The final sniper rifle is now in the hands of troops, the U.K. Ministry of Defence said Nov. 12.
Snipers fill a vital and enduring role on the battlefield, in terms of intelligence gathering, target identification and eliminating high value targets.
Unveiled earlier this year the Accuracy International-produced L115A3 rifle, part of the Sniper System Improvement Programme (SSIP) is a larger caliber weapon and provides state of the art telescopic day and night, all-weather sights, increasing a sniper’s effective range considerably; thereby beating enemy forces capability.
The day sights are manufactured by Schmidt & Bender.
Group Capt. Paul Ridge, the DE&S Light Weapons, Photography and Batteries Integrated Project Team Leader, said: “The new weapon system has already been used on operations and is proving to be an outstanding system. Having just returned from Afghanistan, where I had the opportunity to discuss the weapon system with snipers – it is clear that this battle-winning equipment has already proven to be a reliable and extremely accurate system that is giving our forces a real edge”
The first batch of SSIP systems was deployed to Afghanistan with members of 16 Air Assault Brigade in May this year with subsequent deliveries being made to training units across the United Kingdom.
Tom Irwin, managing director of Accuracy International said, “Accuracy International has supplied sniper rifles to the British forces since the eighties. We accepted the challenge to provide a new .338 caliber rifle and were selected by the MoD, after testing and trials and against international competition. The SSIP contract is extremely significant to us and we have exerted all of our effort to complete this program on time. We are proud to supply the best .338 sniper rifle in the world to our forces.”