XBradTC

Well, not for all the troops, it doesn’t appear.

First, don’t put too much credence on the folderal in this article. You can hardly expect the press to understand a damn thing about guns, and not much about wars. Still:

British troops are to be issued with a new infantry combat rifle for the first time in 20 years to cope with the fierce fighting conditions of the Afghan war.

The Sharpshooter will use larger 7.62mm bullet rounds in order to engage with Taliban fighters over longer distances. The change comes after the military found that the standard Nato 5.66 rounds lost velocity at ranges over a thousand feet.

The 5.56 rounds, used by the SA80 rifles, had proved adequate in previous conflicts in Iraq, Kosovo and Sierra Leone where much of the exchanges had taken place in urban battlegrounds. However, in the valleys and mountains of Afghanistan the insurgents often start shooting matches at distances of up to 2,500 feet. The Taliban, on the other hand, are using guns which can date back to the 1890s but have proved to be effective over further distance and their simpler mechanism makes them easier to maintain. Around 400 of the new rifles have been purchased for £1.5m from funds available under Urgent Operational Requirements (UORs) and will be issued to the most proficient shots.

While there might be one or two Taliban running around with an 1890 Enfield, the vast majority are equipped with AKs and similar Soviet small arms.

Now, on to the Sharpshooter.

Based on the number of rifles being bought, it looks to me that the British Army is adopting a variant of the US Army’s highly successful Designated Marksman program.

The DM is equipped with a rifle, usually 7.62mm, as opposed to the standard M4 carbine. Along with optics, this give him reach out to well beyond the effective range of an M4.

But what the program isn’t is a sniper program.  The DM is a regular member of the Rifle Squad, and fulfills the regular duties of a squad member. But much like other members of the squad have specialized duties within the squad (say, Grenadier or Automatic Rifleman), so to the DM, that is, to place aimed accurate rifle fire upon targets in his squad’s sector.

Interestingly, the Brits appear to have gone with a modular AR platform rifle, much like the US Army chose the M110. That’s slightly surprising coming from an Army that carried the 7.62mm L1A1 Self Loading Rifle (the FN FAL) for many, many years.