L96a1

[Peter Laidler]

Alas, they were definitely NOT thrown into the sea. That practice ceased many years ago. They were slowly guillotined in 2011/12 after they were withdrawn and reduced to commercial scrap. The obsolete value was £0.00p. There was no interest by foreign government buyers in the remaining stocks. Mind you, there wouldn't be as they were all 25+ years old and no spares had been manufactured for ages. The very last ones, 19 I believe, were withdrawn from the sniper div at Warminster where they were used for basic assessment duties and a couple of inert 'classroom trainers' followed suit

As a matter of interest, I never heard the L96 called 'The Green Meanie'. by anyone! The only one that I seem to recall that had a well deserved nick-name, used by all, from top to bottom, was 'The General'. The well respected L7 GPMG/MAG-58. It was indeed '.....the General...'