All change: It's SA80 v G36 as British and German troops swap small arms

British infanteers and German paratroopers have met up in Wiltshire to exchange skills, discuss tactics and try each others' weapons.

Exercise Panzerjäger (Tank Hunter) sees the troops train on Salisbury Plain over three weeks to develop their anti-tank skills, while also testing each others' small arms.

"They have a good fire rate and muzzle velocity - good equipment," said Oberleutnant (Lieutenant) Lucas of 31 Fallschirmjäger Regiment, when talking about the British Army's venerable GPMG (General Purpose Machine Gun).

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He also got to fire the SA80 L85 A3, the latest iteration of the British Army's assault rifle.

"I thought the firing rate was great, I struggled a little bit with the handling of the SA80 because of its chamber [magazine housing] being behind the pistol grip," Lt Lucas said of the weapon's bullpup configuration.

"We have seen and proved here there are many similarities.

"And the British side has also great machine guns."

The British soldiers, meanwhile, practised shooting the MG5 light machine gun and G36 assault rifle.

The Germans even brought the Wiesel armoured weapons carrier along with them.

Captain James Prince of 1 Rifles said: "The MG5 I think is a very impressive weapon.

"In terms of its sighting system, it has ACOG [Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight] on top which makes it particularly accurate even though it's a machine gun at greater distances.

"Equally, I think the G36, whilst it's good it's not quite as accurate as the SA80 A3.

"But we'll find out as we've got the shooting competition."