In message , Greg Hennessy
writes
On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 14:28:36 +0100, (phil hunt) wrote:
Rather than taking them in sealed plastic to kuwait, unwrapping them on a
range with plastic sheeting on the ground, firing 3 magazines and then
ticking the box which said it passed desert tests.

Is that what they did?

Yes.

More recently...
+++++
INTERNATIONAL DEFENSE REVIEW
NOVEMBER 01, 2002
British forces do battle with rifle maintenance mythology

....Another recommendation was that a follow-up confidence-building field
firing demonstration should be conducted with a larger tri-service
group, involving comparative evaluations with other infantry weapons.

This was staged by the commander of the Infantry Trials and Development
Unit (ITDU), British Army Lieutenant Colonel Tony Thornburn, in Oman
using a 39-strong team from all three services. He noted "during the
demonstration, a total of 24,750 rounds were fired by the Individual
Weapons (the SA80 A2 Light Support Weapon variant was also involved),
which encountered only 51 stoppages. This represents a Mean Rounds
Between Failure Rate of one every 2,719 rounds. Out of 165 BFMs, SA80 A2
passed 156: of the nine failures the stoppages were easily cleared and
not mission critical. SA80 A2 Individual Weapon (IW) therefore achieved
a 95% success rate, compared with the operational requirement, which
stipulates 90%. These results compare very favorably to its nearest
rival."

Since this was a demonstration rather than a formal like-for-like trial,
the MoD refused to specify the other weapons or their performances.
However, IDR's own sources indicate that among those taken were the
Diemaco C7 version of the M16A2 (as used by the UK SAS and SBS), the
Heckler & Koch G36, and the Steyr AUG. It is understood whichever
alternative weapon they used, none of the participants was able to match
the SA80 A2 in either accuracy or reliability during this demonstration.

In his report Col Thornburn noted "We also dug SA80 A2 IW and other
weapons into the sand to demonstrate that even following this treatment,
the liberal use of oil will allow the weapons to function properly
thereafter, finally laying the myth about oil and sand."
+++++

Funnily enough, after all the "it's useless and it won't work" stories,
this one never made much headway in the news.

Can't let facts get in the way of a good rant, can we?



--
When you have to kill a man, it costs nothing to be polite.
W S Churchill

Paul J. Adam MainBoxatjrwlynch[dot]demon{dot}co(.)uk