Thursday, March 06, 2008

New Sniper Rifle

The British Army has announced it's new sniper rifle, the L115A3, at a shocking £23,000 a piece.

But it's basically an Accuracy International ASWM in .33 Lapua. Which you can buy in the States for about $5,200 a piece. Which works out roughly at £2,600.

A bit of a discrepancy, isn't there? Anyone got an explanation?

1 comment:

Kevin said...

Anyone got an explanation?

Sure. The definition of an elephant:

"A mouse built to government specifications."

When you add in the (literally) volumes of paperwork required to A) submit a bid, B) accept the contract award, C) comply with the government specifications, D) comply with the government documentation requirements, and also the aggravation of actually dealing with the .gov bureaucracy, the 10X cost multiplier makes perfect sense. Each rifle will have approximately one man-year of labor associated with it dedicated to nothing other than meeting government requirements.

You or me? We just go plunk down our money and take the commercial version home with us.