From my sons description of his training of navy officer cadets, It probably doesn't matter what we give the current crop. He was supposed to be giving engineering training, but somehow ended up with seamanship & weapons training added to his brief.

His description of most of them at the range.

When prone, they would shove the butt into the ground, & sort of lie on it. They would then look vaguely over the end of the barrel, pointing it somewhat towards the mound, [where the targets are], then shut both eyes before jerking on the trigger. Even by the end of the day, 35% of them were still shutting their eyes in anticipation of the loud bang. This probably didn't matter much, as most of them could not remember which eye to close anyway.

After some thought he added, "Oh & the girls were even worse".

The really frightening thing is, that these were people volunteering to join the defence force, study at Duntroon, & lead our defence of the future. If such people are so incompetent, what must the average urbanised population be like? God help us if we ever need to do another Kokoda, with a similarly quickly raised & partly trained militia force.

Yep. Dud tanks. Dud submarines (although I believe they are OK now, when they are about to be retired). And the goings on about new submarines seems to more about jobs for the people who buggered up the current one than it is about the defence of Australia. Defence spending is stupidly low, but what they do spend is spent stupidly as well. Makes you feel vulnerable; especially with China rattling swords in the South China Sea, and that country's failing economy. The Phillipines has found it necessary to enter a defence pact with Japan because of Chinese belligerence. Australia needs to look sharp. Even Ho Chi Min is reported as having said that the white man is finished in Asia, but " I would rather put up with French s..t than put up with Chinese s..t".

I really don't understand what's happened to our country. All our old standards, principles, ethics, regulatory practices, morality, and self-respect have diminished?

And finally our Armed Forces, an institution where my family were well represented over the generations, like many of yours. Commencing with my paternal grandfather, who served in the Anglo-Boer War and my maternal grandfather at the Somme in WWl. Even that revered institution hasn't escaped this social contagion?

A formidable organisation like our Armed Forces, one suffused in history and dominated by lofty standards and achievable benchmarks; Even our famed Military has become so politically correct it's now wallowing directionless, weighed down by a profusion of petticoats and 'guarded conversations'.

A private chat, if inadvertently overheard by a fellow member of your platoon, and subsequently divulged to the Military hierarchy, could determine it's a little too distressing, even upsetting for some of those delicate mortals serving, who would involuntarily quiver and tremble if their political sensitivities become bruised?

Reference the overweight tanks and such; I well remember how in the 1960s it was decided that we had to many different types of small arms ammunition and that the situation needed to be rationalized so that there was less variety and less money spent.
After much thought by a panel of 'experts' we ended up with some ammunition eliminated and some added, the upshot was that the total of types of SA ammo rose by one.

o sung wu,

I modified some SLRs during the Vietnam War for the use of BHQ guards (ostensibly), the theory being that when they went off help would come running.
I cut the barrels off an inch or so in front of the gas block and fitted a Mk V Bren flash eliminator (more for looks than anything else), converted them to full auto by fitting the change lever from the L2A1 and used 30 round magazines from it as well.
They went off with a roar that could be heard at a 1,000 yards and a most impressive muzzle flash.

I'm sure that as a 'sub-machine gun' they'd have had no equal!!

Hi there IS MISE...

Where were you when we needed you? Seriously, the old SLR was a great rifle and you felt confident that what you hit was indeed hit! While a bit heavy to lug around in the field all day, nevertheless it was a well proven Self Loading Rifle, and almost indestructible provided you kept it reasonably clean.

A good armourer could modify them to do anything you asked of it, including converting into full rock 'n roll, as you done incorporating the change lever of L2A1 and adding a 30 rd magazine. A truly formidable weapon system I reckon. An Aussie version of the AK-47, do you think? Speak again soon until then, keep your powder dry IS MISE.

o sung wu,

I forgot to mention that the trigger return plunger had to be changed or shortened as it was made long to stop the troops from removing the change lever of the L1A1 and firing full auto.
It was a good rifle but some of the changes that were made from the parent Browning, to save production costs, ended up costing more in repairs than was saved.