My favorite aspects of the Q&A's are the time stamps on the questions. I only follow the questions that interest me. Exactly why I don't watch Karl's InrangeTV Q&A's.

@@eloiseharbeson2483 well that and Karl is insufferable.

@@Spetsnazty not really, but having to watch the whole thing to find out if there is anything of interest to me is a waste of the little time I have left.

I concur - also I like the title letting me know exactly what's in the video as well which makes me think I probably missed good stuff by passing on longer videos not knowing what I'd find inside.

I have not watched a single one or even parts of Ian's normal Q&A videos, but I have now seen both of these new short videos with great enthusiasm.

Nah I’d take a sten over the original La85

not really. in a war they would have just taken the AR-18 and not done all the bikeshedding that was done to the whole SA80 project

The design team knew it was piece of junk, I talked to one of them at the time it was being developed. The L85A2/3 are quite useable though.

Personally I never had any problems or real complaints with the L85 A1. Used one from 95 until the A2 came in. Extremely accurate, well balanced , you just needed to keep on top of it.

@@cnb1971 they were way easier to shoot than an L1A1, obviously. The L85A1 was poorly made and bits fell off it. The A2 upped the game in quality of components and assembly, fixed some of the worst mistakes. It's too heavy for what it is being really the main issue with it the final analysis. Bullpups are always a compromise with ergonomics.

Blish block 🇦🇺🐨🇦🇺

@@55vma Tbh the blish lock was basically a angled dropper delayed blowback

Also, wartime tends to make elected goverment officials look for quick military success. Peacetime procurement often has elected officials worrying about the budget, details about where the money goes, and the political outcome, ie: Make sure the money is spent employing the right people at the right factories in the right regions owned by the right people.

Also, wartime lays bare the actual needs of battle and war, as opposed to peacetime where a lot of people are making decisions based on speculation about the needs of war or even trying to create new paradigms because they think they can change war by their chosen weaponry. A lot of time is spent by procurement operatives arguing over what they think will be useful, as opposed to a clear list of what is clearly useful.

Also, I have an opinion as well.

I watch both, however will scroll through the questions to ones that interest me.

Great observation. Oh, you only want 50 units instead of 5,000? Bye-bye economies of scale.

B-2 Spirit in a nutshell.

The M1 Carbine was massively produced by several companies.

That was one of the real perks of the national armory system at the time. The armories were mostly focused on both development of weapons and the means to produce them, not so much actually making the guns themselves. So the US gov would pick a gun and then whoever the designer was would work with the armories to determine what was needed for production as they developed the tooling for the gun. Then the armory would just make duplicate copies of that tooling for the other factories and provide oversight to make sure they were all making things to the right specs.

Many years ago I worked for a franchise (Doesn't matter which one. Wasn't fast food.) The owners actually owned 6 locations and they were new in the business. Of the 6, only ours was making money. Probably this was because only ours had a competent manager. The rest of them were mostly relatives of the owners, who were all pretty incompetent. One day, the owners hired an outside manager to run all 6 locations, who came in to basically tell us all how we were doing it wrong. She made us change most of what our (competent) manager had us doing. We started losing money, and within six months they closed our location. Who was the outside manager? A friend of the owner's from college.

Have worked in quite a range of industries and management time and again is the weak spot, managers with no knowledge of the industry there in running things via some business model with no idea of the issues involved.

@@owen368 May I introduce you to ALL THE GERMAN MINISTERS OF DEFENCE?! Sorry, but the fact that every single one of the last three had to literally be taught the ranks, AFTER they got the job, speaks volumes about the power of competence vs the power of connections.

@@erloriel There where two decent ones before, one was kind of a bean counter (Scholz) who was ridiculed for never having gone through mandatory military service but who was good with numbers and a logical thinker, the other (Guttenberg) was relatively well-received among the troops (even visited the frontlines in Afghanistan 7 times), did much work on plans for a deep resctructuring to save money and raise military efficiency, then fell over his not so well done dissertation papers. His successor mostly carried on with his plans, but didn´t succeed in time, after that one things went downhill.

I appreciate that!

As if bigger things weren't started by less than three guys even without a shed. :-)

It's true that the French missed out on being able to field a self-loading rifle (by months!) but their new bolt action rifle was one of the best, and the FM24/29 was a way better light machine gun than the BAR.

No they are in perpetual state of civil war, they just have periods of ceasefire

@@Embassy_of_Jupiter i am french and agree with this statement

oui, à l'heure de l'apéro...

Once upon a time when they were Catholic....

Sweden and Denmark still have the record as longest time at war with each other.

Don't see a lot of tool and die shops and small machinist shops anymore any you do see are run by old men about to retire in the next 5-10 years it's unfortunate

I don't think the l85 is a fair example. From what I understand, it was not really a bad design, but the design team was essentially fired and the gun put into production before they were finished developing it. H&K fixed almost everything by just doing the last few design steps.

The L85 debacle wasn’t due to ‘design by committee’ but because, remarkably, none of them had designed a gun before. Even bona fide gun genius like Browning needed a whole bunch of engineers around him to actually make a design manufacturable

@@matthayward7889 And do the design work needed to develop the tooling needed to produce them.

@@matthayward7889 Again, just what I think I know, but the point was that they began design of the L85 in Enfield, and essentially before they were halfway done the gunmakers there got the message that the arsenal was being closed and they were all out of a job. At the same time some paper-pushers in the MoD decided that the gun was ready and pushed for adoption, while the designers, fresh out of their job did nothing. The point I was trying to make though is that the L85 was not a bad design in itself, it was just half finished when it was pushed to the troops. All H&K did in the end to fix it was polishing the raw edges and working out the last design flaws that should have been removed before the gun was adopted. Making it reliable and effective.

The hand held rock mk1

Maybe, but the beauty of using private companies is the control the government has on quality control, innovation, pricing, etc. When you're the one offering the contracts, you're the one denying them too. Think about the difference in weapons innovations between open, democratic economies and "socialist" or "communist" ones. We're the innovators, they're the followers (thieves).

Can it be made out of mud!

Does Bannermen have it in stock!

Do Walmart and Target have the necessary hardware?

To be fair it's difficult to know exactly what the next war will be like, we can predict and hope but we can never know for sure

@@rapter229 the optic will make or break it and I think the SS brass case could have been replaced with just steel case as good quality steel case with the right steel can handle crazy pressures aka the reason they never used brass in the MG42 as if the bolt bounced on brass it would get destroyed, on a steel case a jam but it was annealed to be hard at the bottom of the car head and as soft as brass by the mouth. I at least expected SS and polymer as they run fine asking as the chamber is not fluted. The optic could be used on any rifle and a 20" AR would be good or even in cqb the reason so many mato nations use bullpuos as you have a 20 inch barrel in a small package and below 18 it becomes far less effective with terminal ballistics. The M5 is quite heavy and a spare barrel may be needed per sodkier or even 2 not sure if it'd a crazy chrome line or even a type or ceramic insert that they played with back in the day, but the weapon without the optic is heavy, the optic is going to be heavy as it will have so many features will need a large battery and will have to be very tough and have some emo sehilding, with that and the heavy ammo it would not be fun. As far as firearms have gone we have done everything and have pretty much nearly reached the apex what we lack is a good balance the M5 can't replace all the rifles and it's just a waste in places like Afganistan, I'm surprised in Afganistan the military did not go with a semi auto AR10 instead of an antquie m14 based rifle or the heavy and not so accurate heavy SCAR, the British army went with new style accursed AR10s and it served them well. No one firearm can replace everything, the US military will still need an intermediate caliber and not just a full power weapon it alleys goes bad when you try to use one weapon as a jack of all as it ends up doing a poor job at everything. I can see if we face a modern nation with quality body armour this rifle is great, but it's a waste in the wars we have seen for a very long time. I know they have brass practise ammo that won't burn up the barrel so badly and they could use that for non armoured targets. But with the type of war we know I think most will be given standard nato rounds and a couple of guys with these new sig rifles and MGs in each squad. The optic will be what will possibly change the face of modern warfare and I would not be surprised if the first couple of iterations are not great but apart from finding a good balance with ammo and a weapon we have reached pretty much the limit of firearms tech but we have only just started playing a little with smart optics. We have the tech and have had it for some time but the implimetation and balance of certain features will be hard, I would not be surprised if every smart optic has a back up small red dot and backup irons. With this type of tech making it almost impossible for hackers to infiltrate the weapon and command systems is so important so a way to turn off the optic and change it to a dumb one or just stop it and when it's powered off it does not effect the firing mechanism at all. Modern war is very hard to imagion as we have so many new toys, the last time 2 nations with a real airforce and navy and I use the word real in a light manner was the fawklands war and most of the argentine aircraft and vessels had seen better days, both used the same infantry weapon the FAL and the UK reinstated the vulcan bomber that had all mechanical computers for bombing. I don't know if you could say Argentina was a first world nation at the time as it was in alot of turmoil, corrupt with financial hardship for everyone, they captured the fawklands to get peoples mind off how bad the economy was. For 2 developed nations withbabdecentnmillitarybti fight eachother modern day would bring untold destruction, in sirenitneoukd be in a proxy nation but I'm sure both sides would get casualtys at an insane rate compared to past wars. I highly doubt China would ever go to war with the US as both nations rely on each other more than they know. Russia has proven to be not such a great military power but the fact they have huge stockpiles of old but still capable soviet ICBMs and a few new or upgraded ones is scary in the hands of a guy like putin. I lived in China for 8 years and the Chinese and Korean civilians had the shortest straw, the Japanese would steal, rape, torture kill and enslave everyone and was the only side to use chemical weapons. The 1 child policy is over but most still have 1 and they really don't want to loose their only sons. Russia is the real wildcard but north Korea is predictable as they cause trouble then they get attention work out a deal for aid then stop and do it every few years. Covid is a huge problem in NK and they only spent a few million on imports of medication last year so only the eleties can afford treatment and medication. Many have died from covid, many have covid that and a lack of food due to famine and not even being able to get asparin or Tylenol I would not be surprised if NK does its usual threats for aid as it has done so many times, they could be waiting for the situation in the Ukraine to subside so they can get more attention.

@@bartunthegreat2999 The AK in 7.62x39 is one it my favorste rifles to shoot, I prefer Chinese AKs, converted veprs and the new Zastava USA AKs, My first semi auto center fire rifle was a siaga in 5.45x39 that my uncle did a perfect job of restoring to its former glory. Pretty sure it very had a single US made part and he even installed a triangle side folder and to this day its my favorste type of folding stock, this was when 7n6 was 5centd a round, he had an FFL and gun store he would buy crazy amounts or surplus firearms and ammo then sit in them for a long time he must have had well over a million rounds of 7N6 and he still has lots of Chinese surplus steel core 7.62x39 and new Chinese AKs, siagas, veps new in the box as well as Yugo mausers Swiss rifles, alot of mosin nagants and some Finnish mosin nagants that are crazy accurate. The AKM was designed to be reliable and easy to use out to 300m but since the Soviets expected the cold War to go hot they gave the AK a very loose machine gun chambering as I think they expected war time ammo production to be spotty, but they had and still have great Cold hammer forging machines and use a type of chrome lining that's amazing, but the chamber is too loose and apart from Tula apart from the rare to deep primer I have never seen a bad round the AK chamber has no conventional step from where the bullet meets the case it has a crazy long freebore and the lead is not optimal. But on builds I have found the new FB radom barrels are very accurate and so are the Zastava USA rifles, even the wasr10 can be very accurate but its very hit and miss you could get a 4 or 5 moa or a sub moa but a lot of rack grade m4s are around 3 moa. When I shoot a few hundred rounds of 7.62x39 I really feel I have had a good shoot and it can but fun to see what you can do with irons vs optics the AR15 does not have much recoil or character, if we'll made they are tsc drivers with good ammo but they just lack something, you can shoot a brick of .22lr and feel you have not shot much and .223 does not give you much recoil, the 74 is very light shooting and I think half of the recoil is from the the bolt. The AR is much more suited for production in small Western nations where many companys make parts on automated machinery and its put together like lego, most AR15 barrels in the US are button rifled and that's very cheap to do, so is a nitride coating, it needs minimal hand fitting, I only own one DI AR15 it was back when parts kits used to be crazy cheap but you got few parts, I ordered a psa premium upper without the bolt for a crazy cheap price removed the barrel and sold all the other parts. I purchased a bolt head from FN as I assumed it would match the barrel made by FN well, I ordered an 80% lower that had faux military markings from the Vietnam era and I made a pretty good replica Vietnam era M16 style AR15, the only thing I did was shim and bed the barrel to the upper so the barrel had zero play and was nice and tight, this usually helps the accuracy in any AR15, I also used a tube to free float the triangle habdgaurds, I installed a chrome lined BCG like on the early M16, I replaced all the springs and put in an upgraded extract spring, apart from that I put in a better trigger group, not super fancy or expensive but nice and crisp but it took me a while to give the lower the same worn look as the rest of the rifle. With 5.56 I don't go lower than 18 inches. You can suprusingly mount quite a few decent optics optoo of the carry handle and you have to shoulder it a different esy but it's still comfortable. My favorste 5.56 rifle is my psudo T91 I got all the parts from a T91 website it's the assault rifle of Taiwan and they had the AR platform but Improved it and now they make uppers that will work on an AR lower and you at least used to be able to buy any barrel length and all the furbiture, it has a light but very reliable gas system piston, it likes wolf gold the most as its also from Taiwan. A big reason why many nato nations have bullpuos is that they can have a 20 inch barrel but still have a handy weapon but the triggers are nearly all ways awful, wonder if they could have some sort of hydraulic linkage. The 5.56 is getting long in the tooth and I think nato needs a new intermediate cartridge. I was surprised to see the US military planning to use hollow point 9mm rounds in combat, and anything but FMJ is banned in war from before WW1 due to the huage convention the US did not attend or sign but if it is used in war Russia and States that use 7.62x54R and soviet 12.7mm have alot of explosive rounds in storsge and that would not be fun.

Yeah, The US likes to produce stuff in-house, since you don't really want to rely on others for critical goods in wartime.

@@AdamantLightLP That means only companies that have plants in the US can win such a bid. Well whatever, I have other plans for my design. Shit's gonna hit the fan soon.

Yes, I filmed a couple videos there. They will be coming out in the next few months.