The British government embarked on a damage limitation exercise yesterday after it was revealed that the entire compliment of standard rifles issued to the armed forces would have to be recalled for modification as part of a programme costing millions of pounds.
The problem with the SA80 rifle, which was used during the Gulf War and in Kosovo and is used in Northern Ireland, is that while it functions properly in ordinary weather conditions it is unreliable in extreme hot or cold conditions and often jams. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) is now considering whether the 300,000 rifles can be recalled in a rolling programme of repairs, with the first 12,000 being serviced by next year instead of 2002 as originally planned, so as to minimise the upheaval to the armed forces.
The full cost of modification has not been officially disclosed, but the original contract for the SA80s cost £384 million.
Soldiers serving in the Gulf War in 1991 raised the first complaints about the SA80 and during the Balkans conflict last year the rifle proved unreliable on occasion, but it was not until tests were carried out in 1995 that the problems were confirmed. A modified SA80 rifle and machine-gun version have performed well, but they are still undergoing trials.
Insisting the armed forces were not using "lousy kit", the Defence Secretary, Mr Geoff Hoon, said the problem could be solved. "We've been aware for some time that this rifle had problems in extremes of heat and the extremes of the Arctic and very hot weather in the desert," he said. "But I can make it clear that in most circumstances this is a highly effective weapon, light, easy to use and it is extremely accurate," he told the BBC.
The embarrassment for the MoD over the rifle follows claims that earlier this year the navy was short of fuel and had to restrict the amount of time its ships put to sea. It also comes a few days after it was revealed that £1 billion was spent on upgrading the Tornado GR-4 aircraft only to discover that it could not fire its laser-guided missiles.
The Shadow Defence Secretary, Mr Iain Duncan Smith, condemned the government saying ministers had been "dragging their heels" over proposals to modify the SA80. The Liberal Democrat spokesman on defence, Mr Menzies Campbell, was scathing in his criticism over the latest embarrassment for the MoD: "The SA80 was shown to be defective as long ago as the Gulf War, and again more recently in Kosovo. Isn't it about time that someone took responsibility for these embarrassing and inadequate procurement projects?"