Candidates for NATO standardisation in the Cold War

[zen]

The EM2 in NATO Trials, with Jonathan Ferguson - Forgotten Weapons

https://youtu.be/unyEGmi7YMM Join the Kickstarter campaign and preorder your copy of Jonathan's "Thorneycroft to SA80: British Bullpup Firearms 1901 - 2020"! Sorry for the poor audio quality - I am back at the Cody Firearms Museum talking to Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms & Artillery at...

www.forgottenweapons.com

Seriously tempted.

However I'm duty bound to point out i
FAL was briefly adopted as NATO standard.

 

[riggerrob]

Siberia addresses the core issue here, which is not domestic politics of jobs, but is...who is the customer?
.... Economies of scale from its domestic orders give US massive advantage over other sources. Why did UK bother with 40-odd Nimrods when >700 Orions were to be built? Waste.
....

Equally silly was the RCAF's decision to build a much-modified Maritime Patrol Aircraft based upon the Bristol Britannia turbo-prop airliner. The greatest change was to Wright Turbo-Compound piston engines because they provided better fuel economy than early turbo-props.
The primary function of the Canadair CP-107 Argus MPA was to buy votes in Montreal (only 33 built for the RCAF). The RCAF also bought 39 Canadair-built Bristol Britannia transports (called CC-109 Yukon in RCAF service) which were almost stock.
Britannia's biggest problem was that it reached production about the same time Boeing introduced the 707.
After they wore out their Argus, RCAF bought Lockheed P-3 Orions during the early 1980s.

 

[madhon]

After they wore out their Argus, RCAF bought Lockheed P-3 Orions during the early 1980s.

Which they then proceeded to make unique by using the electronics from the S-3 Viking instead of a the normal Orion electronics, probably another silly decision.

 

[Pioneer]

What about the Westland Lynx HAS.3
(naval variant) as a Standard NATO platform from 1982?
At the end of the day the naval Lynx capability for its size, weight and price was unpresident IMO.
At the end of the day Denmark, Britain, France, West Germany, Portugal, Netherlands, Norway ended up using the naval Lynx in real-world terms.....

Regards
Pioneer

 

[Elan Vital]

Standardizing on the French 155mm OE Mle.56 HE shell would have been super neat given that it appeared a few years before HE M107 entered service, was compatible with US guns yet offered greater range and HE capability for roughly the same weight.

The French shell is 800 grams heavier (for a 43kg round), but carries over 1.5kg extra explosive content and fired from the same French Mle.50 gun (similar to US M114 in barrel length), has 2700m extra range.

Since both France and the US were looking for new 155mm ammo at the same time, making it a NATO competition akin to the 5.56 competition in the 80's that led to the Belgian SS109 being chosen would be plausible and useful.

 

[Grey Havoc]

FAL was briefly adopted as NATO standard.

Regarding that, here is an interesting video:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tzanTkAGLuk

 

[GruntFox]

The real reason that the US went with 7.62 was that the US army and marines were (and in the case of the marines, still are) under what is called the 'cult of the rifleman' despite the fact that the data says otherwise and the StG44 was surprisingly well-liked by troops who used them (from captured stocks).

Problem is that stupid cult. Hell, in an alternate timeline that I've been cooking up, it took a world war where the cult got its knees cut out from under it (a lot of combat in that WW2 was in close-quarters terrains like jungles or cities).