[Renegade334]

Originally Posted by ZeKeR

a high caliber minigun guns down a Scud missile?

Did I say it was used to shoot down tactical missiles?

I said it frequently has to face threats like 60mm mortar shells (fired by M224 equivalents) and rockets like Katyushas or homemade models (the kind insurgents use to bombard US bases in Iraq). Scuds most likely have a trajectory that is too highly parabolic and a terminal speed that's too high to be handled by the CIWS (on ships it's no problem since you have to assume the missile is coming straight at you and not at a target that might be several hundred feet away) - Scuds are usually handled by Patriots and the Navy's Standards.

oh what about that point defense laser project? is it still ongoing like the railgun tech research?

The THEL is still being refined, though they're almost ready to introduce it to the Army - there already existed a version called MTHEL (Humvee-borne, if I'm not mistaken) but they seem to have relocated the system on top of a specially-outfitted Oshkosh HEMTT truck instead, probably to accommodate the power source.

thats new?

Not really; Shilkas and M163 VADS preceded the Counter-RAM but this one is technically fully automated and it's becoming very popular and in high demand (by Israel, most notably).

Not too long ago, the US Navy shot down a couple drones with their ship-borne version of the THEL but last I had heard they were facing concerns about the optics getting severely damaged by saltwater and possible performance degradation in low-visibility scenarios. Not to mention that the system has yet to fully tackle, head-on, the full threat envelope that the US Navy is likely to face in a modern battlefield (high-speed antiship missiles like the Dong Feng DF-21, low-flying, supersonic planes, et cetera).

oh what about the SA-80? they say its freakin' heavy assault rifle despite its small size but when i faced it, it wasnt that bad....

The British Army appears to be quite content with it despite a quite large number of teething problems (the ammo mags kept dropping out their wells, most notably) that were more or less ironed out by Heckler & Koch (who were specially appointed to address the issues when the company was bought by the British...shortly before the Germans did their damnedest to buy it back) but according to materiel satisfaction questionnaires handed out to soldiers after Operation Iraqi Freedom, it appears the SA80 performed quite well despite earlier fears.

Actually, during OIF most weapons performed okay - but even the renowned AK would be hard-pressed to perform flawlessly in the sudden sandstorms the troops often encountered while moving towards Baghdad (rifles and machine guns would often jam after one burst due to the talcum-fine dust/sand that litterally enters everything it can get into).