 million upgrade, failed to fire
                    during operations in Afghanistan.

                    One senior officer told The Telegraph: "You can't improve
                    a weapon which is basically flawed no matter how much
                    you spend on it, and the SA80 is a flawed weapon. It's not
                    balanced, the optical sight easily gets steamed up so it
                    can't be used, and it can't be fired in the left-handed
                    position.

                    "Even with all the modifications these basic flaws still
                    exist. The lesson here is that no amount of testing can
                    replicate conditions in war. The modifications have made
                    it more reliable and it doesn't jam as much as before, but
                    it still jams. And a stoppage in combat will cost the life of
                    a British soldier."

                    Another senior officer said he believed that troops had
                    lost confidence in the weapon following the latest failures.

                    "War with Iraq next spring is looming and our troops are
                    equipped with a weapon which fails to fire in hot, dusty
                    conditions. No one should underestimate the seriousness
                    of this situation."

                    The Ministry of Defence is under intense pressure to "cut
                    its losses" and scrap the SA80-A2 in favour of a rifle
                    designed by the arms manufacturer, Heckler and Koch.

                    The woeful record of the SA80 is just one of a long list of
                    MoD bungles that have cost the British taxpayer billions of
                    pounds in recent years. The disclosure is a great
                    embarrassment for Adam Ingram, the Armed Forces
                    minister, who last October proclaimed that the rifle was
                    the best of its kind in the world, adding that: "The Army
                    has every confidence in this weapon."

                    The gun that the senior officers want, the HK G36, is
                    regarded by many within the military as possibly the best
                    assault rifle ever built.

                    Britain's Armed Forces would require about 300,000 new
                    weapons in addition to magazines, spare parts and
                    training manuals. Although individual weapons sell for
                    about £300, the cost for a large order would bring down
                    the total price significantly, possibly to below than the £92
                    million spent on refitting the SA80. Versions of the HK
                    G36 are already being tested by the Special Air Service,
                    which is believed to have used it with great success in
                    Afghanistan. The German and the Spanish military are
                    also understood to have signed contracts to equip their
                    armed forces with the G36.

                    The MoD launched the upgrade of the SA80 in 2000 after
                    years of complaints by soldiers that it was prone to jam in
                    adverse weather. Heckler and Koch, once German-owned
                    and now owned by BAe Systems, won the contract and
                    rebuilt the main firing components of the weapon. Live
                    firing trials in extreme terrains suggested that the faults
                    had been corrected.

                    The new version of the rifle had its operational debut in
                    Afghanistan, when the Second Battalion of the Parachute
                    Regiment became the first unit in the British Army to fire
                    the weapon in anger after a section of Paras was attacked
                    while on patrol in Kabul earlier this year.

                    Although 2 Para encountered few problems with the
                    weapon, The Telegraph understands that many troops still
                    believe it to be second-rate. The Royal Marines, however,
                    have claimed that the weapon jammed at least three
                    times in Afghanistan. The MoD immediately sent a team
                    from the manufacturer to try to discover what had gone
                    wrong.

                    Terry Gander, the editor of Jane's Infantry Weapons,
                    said: "The SA80 has been a problem weapon from start to
                    finish and is the product of a weapon designed by
                    committee. It would have made far more sense to buy
                    American in the 1980s. Their M16 has its faults but it is a
                    very reliable weapon - far more so than the SA80. For a
                    long while the M16 was the weapon of choice of the SAS
                    and that is always a clue."

                    Last week, Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, said
                    reports of misfiring and jamming would need to be
                    investigated before any decision was made. He added,
                    though: "We have spent a considerable amount of money
                    upgrading this rifle and I don't want to accept
                    second-best."

                    The SA80 is just one of a number of British defence
                    projects that have failed to live up to expectations. One of
                    the most embarrassing was the decision in the late 1980s
                    to scrap the Nimrod early-warning aircraft after £1 billion
                    had already been spent because the GEC radar system
                    failed to meet the RAF's standards.

                    Other notable failures include the inability of the Tornado
                    GR-4 to deliver "smart" bombs after a £1 billion upgrade.
 

                      16 October 2001: Rifles up-dated in time for invasion 

                      31 July 2000: Soldiers' rifle failed in battle, says secret report 
 

                         © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003. Terms & Conditions of reading.
                                    Commercial information.   Privacy Policy.