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This Is How The French Do CBRN

  

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2015 at 00:00 and is filed under CBRNE, International. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

25 Responses to “This Is How The French Do CBRN”

  1. Collin says:
    May 20, 2015 at 00:18

    What’s up with that rifle optic?

  2. Darrel says:
    May 20, 2015 at 01:37

    Is that a FAMAS?

    • Lcon says:
      May 20, 2015 at 03:09

      yes it is. The French have a Land warrior like system called Felin Part of it includes a heavy modification of the Famas rifle, included are a fore grip, Thermal/IR/day sight sometimes fitted with a EOtech HWS.

    • Fluffy says:
      May 20, 2015 at 07:54

      FAMAS Felinized/Valorize…same crappy barrel, same crappy 25rd magazine, same non-STANAG 5.56mm ammo…what was that saying about pigs and lipstick?

      Sling front loop is wrapped around the front barrel, rear sling loop tied around metal loop on rear sling mount, EOTech (usually) mounted atop of the thermal sight site (non-existent chin weld…too high) with thumb-screw (no return-to-zero) mount, more fragile material for bipods (originally aluminum, now some sort of plastic), BUIS that aren’t visible with thermo sights mounted (UNK if visible with EOTech mounted), and oh yeah…heavy and battery packs (2x lithium) mounted on 10h00 and 14h00 positions next to front armor plate that also don’t last as long as laboratory tests say they should (24hrs vs 48hrs).

      And this dude also has his/her finger in the trigger guard, which is where the safety/fire selector is also located.

      Winner, winner…chicken dinner.

      Should have just dumped the FAMAS altogether and bought HK416’s for everyone instead of spending the boondogle to save Sagem, IMHO.

      • Fluffy says:
        May 20, 2015 at 07:57

        Sorry…went off tangent.

        AFAIK, the above photo and tenue de protection is NOT in service, it is merely a concept.

        It’ll be kinda difficult to get a good sight picture with that mask and the FELIN sight…the scope shadow SUCKS on that thing.

      • m5 says:
        May 20, 2015 at 10:48

        Except that FAMAS G2 accepts STANAG magazines and ammo, and has a different barrel. Otoh, I don’t know whether the French army is fielding G2’s or older F1’s, or both, with Felin. The French Navy adopted G2 already in 1995, but according to wiki, the Army has “held off large scale purchase of the G2 to date”.

        Anyway, sticking with the older and inferior F1 with Felin would seem strange, considering the cost of upgrading to G2 should be marginal compared to the overall cost of Felin.

        • Jake Nosnaws says:
          May 20, 2015 at 16:13

          Pretty sure they’ve recently announced they’re ditching FAMAS altogether as far as future purchases go (they keep current ones in the inventory).

        • Paul J says:
          May 20, 2015 at 16:35

          Where will they find the G2 FAMAS? The AT will take those from the Marine? Come on, that’s silly.

          @Fluffy : the FAMAS Félin come with a 1:7 Beretta barrel.

          • m5 says:
            May 21, 2015 at 08:49

            I find that “held off large scale purchase of the G2 to date” gives the impression that they’ve purchased G2 in small scale, and might purchase more in the future. Sure, Felin, at 22,000+ units is hardly small scale, but modfifying existing rfiles to G2 might be another option, and one might guess it’d be a rather modest effort compared to the rest of Felin. Besides, according to your note, they have managed to upgrade the barrel already.

            • Paul J says:
              May 21, 2015 at 15:53

              “Felin, at 22,000+ units is hardly small scale, but modfifying existing rfiles to G2 might be another option”

              In fact that’s just using the stockpile of FAMAS F1 with broken or worn out parts like PGM, barrel, handguard…
              Something you must forget is that the FAMAS is no longer in production since 2001.
              Nexter sell some parts at ridiculously high price, for exemple about 600€ for a PGM…

              But eh, some servisable FAMAS F1 are sent to be destroyed/neutralized and some brand new one are given to the jihadist…

              When you’re working in the (French) army, you must have the FIDO attitude. 😉

  3. Brian Harris says:
    May 20, 2015 at 04:55

    Looks heavy.

  4. Alex says:
    May 20, 2015 at 07:33

    Is that a powered respirator or is the filter just back there?

  5. Fly On the Wall says:
    May 20, 2015 at 10:48

    I am guessing there’s some sort of powered respirator or perhaps cooling vest filter/blower in the backpack. It also looks like there’s a drinking system tube zip tied to mask hose.

    Based solely on one picture, I don’t like the idea of being tied to a backpack mounted system that would require buddy aid to get to filters, batteries, etc. Additionally, it’d make operating a vehicle or confined spaces more difficult.

    CBRN has always been an area denial weapon, so this is really more of a “get out of the area and get to a decon site” ensemble, like most NBC kit, even if we bullshit ourselves how effective we are in our MOPP Suits and promasks.

  6. MAJ S says:
    May 20, 2015 at 10:51

    I am going to rename my pants to ‘pantalon de protection.’

  7. Leroy says:
    May 20, 2015 at 12:17

    Where does the white flag go?

  8. Eric Elletson says:
    May 20, 2015 at 13:39

    I was in a CBRN unit for 6 years. Never again…