Project Grayburn: The hunt is on for the British Army's next assault rifle
The Ministry of Defence is looking to replace the SA80 L85 assault rifle under a programme called Project Grayburn.
The L85A3 is scheduled to be out of service by 2030, and the British Army needs to find a new assault rifle for its soldiers in the next 10 years.
We take a closer look at what Project Grayburn is and answer the key questions on the Army's hunt for its new weapon.
What is Project Grayburn?
Project Grayburn is a procurement initiative to replace the British Army's SA80 L85 assault rifle.
The Ministry of Defence is looking to award a contract to a defence company to provide somewhere between 150,000 and 180,000 new rifles.
The project is currently in the concept phase, which aims to find and understand the capability requirements of the new weapon. As part of this phase, various rifle calibres are being considered.
The British Army is looking for a rifle that fires a round with as flat a trajectory as possible, while remaining deadly on impact.
The project will have to pick the right layout for the rifle, whether that be conventional, like the Ranger Regiment's AR-15-style KS-1, or a bullpup configuration, like the current L85.
Bullpups have a longer barrel in a short overall package, whereas a conventional layout will give soldiers potentially speedier magazine changes and possibly a better trigger.
What have the politicians in charge of the project said?
In late April, Defence Procurement Minister Maria Eagle said "various rifles are being considered" in reply to a written question by Conservative MP Ben Obese-Jecty about the progress of Project Grayburn.
"Performance, interoperability and complexity are some of the factors under consideration," Ms Eagle added in her written reply.
"The Army will take measures to mitigate any risk of potential capability vulnerabilities," she said, adding that there were ongoing discussions with manufacturers and experts.
The overall project cost has not been determined, but will be dependent on when "the scope, timeline and complexity of the project is confirmed", Ms Eagle said.
What does it mean for the military?
Given that the Strategic Defence Review highlighted plans to make the British Army 10 times more lethal, any replacement for the SA80 will likely have to increase the British Army's lethality in operations.
The new assault rifle must also be more reliable than the initial SA80 L85A1, whose well-catalogued problems included a firing pin with a tip that tended to break off, a system that failed to fully extract and eject a spent cartridge case, causing a stoppage, a poorly designed magazine release catch that could cause a mag to fall to the ground unintentionally and a butt pad that broke apart.
These problems were all addressed over the lifetime of the SA80, with the current L85A3 being a competent and accurate rifle.
However, the basic platform first entered service in 1985 during the Cold War, so the Army is trying to modernise its choice of primary individual weapon.
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