New British Army Rifle KS-1
- Thread starter Heym SR20
- Start date
Or a blaser
waterford103
Well-Known Member
It's an AR15 , 70 year old design ,isEven the Canadians make their own ! How low have we sunk.
70 year old design eh ? Proven to work in combat then I guess? But to be fair its not how many parts can be swapped , not many if any I bet ! Full length picatinny rail / rails system , making it versatile and adaptable, a decent scope to suit the application and yet the ability to kit it out for specific purpose. The other side might be using the Kalashnikov with its bit of string , pressed metal parts and low ability to adapt for special purpose etc . Looks like a good thing to me tbf? Would personally prefer it with a 6.5mm bullet but i bet its interchangeable on the same platform.
Why oh why are we not making them here though ? The fact Edgars are handling this contract is also very, very good for supply of hunting ammo from the USA and other hunting rifles
I suspect because the last time we made our own, it was a complete mess!
Was talking about making it here under licenced manufacture . We 100% have the people and skills to build , design and development is however another matter entirely ( too many well connected idiots in all UK industry ) . Thinking towards long term National security in a fast changing world
Yup, SLR designed by the Belgians
Bren design stolen from the Czechs
Designer of the Lee rifle born in Scotland left for America
The high volume in one order helps them, but net profit is probably similar to that for commercial sales.That's the Edgar Brothers markup for you
Military contracts are completely different to normal commercial contracts, which makes them REALLY expensive to service. You need to experience it to understand how deep this goes.
I will give an example, when the company I work for sells equipment to a commercial buyer, or indeed buys anything from a seller overseas, we pay or get paid 50% with order and 50% before it ships. On big contracts that may become 50% with order, 40% before it ships, 10% on acceptance. These are our standard terms and all our suppliers use much the same for anything worth more than £2K. These arrangements have replaced LoCs around the world, following the fiasco in 2008 when banks ripped everyone off and refused to honour LoCs they issued. It means commercial buyers and sellers do not need to borrow to finance the trade. It is also fast.
Now take the same equipment we sell to a military buyer.
1. We have to do many more exhibitions, events, demos and evaluations of the equipment than for any commercial buyer. Some evaluations cost millions of pounds, which we have to foot, where they test everything again even though it already has all the CA, CE and other certifications, and a ton of paper from independent test labs.
2. Once they pick our kit, we then have to compete in a tender for it, that involves further cost and there is no guarantee of winning as vested interests affect tender selection in most countries. Getting from the start to just this point takes anything form several years to a decade.
3. The purchase contract involves us the supplier paying them, the buyer, 5% of the contract value as a performance guarantee and in return the buyer issues us with a Letter of Credit from a bank to pay the contract value upon delivery into country if every piece of equipment and every line of paperwork is correct. We get back the 5% after the warranty period - at least a year later if they deem fit to pay it back.
4. We then have to pay banks to turn the LoC into cash to fund the production.
5. We produce the goods and deliver into country, the goods are inspected. For some countries that is easy, some countries that is hard. There are some countries where their embassy sends someone out to inspect everything before it is shipped, and retest every single item, looking for any deviation whatsoever which they then will use as cause to reject the whole lot ... unless we agree a discount. When this happened to us last, the inspector did not find a single thing wrong but told us this was the first contract he had inspected where everything was right and he had been doing the job for 10 years working in Europe for that country (which is outside Europe). It is like a tax inspection, even if everything is in order they want to get something out of you, and it costs you a fortune to go through even when you have done everything right. Even when all is right the buyer then wants to change their mind about some things and try to negotiate down.
6. One needs full spares and support in country. That can cost a few hundred £K to set up, depending on what the equipment is.
7. For military equipment, the chain above is hard, so it is not unusual to have 5 companies in the path between manufacturer and buyer in order to handle their demands. Five companies means five margins, stacked in a compound manner.
8. Service and maintenance is where most military suppliers, that are not shifting kit that goes bang and rebuy, make their money. I have seen many absurd maintenance contracts where the buyer could buy all new every year for the cost of their maintenance.
Hence military equipment has to be several times more expensive to the end use than the equivalent commercial sale, to make the same net profit.
End result of the procurement process, is equipment is priced three times higher, often far from the best, is often bordering on obsolete or out of date, as the buyers prefer vested interests rather than newer companies.
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Its simply not worth retooling for an order as low as 1600.
RO got the SA80 contract to make it suitable for privatisation and sell off-dont kid yourselves. They had an order of over 300,000 and a maintenance contract for 20+ years. The Army was well over 150,000 then. Now its 72500.
The UK hasnt been competitive in military small arms design or manufacture for well over 40 years. Thats just a fact. SLR was a semi auto FN FAL built under licence.
Malcolm Cooper/AI were an outlier who blagged the capacity of production, even if concept was sound. So it makes much more sense to buy Commercial Off The Shelf.
RO got the SA80 contract to make it suitable for privatisation and sell off-dont kid yourselves. They had an order of over 300,000 and a maintenance contract for 20+ years. The Army was well over 150,000 then. Now its 72500.
The UK hasnt been competitive in military small arms design or manufacture for well over 40 years. Thats just a fact. SLR was a semi auto FN FAL built under licence.
Malcolm Cooper/AI were an outlier who blagged the capacity of production, even if concept was sound. So it makes much more sense to buy Commercial Off The Shelf.
Rob-E
Well-Known Member
1600 is nothing. So the others will be either on the C8 or the SA80, which means continuing the needs to have different powers of 5.56 ammunition. Unless they actually trialled the KS-1 with the standard issue RG stuff
paul o'
Well-Known Member
When Enfield was closed the die was set now the skills are long since dead in the numbers needed to restart we should be able provide a place to make our own rifles but we jumped on the overseas bus to buy cheap and buy twice or more ? this was the same when RG was shut ? maybe the MP jack Straw and is seat at H&K may have had an agenda back then ?? , We once had one of the best arms manufactures in the world! all we can do now is put plasters and grip tape on rifles to hold them together. We need a rifle that can compete on the world stage all be it an AR platform if it was me that would also be in what ever your enemy is using ! so if Ammo if short you can used there's.
The quote was in response to those who appear to believe we have a nascent ability to mass produce arms in the UK.
Your point relates exactly to why the contract went to who it did…. It is all in the extended equipment lifecycle.
I think the £10k per includes the groovy thermal add on. Frankly the SA80 was a political choice and took decades to get working, going AR in the first place would have been better
Yes “ Make your own” thinking got us the SA80 only took around 15-20 years and another manufacturer to turn it in to an “ Average” infantry weapon
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