SA80 History: Underbarrel Grenade Launchers
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- Опубліковано 30 тра 2017
- Armament Research Services (ARES) is a specialist technical intelligence consultancy, offering expertise and analysis to a range of government and non-government entities in the arms and munitions field. For detailed photos of the guns in this video, don't miss the ARES companion blog post:
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In our final segment on the SA80 family of weapons, we are looking at a selection of underbarrel grenade launcher adaptations of the L85 rifle. Specifically, we will see a prototype XL60 series launcher, a prototype Enfield XL70 series system, an adaptation of the Colt M203, and the final adopted H&K AG SA80 grenade launcher mounted on the L85A2. These various types include a variety of different loading, mounting, and sighting systems, and make a very interesting composite picture of the ways in which underbarrel grenade launchers can be designed.
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I love how everytime HK is asked to make a new grenade launcher, they just make a new AG36.
If it ain't broke dont fix it I guess
Proven design tbh, all it needs each time is a little tweaking for each customer.
@@domEastCoast and it seems to be good enough if they keep buying it
I used the Hk ugl in Iraq attached to the sa80 a2 in an ambush and it got us out of a sticky situation in an ambush.
We used to use a rifle grenade called Rggs ( rifle grenade General service) and that was very accurate and it was initiated by firing a live round not a blank in to the a bullet catcher which set off a rocket motor, the only downside was it felt like Mike tyson had punched you with all the recoil.
Easy to stitch people up and tell them to fire while squatting and put the sight right up to the eye. Very accurate and easy to use !
Nothing trying the rggs in the squatting position
Just a note buddy RGGS was purely a round catcher, it had no rocket in it, it was purely the round you fired that launched it, lobbing in an arc. And yeah the big green dildo kicked like a damn donkey.
Never used it in Iraq but plenty of lads in the sections had them. Did fire practice paint rounds and seemed fairly accurate
The 3rd launcher shown would be right at home in the Mad Max -universe.
Agreed
Who would manufacture the grenades, though? Only a highly sophisticated faction would be able to pull off that sort of logistical requirement. Whatever the Mad Max-verse equivalent of the Brotherhood of Steel would be. More likely, if they made stuff like that in the Mad Max-verse, it would be a pipe bomb launcher that utilized a spigot (like a scaled-down PIAT). It would be compact and modular so you can splice it together with other weapons.
I just want to say thanks to Ian for all these videos on the SA80 family. It was nice to see it from initial design through to the A2 standard.
I've thoroughly enjoyed this SA80 series Ian, keep up the good work.
Funfact: the "AG" in "AG SA 80" stands most likely for: *Anbaugerät*
I know that because we used the G36 as a standard issue rifle and we had the "AG 36" as our underbarrel grenade launcher, which was pretty much the exact same thing as that one.
(The term "Anbaugerät" has no direct translation into english that i am aware of. Gerät means "device" as we discussed in the video about the Sturmgewehr that never was, and "Anbau" expresses that it is a device that´s meant to be affixed to something. "Etwas anbauen" means in this case to fix something to something else.)
I'm going with "Bolt-on device". As opposed to "Bolton device", because the latter would most likely be something to do with making meat pies.
Attachment?
Still not nearly as heavy as the SUSAT.
*insert comment about burns*
*insert comment about how bad the A1 was*
BULLPUPS ARE THE SPAWN OF SATAN, UTTER TRASH THAT SHOULD BE MELTED DOWN FOR A PROPER WEAPON
Steyr AUG
Galf506 the gun would have been far better if the designers had some drugs.
Yeah, but red still goes faster.
Spookjax
Just like the M16 then?
These SA80 series videos got me to quit porn, thanks Ian!
Predictably, the HK system is the most practical and ergonomic. Great video as always. Thank you
I like the grenade launchers that angle out more like the first one shown. It looks easier to use and it's more elegant.
Bueno.
I honestly like the look of the pivoting infield prototype, because of how low profile and slim line it is along with having a relatively comfortable seeming hand guard that usually doesn’t exist with under barrel grenade launchers. Obviously the sighting system should probably be changed and change the launcher from pivoting to simply canting our like modern grenade launchers.
HK rescues the day,... Again..
"Saves". Though the decision to finance the fixes, selecting H & K for the job and paying them to fix them is what actually saved the day tempered somewhat by the fact that replacing them completely would have cost more of course. H & K did a great job - at the time a UK owned company. The MOD get some belated points for eventually realising they had to take action but probably not enough to atone for the initial f+ck-up.
Seems that H&K have quite the reputation. Even the French wanna replace the Famas with the HK416 in the future, if I am not mistaken.
Fidgety Admiral - It's about governmental decisions regarding where the work goes particularly with a view to keeping as much defence spending/industry as possibly within the national fold as it were. You really have got the wrong end of the stick haven't you - your attempt to dump on my comment backfiring all over you (holds nose in disgust). Not a "claim" BTW - a significant fact. Plus, the sexism on a gun thread ? Issues.
The MoD only started to admit their fuckup after they just couldn't keep negative press about the SA80 out of the papers. It was a story that just wouldn't die.
Well that is more to do with the fact that H&K filed the correct paperwork. FN was actually frontrunner but they forgot to file their paperwork correctly so were disqualified. They weren't the only company to make that mistake according to what insiders have said.
Just goes to show you that you better read the fucking contract.
How much more L85 goodness can Ian squeeze from the National Firearms Centre? Lots more, I hope!
Matt Hayward agreed mate I love it
Excellent devices. Either a mortar or a grenade launcher is a significant force multiplier on the battle field. Sometimes artillery or fast jets are unavailable and these are the battery drills of warfare now.
"This guy is a somewhat more refined Enfield prototype..." *looks 100% uglier than previous model*
It looks pretty Star Wars / Alien 2. 10/10. It's a good kind of ugly.
I used to think it was ugly but it grew on me.
@Warriorcat49, He said that it is _somewhat_ more refined. I don't expect you to understand, living in the forest while someone is possessing a Clan leader and the clan leader's real ghost is wandering around the forest, wishing to go to StarClan. Something being _somewhat_ more refined is too hard to understand, because of all the stress the Clans are in.
@@someoneontheinternet1317 Huh.
Kyle Hanson, I am talking about a book series.
I appreciate your objective presentations, particularly on the british kit! Thanks Ian!
Another interesting video, thanks. You mentioned that rifle grenades mounted on the barrel, propelled by a blank cartridge, were not very accurate. In 1967 I was a tech in the USAF and for our annual rifle qualification they added a class on using the M-16 to launch rifle grenades. The instructor emphasized the importance of ensuring we had switched to blanks to fire the grenades ("good safety tip"). Our target was an old sign in a field near an abandoned taxiway, about 200 yards, or so, away. The first student's first round was within five feet of the sign. His second round actually hit the center of the face of the sign. All of us did at least as well. Many of us scored hits with our first shot. None of use were combat troops and none of us had even touched an M-16 for a year. We were all impressed with how accurately the grenades could be placed. Out of curiosity, we asked the instructor why we were being trained on the use of the rifle grenades. After all, we were electronic techs who would be working in the "safety" of an Air Force base. He said it was thought that the grenades would be useful to break-up "human-wave attacks" on the base. Most of us decided at that point, maybe we would not be re-enlisting for a second hitch.
Got to use the H&K underbarrel grenade launcher as a cadet... very ergonomic!
thanks Ian... you are a God. Have been watching your SA80 series currently and the series as a whole for years. Great info for anyone interested in armaments. Great stuff.
Always loved the look of the modern grenade launcher in the updated A2s
Thank you Ian, I sent you a picture of a Royal Ordance brochure for the SA80 grenade launcher, in all my 22 years infantry never seen one, but you found one in Leeds,
UGL was one of the highlights of service 👌 easy to use and always thought it made the SA80A2 look pretty evil.
From the training rounds with the orange paint to HE loved firing it you do well with UGL the rest of the section/platoon will love you FACT
An under barrel completes this weapons silhouette and makes it look so cool.
I absolutely love this channel.
Thanks for,the vids. You really make a good informative video. Keep up the good work.
Loving this series
very interesting.
I've been to the Royal Armouries in Leeds it's a great modern museum
the silver band was a good idea because as you go up and down with the rear sight the front sight stays at the same height to give a good reference for firing.
I'd love to see a video about how the hi-low pressure system works.
I always meant to mention how much I love your intro music...
Those are the good intros. No BS, just the title and the channel name that does not take longer than 5 seconds. If it's longer than 5 seconds, I'm skipping it.
I'm a simple man I see grenade launcher in the title I like
i'm a simple man, i see a overused cancer meme in the comments, and i overuse it more
This reminds me of an image I saw of VERY early prototyping for a Tavor 21 Grenade mounting. It had the entire "Grenadier" M-16 front end complete with the perforated rectangular handguard that went around the M16 barrel just hanging off the front of the Tavor. I've never found it again since the one book that had it.
You're a good man, this is exactly why I'm here. Gun lust aside, I must say this is a great channel for a lot of history on firearms (I know, duhhh).
Funny enough, besides Africa most countries borne from colonisation has a relatively kind relation with Britain
I like how the first one has a bullpup style trigger for the grenade launcher on a bullpup rifle.
It would be so nice to have a history series to every weapon which were adopted in a large scale by world powers.
Just dreaming...
Quality video as usual
I'm still surprised they're using the SA80/L85 series to this day. You figure they would have latched on to any number of better, more modern options by now. Awesome video as always, we still use the M203 but we mostly have M320s now, which looks and works almost identical to the one shown here. I didn't realize H&K made a SA80-specific grenade launcher, at first I thought it was a regular 320 bolted on the bottom, that's pretty cool. We use our 320s as a standalone unit, you definitely wanted the M203 under the M4, but with the 320 it's so awkward on a M4, we just sling those or holster them in a dump pouch.
The combination in the thumbnail is gorgeous
To my understanding, there was also an Wilcox (I believe it's called the RAAM) sight for AG SA 80 (UGL) that replaced the sight mechanism shown and uses an IR laser range finder to calculate range and trajectory needed. I also think there is an Eotech sight for the UGL as well.
Ja, sehr gut.
nice to see you in my home city Ian
Ian loves the SA80!
That black vented handguard looks really cool.
TroopperFoFo hell yes
The AG36 (The last one) actually can also fire buckshot rounds, you may have seen a picture of the SA80 with a front mounted EOTech, that is for when the AG36 is being used as a shotgun
*THOMP*
Great video as usual, but that spot on the wall is driving me nuts lol
Buncha sweet looking guns
The infantry bought some of their weapons to my cadets one of which was the hk launcher nice bit of kit 👍
That HK grenade launcher may be their only model that could actually fire its ammo when chambered backward; although probably only once.
I'm doing a full British squad thing for airsoft and they actually sell the airsoft 40mm nade launcher front guard! The luck and the A6 and L85 front guard with quad ris adapters :3
Again I learned something new.
Impressive, very nice
Top notch.
So basically AG36 adapted to L85...
Nice one.
Request for future stuff: Chinese employment of SKS, Type 63, Type 81. Seems they kept semiauto rifles in service longer than other nations; interested in doctrine and how they differed from the Soviets. Probably hard to come by the last two in the US but not sure. Good work bud.
The SLR was still in service in 1992 in the UK, primarily with the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy.
Ian, do you have any grenade launchers in your collection? It seems interesting all the ways militaries have used over the years to mount launchers on rifles. I would assume there are inert projectiles out there everyday folks can use.
This wasreally cool.:D
If only they let us have these in the cadets....
Harsh af man!
Got to play with L81A2s a lot in cadets, if you're stuck with bolt action single shooters at least it's a 7.62...
LOL - cadets - well I got it.
My father was a cadet after WW2 they were allowed to use a small AT gun.
Our cadet group is too poor to get No.8s. We have some lent L98A2s, but most of them have issues. On one of them, the captive bolts an fall off, and on another, the cheek piece is folded up because the sight was set too far back.
love the British sa90 !!! daughter has to shoulder arms one at UK sea cadet parades
Замечательно. Очень познавательно видео.
I never would have guessed there were people here in the Netherlands with such a large collection.
Excellent, intelligent, technically minded explanation from an American who takes an unbiased view of this weapon, unlike most of the Americans making comments below, who unfortunately continue to show their profound ignorance!
There was also a Special Forces SA80 which was basically a short barreled version. Needless to say it was an instantly forgotten weapon by the SF.
It looks like many rifles glued together into one.
There are now optical sights for grenade launching on the L85A2. Several off the shelf red dot sights appear to be in use: upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bd/SA80-A2_with_Underslung_Grenade_Launcher_%28UGL%29_MOD_45160296.jpg
That m203 opens up a lot more than a standard one does. I wonder if they had a requirement to fit longer rounds or something.
FN Herstal produced a Bullitt thru rifle grenade. You could fire it with a life round!! They even had a AP version of it!!
Man, that rig looks heavy.
yay,Leeds is my hometown!
Why is it we British have spent the best part of 30 years trying to produce a decent rifle for our armed forces and that the Germans managed to sort it out for us almost overnight ? Great video by the way. Thanks.
Because our firearms ownership laws have become so draconian over time, that it is no longer possible for any engineering company with the production capability required to deliver the occasional humungous Defence order for small arms, to maintain a workforce with the requisite depth and breadth of experience to reliably design, develop and deliver against said orders, by building firearms for domestic sale into the sporting market, let alone the global one.
Niche manufacturers (look at Ian's stuff on the Green Meanie is a case in point) are still out there, but Enfield (of Lee-Enfield fame) was gutted of such skillsets by the time SA80 was conceived. Even before that time, withdrawal from Empire meant that the British Small Arms Company (BSA to you youngsters) abandoned trying to be experts in Small Arms design an manufacture, and built themselves a second very worthy reputation for their motorbikes, but even then (I'm guessing here) they found they couldn't compete with Japanese competition.
@bsrlbck2013 "Nothing to do with firearms law, how does that affect the military and their weapons?"
Well, if you go back far enough through the history of firearms ownership and use in England, to (say) the days not so very long before the Entente Cordiale when this island still lived in fear of French invasion, and volunteer rifle clubs were formed in response - not by government, but by like-minded patriotic people, and live firing by such clubs was widely permitted (encouraged, even) in such out-of-the-way places as Hyde Park in London, you might find my point easier to grasp.
Rifle clubs such as these were the nuclei around which units were formed to fight in the Boer War, again, not by government, much less were they funded by taxes: they were raised by patriotic local leaders, funded by private donations, and as a result, many went into the South African campaign clothed, equipped and horsed to a higher standard than their Regular Army counterparts. This experience then formed (in part, through the establishment of the Territorials, which incorporated a very large number of the voluntary militias) the basis of the government's low-budget master plan for quickly mobilising a large-ish army to support the teeny-tiny Regular Army in the event of war with Kaiser Bill. Throughout this period - as I hope you can understand - firearms ownership was an accepted feature of everyday life in Imperial Britain, which in any case, until sometime after 1945 is also manufacturing shedloads of firearms to equip the soldiery who police its Empire.
Take away Empire, and your market diminishes - massively. Overlay that with increasingly restrictive laws on sporting firearms ownership (British government fears of popular rebellion since Bolshevik revolutionaries murdered Queen Victoria's granddaughter and her husband, Queen Vic's second cousin[?] - what an absurd suggestion . . . .) to the point where by the 1980s in the UK there's but a rump/niche domestic firearms market, and you pretty much kill off small arms engineering as a career in the UK altogether - military grade firearms perhaps more than anything - unlike in Germany or Belgium who have been happily developing sporting guns and combat weapons all of my life, and contributing substantially to the manufacturing and export sectors of their respective national economies for quite literally all of my life.
Your point on the near-total failure of UK firearms legislation (since well before the isolated lunacies at Hungerford or Lockerbie ) to actually reduce the real threat to life of illicitly owned firearms is spot on, nevertheless.
The launcher is the same one as on the G36, correct? Just with a different name.
MadraktheRed yes it basically is. I was surprised Ian did not mention that in the video
Yeah, US designation is the M320
the M320 also works as a standalone grenade launcher if I'm not mistaken. that's why it has a pistol grip while the AG36 doesn't.
They are the same weapon. Just designated differently for the fixings they have for different rifles/attachment systems.
You would be surprised how similar the g36 is to the sa80. The gas parts are identical, in fact a lot of the internals are.
Hi Ian! Since your are at ARES, can your do small video about SA80\L85 optics (SUSAT, Trijicon ACOG (TA31-FIST), SpecterOS4x). I have got some data about this sights (photos and markings), but never saw ACOG reticle. Really rare.
a video in the underbarrel m203 grenade laucher
What grenade launcher did the British use between 3rd prototype and german AG36 on the A1 rifles in Gulf War? Did they use it at all?
I know that long munitions is two words but when you say it my brain registers it as one compound word.
Longmunitions.
We need a digital eyepeace that uses a laser range finder to calculate the proper sight picture for under slung grenades.
If not for the average infantryman, then for the MK19...
Very interesting to see those prototypes. Is it possible to mount apav grenades on L85 or something similar like the french use on their famas ?
Also on forgotten weapons, on a similar topic, I'd like to see the russian bs-1 tishina / gsn-19 grenade launcher on an AKs-74u
never I saw L-85 with integral grenade launcher !
But no Hilton HG-40. I could find so little information on that particular UBGL for the SA80.
Could you make a review on the SUSAT sight?
Sight Unit Small Arms Trilux
Hi Ian, it is possible for you to actually do some more shooting with the L85a1/a2 and L86 LSW? There aren't many L85 shooting video. I would like to here some more comments
On the last one, the forward handguard seems to be a modified G36 one.
you know Ian, for a gun you seem to hate you sure make a ton of videos on it platform. just an observation. no criticism i love your vids and I know you're just educating us
alan crook as he stated before it was pretty much a POS until they made the A2 version
The HK launcher fitted to the non HK version A1 does it make the non HK version any better? I'd enjoy seeing that combo fired
I don’t think it was mentioned, but where was the trigger on the 3rd example?
Would you be able to fire the AG SA 80 if it wasn't mounted to the rifle like some crazy pistol.
Why does the AG36 breech hinge towards the left? Are the rounds supposed to be loaded using the left hand?
In the British Army the only "guns" are operated by the Artillery. A rifle is always a rifle, or colloquially a "gat".
or even 'bondouk' if yer really old ^^
I am sorry to say that exactly the same as the trigger gard on US army M203. its been bent and it dossen't fit as tightly agent the receiver as it would an M16 or an M4 but is the same thing.
How's the balance on these, Ian? Are they front-heavy, and if so, how does it feel compared to a front-heavy "traditional" rifle or carbine? Lastly, would you, personally, prefer to have the GL mounted to your weapon, or would you rather carry it separately? A bunch of my buddies in the service tell me that they prefer to carry them separate and even have neat little "holsters" to carry them in, which makes a lot of sense to me. Why add that much weight and bulk to your weapon when you're not likely to be using the GL as often, such as just patrolling or whatnot.
Unoriginal Username from seeing some comments here, the GLs actually balance the rifles well due to the sa80 being rear heavy, apparently.
AG36 is basically modified by the US as the M320
2:35 just realised this looks like the XL64 IW
That first one seems nice. Figuring the trigger wasn't easy enough to use without looking?
Ian, how would you shoot the third one?
Paulo Abib it was a concept model
at a guess the button on the side of the forgrip
Seen some guys put grenades through doors at 300 meters plus with these in Iraq. British army are are really strict on the amount of ammo and grenades we were issued so you needed to be pretty accurate.
You're STILL at the Royal Armouries National Firearm Centre ?!?!?! :P
welcome to the uk dude
I always wonder when I see underbarrel grenade launchers like the last one if soldiers ever just took two of them and just started akimbo firing grenade launcher pistol things
I belive the Nato standard rifle grenade dedigns are a bullet trap design. Blank not needed
Seems odd that no positive separation exists between the two triggers. I would hope all of these were prototypical, and the final iteration would have been easier for troops in the field to use?