A question ...
The Tits-n-guns desk sounds fun (assuming, that is, you are not interested only in manboobs). How does one get a job there?
Guardsmen serving in Germany's ceremonial display unit - the only formation which still parades with the Nazi-era service rifle - are much more likely than other soldiers to grow a single breast on the left side of their bodies, according to a medical study. Boffins looking into the matter believe that the undesired …
Gawd/ess only knows the answer to your question ... But the theme song should be The Cramps "Bikini Girls With Machine Guns" ;-)
Before you assume I'm misogynistic, note that the song was written, arranged & produced by a woman, who also played lead guitar in every variation I've ever heard. Look up Poison Ivy Rorschach.
Rest in peace, Lux. You are missed by many.
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I've drilled with 3 weapons: L1A1 aka FAL aka South African R1, Lee Enfield 303, and a South African R4.
The L1A1 was the best for any drill work by a long way. Well balanced, and a confortable rifle to carry.
The 303 bolt handle would often snag in your shirt or even flesh right around boob level. I can see the 98k's bolt handle doing pretty much the same thing. I wonder whether people doing extensive drilling with old LE 303s would have the same problem?
My two pence worth regarding the Lee Enfield is that it has a rounded bolt that allows you to continue aiming while cycling a fresh round into the breach, the Mauser had a straight bolt which sticks out and probably digs deeper into the flesh.
Anonymous because its embarrassing to talk guns on the web.
Small point of note - the rifle in use by the british army is not the "SA80" - this never existed, and was the working project name under which the entire weapon system of the army was developed (Small Arms - 80's). The weapon in use is in fact the L85A2, or simply "The Rifle" if you are an infantier.
The SA80 family included the L85A1 (original variant) and L86A1 LSW or Light Support Weapon.
Umbridge taken as I spent many years humping both weapons around the world. Other than that kudos for my new word of the day - emboobenation.
Wouldn't mind hearing the opinion of someone who used them (esp with the grenade launcher) if the SA85A2 resolved the two major (as I understood it) issues which were:
- Magazines falling out at the slightest bump
- Using grenade launcher often caused a stoppage (or a jam, if they are different)
I'd imagine the complaint about them being too bloody heavy compared with a M4 or a G36 would still be valid.
Not a grunt, just work and socialise with a lot of ex-grunts who allow me to play with their shiny toys on the range in exchange for sorting their computers :) Most of which either used other weapons than the L85 (other than at boot) or were pretty much carrying it around so it wasn't obvious they where the comms for the unit (the bleep? Or is that only for the electronic warfare types) so never really use the L85 in combat.
Umbridge is the new cute motherly character in [Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix], and subsequently. Like Dumbledore, underneath the cute, she's less cute. And gay (probably not true, but we didn't know about Dumbledore from the books - I didn't anyway, but maybe his noticing how handsome Voldemort was as a boy should have tipped me off - cliché or not).
I remember conversion training from SLR to L85. What a truck of shit that thing was. Magazines falling out (granted more rounds was nice), fiddly to clean, rusted easier and the LSW was about as much use as a chocolate fireguard (didn't they learn from the bren? a belt fed lightweight barrel was all we needed for an LSW - something lighter than the gimpy)
I do remember it being better on cenotaph duty though as it was lighter than the SLR. Bayonet maid it amazingly unbalanced though. I was out before the big improvements so I cant comment on the A2
I'll take a wild guess here and say that the Ceremonial Display Unit is probably very small, and the incidence of breasts in it can probably counted, and perhaps fondled, with one hand, meaning that the standard error of the statistic is huge and slight random variation has a huge impact. Meanwhile, the army as a whole is huge, variance and standard error low, and proportion of moobed men probably indistinguishable from that of the general population.
In other words, junk science.