Well, it looks as if the Army has again officially opened the can of worms that is the debate revolving around a replacement for the M16/M4. With this go around however, the Army says all limitations are off. They say theyre willing to consider any caliber, any operation system, and any configuration.
Given the Armys track record with sticking with the M16/M4 through thick and thin, as well as the Armys previous position that it would stick with the M4 until there was a revolutionary breakthrough in small arms technology (hand held death rays?) Im taking this most recent statement with a salt lick, but in as much as they are soliciting ideas, I might as well offer up mine.
On its face, it would seem that there are only three real issues to consider; how big (in caliber) how many (bullets in the magazine) and how to crank it (what operating system do you go with.) Once you settle on those, putting them together is packaging. While there are any number of cartridges and operating systems that offer obvious advantages over the M16s feeble 5.56mm bullet and wretched gas carrier key operating system, if you wanted a truly revolutionary replacement for the M4, I would put my money on the H&K G11.
For those of you not in the know (not that I am, but I remember when it was developed) the H&K G11 rifle was developed as a replacement for the 7.62mm G3 battle rifle in the 1970s. What the Germans wanted to develop was a weapon with a large ammunition capacity (50 rounds) low weight (< 10 pounds loaded) flat trajectory (no sight corrections at <300m) and a high degree of accuracy in 3-round burst mode.
To meet the burst accuracy requirement there were two ways to go, either fire projectiles simultaneously (shotgun shells or duplex rounds) or fire bullets very fast. The shotgun shell method was dropped because the bullets which would do the job not only generated too much recoil to be effective, but their size put them outside the round capacity requirement, so H&K went with the shoot really, really fast approach. This is where the G11 comes into its own as a revolutionary weapon.
H&K realized that the bigger the bullet, the more propellant it would require to drive it, and that propellant would be translated into not only recoil to be absorbed by the shooter but a loss of overall ammunition capacity in the magazine. One solution was to use a smaller bullet. The 4.73x33mm bullet developed for the G11 is smaller that the 5.56mm bullet currently used in the M16 but the high degree of accuracy with the G11 in burst mode makes the G11 as accurate firing 3 shots as the M16 firing one, so the combined effect on the target, with the G11, is greater.
The second issue was dealing with the recoil. As has been documented since the invention of the first shoulder-fired automatic weapons, felt recoil will bring the weapon off target, thus rendering accurate, aimed automatic fire impossible at desirable ranges. H&Ks solution was to eliminate the issue by having the weapon fire a 3-round burst so fast that the bullets were out of the barrel and going down range before the recoil reached the shooter.
Again, how H&K did this was pretty slick. To speed up the firing process H&K eliminated several steps in the firing sequence, specifically locking, unlocking, extracting and ejecting, by going with a caseless ammunition, where the propellant, rather than held in a metal casing behind the bullet, is actually molded around it. This eliminated the need for extracting and ejecting spent casings, as there were no cartridges to extract, since, when fired, the propellant body was consumed and the bullet launched out the barrel. Using a caseless cartridge also enabled H&K to not only make lighter bullets (there was no weight wasted in metal casings) but also allowed them to pack more of the bullets into a given space (since the bullets are square, theres no wasted space in the magazine.) The net result was a cyclic ROF of 2,000 RPM in 3-round burst mode (in single shot and full auto, the ROF is only 460 RPM.) An additional benefit with going with caseless ammunition was the elimination of additional openings for contamination. Lacking an ejection port, the G11s chamber remains relatively sterile.
To eliminate the recoil issue H&K floated the barrel and action on a secondary recoil mechanism. The effect here was that when the burst was fired, the body of the rifle would remain stationary against the firers shoulder, while the action and barrel recoiled down the secondary rail; by the time the action came completely out of battery, where the recoil would be felt by the shooter, the burst cycle would be complete (a recoil spring pushes the action back into battery for the next burst.)
The end result was a weapon that was light, with a high ammunition capacity, and which was capable of firing accurate 3-rounds bursts.
So what happened to the G11? Well, as luck would have it, as the G11 was nearing production capability, peace broke out all over the world and with all the lions-and-lambs group hugging going on, the West German government decided it had more important things to do than buy a bunch of new wunder rifles, (like look for jobs for all its new citizens from the East zone) so the program was shelved.
Well, if the Army is looking for revolutionary, I dont think you can get any more revolutionary than this. I just dont expect the Army to explore it.
Another revolutionary part of the H&K G11 is that it uses caseless ammo
My question is can you still bash some one’s head in with it? Doesn’t look ready made for close combat in its original form.
“…the M16’s feeble 5.56mm bullet and wretched gas carrier key operating system…“
You know nothing about military firearms if you actually believe what you said.
The M-16 has been killing enemy sodiers for over forty years now.
You guys out to google “LSAT“
That is where the revolutionary small arms change will come from…not from the overblown 6.8 or 6.5 boutique hobby cartridges.
WHile the round is small, the defualt firing mode would have been 3 shot burst, 3 shots hitting you almost instantly whould hit you with enough kinetic force and cause the “hydro shock” of a much large bullet, this thing in 3 round burst is a like almost a shot gun hitting you, but scaling it up to 6.5 and i’m pretty sure the technology to make a better caseless(propellant) round should be at hand or right around the conner, if u had to add a ejection set up for the spent round u will end up eliminating some of the best features the G11 brings to the table.
some nice modification for this besides scaling up the calibe to a 6.5 or 6.8 variant might be having the ammo telescope, and they do need some kind of ejection port so you can eject a live round or dud from the chamber.
not mention in the article here was also that the weapon carried 2 addition mags connected pretty flush configuration rigth on the riffle in early prototype not too sure if it made it onto the later prototypes
WHile the round is small, the defualt firing mode would have been 3 shot burst, 3 shots hitting you almost instantly whould hit you with enough kinetic force and cause the “hydro shock” of a much large bullet, this thing in 3 round burst is a like almost a shot gun hitting you, but scaling it up to 6.5 and i’m pretty sure the technology to make a better caseless(propellant) round should be at hand or right around the conner, if u had to add a ejection set up for the spent round u will end up eliminating some of the best features the G11 brings to the table.
some nice modification for this besides scaling up the calibe to a 6.5 or 6.8 variant might be having the ammo telescope, and they do need some kind of ejection port so you can eject a live round or dud from the chamber.
not mention in the article here was also that the weapon carried 2 addition mags connected pretty flush configuration rigth on the riffle in early prototype not too sure if it made it onto the later prototypes
The G-11 does not impress me. The U.S. Army ignored it for two good reasons: (1) Caseless ammo is prone to cookoff firing, like a runaway machinegun, and (2) its 4.7mm caliber is a farce.
Regardless of the fact that I qualified as a 2nd Award Rifle Expert with the M16A2, I never cared for any of the AR15/M16-series weapons; however, I would take the M16A2 any day over the G-11. Additionally, ammo wildcatters have necked up the 5.56x45 case from 6mm to 7mm bore for some very impressive results — try these variants in the M16/M4 weapons and see how well they perform. That would be a step in the right direction.
What about a rifle along the lines of An-94.. with some improvements (there are some complaints) and chambered for 5.56?
It is more conventional than HK-11… It puts two bullets on the same spot allowing more hitting power while retaining the same cartridge.
After researching the weapon, the design of this weapon was originally for NATO and the requirement to be able to carry 50 rounds per clip. The weapon did have a problem with heat cooking off rounds, so they supposedly fixed this problem by changing to a different powder that is stable to 180 degrees F which allows for more safety. The weapon actually has a higher cyclic rate of fire in 3 round burst mode than in full auto.
The weapon also has no recoil to the shooter until the 3rd of those 3 rounds is fired, meaning better accuracy in 3 round burst mode.
This weapon will not come into being our weapon. For one reason, the mechanism it uses to fire might just be too difficult to ruggedize and soldierproof it. The rounds are fed vertically into the weapon and then the chamber rotates 90 degrees to load the round. They say it works very similar to a clock motion.
I don’t like that its only a 4.7mm round.
You know nothing about military firearms if you actually believe what you said.
The M-16 has been killing enemy sodiers for over forty years now.
That may be true, however, the AR15 series rifles do have plenty of issues. The whole piston rings aligning on the bolt was always fun, nothing like a bolt action rifle in an emergency. The chamber always fouls and is very very difficult to clean. The round is too feeble. We could go on. The SCAR and other rifles are a good step in the right direction. I find the HK416 an interesting concept. I can’t wait to see how the competition goes.
Pick 2
a)Lethal damage on impact
b)Light weight/low recoil
c)Long range (greater than 50 yards)
a+b= handgun or submachinegun
b+c= M16/M4/G11/HK416
a+c= M14/HK417
FWIW, the G11’s caseless ammo system is the progenitor for the caseless portion of the Lightweight Small Arms Technology program:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Small_Arms_Technologies
The other ammo concept is case telescoped ammunition. The CTA version of a SAW replacement is already being tested. Rifle concepts in both caseless and CTA are in development.
“This weapon will not come into being our weapon. For one reason, the mechanism it uses to fire might just be too difficult to ruggedize and soldierproof it. The rounds are fed vertically into the weapon and then the chamber rotates 90 degrees to load the round. They say it works very similar to a clock motion.“
Sounds a lot like how the P90 reloads; if that weapon could be assembled in a rugged package than obviously the G11 or a derivative could.
The G11 is really one of the few truly revolutionary designs, this is not to say other weapons designs aren’t innovative, but as s package on the whole it made big strides over other rifle development.
So 50 rounds fired in three round bursts to be effective — 50/3 = 16 rounds.
Promising but not really an improvement all things considered. Still, I’d be interested to see where the concept would go with a 21st century development program.
Nice 2 know you can reach back to the archives with the good stuff…
Knowing our buying habits, we’ll go with something more of an upgrade– rather that a clean slate. (&$%#^!) Something Massada-ish, would be more likely. (massada in a bullpup config would be even better-hint hint…)
Agreed with the folks who pointed out that keeping the weight of the ammo low doesn’t matter much, if you need to put three rounds in the target…
Also, the Germans stopped making this thing, because it was awfully expensive to produce!
Like the P90, it’s great for Hollywood types looking for a great “Science Fiction” weapon, but the whole micro-caliber argument seems to have dried up, and blown away, as soon as it meets ‘real world’ conditions!
If it’s firing 3 round bursts, then the 50 round magazine is really only holding 16 “shots”. Is that really better than a 30 round mag of a heavier round on single-shot?
>The whole piston rings aligning on the bolt was always fun, nothing like a bolt action rifle in an emergency. <
That’s a myth. You can shoot it with a single gas ring. Actually, part of a single gas ring. Which Colt does in the armorer’s course.
“The gas ring alignment has absolutely nothing to do with weapon reliability. To prove it, during the weapon function test and diagnostic, they removed the gas rings from my rifle (I didn’t know it) and replaced them with one gas ring that they had cut 1/3 of it away. The weapon functioned flawlessly.”
Why not take the Steyr Stg.77 AUG assault rifle.
it is in servise in Australia, Austria, New Zealand, Oman, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Ireland and some others. It also was widely purchased by various security and law enforcement agencies worldwide, including the US Coastal Guard. The Steyr AUG can be considered as the most commercially successful bullpup assault rifle to date. Since the 1997, the Steyr-Mannlicher produced an updated version of the AUG, the AUG A2. In around 2005, Steyr-Mannlicher introduced the most recent version of AUG, the AUG A3.
EM 2 anybody? A truly revolutionary rifle and round of British design that would have given them and NATO the perfect assault rifle before 1960. Until the US military killed it offcourse.
The Steyr AUG is to the Australian Defence Foprce what the M9 Beretta is the U.S. Military Forces. A huge heap of crap. You carry it because nothing else is available. The Australian Special Forces carry the M4 — lucky bastards.
The Bundeswehr didn’t purchase it because the Cold War ended and there was a draw down in defence expenditure — sound familiar?
It was capable of semi-automatic fire and increasing the calibre, due to the design of the cartridge, is quite simple. Theer would have to be some work on the powder composition but it is not impossible.
A few observations and comments.
The gas ring lineup issue is non-existant. As an AR-15 user, and knowing a few professionals, I have never seen them line up on their own and from the pros, even when they do line up, the gun still works just fine. Non-issue, quit quoting it.
The G11 and the P90 operating mechs are nothing alike. The P90 feeds from a magazine with a 90 degree turn, this is true, but the chamber and bolt operate in a conventional forward and back motion like 99% of the smallarms and most large weapons out there. The G11 inserted the round vertically in the CHAMBER, and then rotated the CHAMBER to line up with the barrel. The reason that it was able to have such a high rate of fire on three round burst was that as the next round was feeding, it was pushing out the debries from the previous round, out the bottom of the gun, because the chamber rotates 90 degrees in a circular, racheting manner. The problem with this, just like the Wankle type rotary engine, is that it is hard to get a good gas seal, and you get fouling all over the place…and with a rotating mech like that, your rotation eventually gets gummed all to hell. Can it be ruggedized? Maybe. Is caseless ammo better than cased? Probably not. What happens when your powder gets wet? The Nitramine is unprotected in the caseless configuration, while cased ammo, gives you a protective barrier, even for underwater ops and insertions.
Oh, and the 4.7mm…thats like a freaking PELLET gun. Even a .22 (5.56 approx) is preferable to that.…a good, HIGH BC/SD, projectile will penetrate better, and wound/kill better than that little 4.7mm. It was partially designed for kevlar penetration..guess what, we have moved on.
Funny how some people think the 6.8 is equivalent to a Magic Death Ray. Because they read an article about it in a magazine.
Funny how people who hate the 5.56 and the M-16 just love the HK 416.
Funny Funny Funny
Oh, and by the way, the operating mechanism on the G-11 was so complex the regular soldier was not ALLOWED to clean it; all he could do was to poke a cleaning rod down the bore…anything more was to be done only by a qualified Armorer.
Here’s an interesting thought. The Army during the competition that introduced us to the G-11, brought on the development of the OICW, which although revolutionary in design, was just way too heavy to be useful in combat. This brought about the creation of the XM-8 of which I not heard of bad rumors about the weapon since they were field testing it in Iraq. Then all of a sudden, they scrapped the program. Has anyone ever got a good reason as to why they decided to scrap the XM-8? Even the later sand tests proved it was more resilient than any of the rifles used in the test. It was lightweight, had the XM-29 version to replace the M16/M203, M4/M203 combinations with that new 20mm Air Bursting Munition and was rumored to be able to be turned into a Squad Automatic Weapon. All the while it still used the 5.56mm round. It even had an integrated sight that was not the old fashioned iron sights that the M16/M4 had.
Could that be the true weapon that we need?
Ok sheeple. yes, its true that 4.7 5.56 too, and .45 is > 9 also.
The point of the G11 is to be able to deliver 0 to 3 hits of high penetration, high velocity bullets to the target in a single ‘shot’.
Now I dont know if 0 to 3 hits of 4.7mm ammo is more lethal/effective than 0 to 1 hits of 7.62mm ammo, but apparently a lot of people (i.e. people who do tests and shit) seem to think so.
It doesnt matter if you can put a target down with a single shot from weapon X. What matters is if, over the course of a battle, weapon X is more effective that weapon Y.
I always loved that weapon.
“A few observations and comments.
The gas ring lineup issue is non-existant. As an AR-15 user, and knowing a few professionals, I have never seen them line up on their own and from the pros, even when they do line up, the gun still works just fine. Non-issue, quit quoting it.“
Well EXCUSE ME mr expert, I have seen it first hand in quite a few m16s especially a1s. I don;‘t give two shits about your limited experience. It was also charming to be buddies who were ex-army who had never been taught that can happen and were left on their own. It CAN HAPPEN on it’sown. I KNOW THIS AS A FACT,since I WAS THE PERSON who assembled it during cleaning and FOLLOWED SOP ON MAKING SURE THEY WERE NOT ALIGNED. If it isn’t a problem THE WHY DID THEY DRILL IT INTO YOUR HEAD TO CHECK THE ALIGNMENT. While it doesn’t happen very often, it was annoying on the range and possibly deadly in a firefight. Keep in mind your talking to someone who has not only fired between 50-100k rounds through one I also helped run ranges and have seen what happens on the firing line. Did you ever think that there is a difference between YOUR AR and an M16 issued to a bunch of different troops? Go back to your armchair.
There’s just so much room for improvement.
Polymer magazines that don’t deform and cause double and God-help-you-triple-feeds.
Improved gas systems like the piston based ones seem to show promise.
A different caliber. Is it really unreasonable to expect to be able to shoot someone through a hollow-cinderblock wall with a combat rifle? I’m just asking.
Optics? A lot of armies are having a lot of success with simple 1x sights. There’s got to be something better than the standard current sights.
The M16 has had a long life. I always had a love hate relationship with it. Lightweight, easy to shot instinctively, low recoil, and very controllable even when manually getting two to three round bursts. It was finicky, the magazines we had were suspect sometimes, the old style handguards sucked and made a lot of noise unless they were taped and it felt delicate. Trying to fire blanks in training wasalways touch and go, but, I blame the much shorter ammo. It’s served well. It’s just time to look at something better.
Um from what i have seen in th research departments i think we would have a better army if we switched to the XM-8. It’s versatile multiple configurations and ability to switch ammo types would have won over the troops. My personal favorite would have been the 6.8 SPC round for choice caliber in a rifle form of the xm-8 in pistol form the 5.7. I have no doubt that the 5.56 nato rounds are killing folks i have the problem of how long it takes for them to die while they are still firing at our troops.
D~W
I’m NOT a firearms expert, BUT a new “system” needs to be developed, caseless cartridges have been around for years (daisy mfg-1960’s) but not fully developed.
1. cartridge weight lowered. why carry weight, just to throw away?
2. recoil impact on accuracy
3. firepower-large bullet vs. many small bullets
4. modular-upgrade to sniper, SAW, etc. using same ammo-for logistics support & training purposes-i.e. 30 cal carbine, .45 Thompson of wwII
should have been combined, therefore pistol/carbine/submachine gun same cal.
5. we must get out of the box! Logistics MUST be a part of the matrix.
Lots of good posts.
But lets face it, the Army will switch to something better when our guys start dying by the truckload because someone has something better.
The AK-47 is better than the M-16 in many respects. But not on the level of difference between the Mauser and the rifle the Army was using during the Spanish American War (I forget the name. You had to load it from the top. They did this due to concerns that the infantrymen would use their ammo too fast.
Once they realized that it was all about how much lead you could put up, they switched.
Fielding a new weapon, which may have problems, may end your career. Keeping the status quo gets you easy retirement.….
Well I hope the country can afford bread lines I hope that, I WILL QUALIFY FOR THE COFFIE. With the country going down the tolet, the military indusral machine is planning on how to steal the last dollar they can get. A fool got us into a war, that we can not win,
Forest gumps moma said, stupid is as stupid does, Bush has proven his moma point. We get four more fool that want to grind our country into dust, no matter which one we pick,
The revulation to save the country is long over due. No one with what it takes to fight to take back the government is willing to stand up and do so, Talk and more Tals, Spend money till the wheal berral we carry it in is worth more than the money in it. Shame on the USA.
I always thought that velocity was a big factor in a quick killing round? Hydrostatic shock and CNS shutdown?
Wasn’t there an issue with the 5.62 years ago where they lowered the effective velocity of the round?
Yeah, it’s a nice concept, but there are some very pointed negatives brought up here too. Not being able to remove a “dud” or do maintenance on the bolt is a huge deal for me. If it can be broken, a soldier will find a way. I still say the next evolutionary step will be one of four things:
a.)caseless ammo
b.)liquid propellant fed in behind projectiles
c.)metal storm type launchers
d.)electro-magnetic propulsion
All of these seem a pretty long way off, so the next weapon will probably use the same old principles of mechanical operation.
Somebody mentioned the field testing of the xm-8 and wondered why it disappeared. Last I heard, the handguards melted in sustained fire. Don’t know if that got fixed. Between that and the debate/dis-satisfaction with the 5.56, I think they tried to wait it out.
The first question to ask in any engineering problem is ‘what problem are you trying to solve’?
As far as I am aware (lifetime civilian…) the two big issues with the m4/m16 in current conditions are ’rounds too small’ and ‘sand screws it/pain to clean’. The first of those is by no means a clear case, we’ve all heard the arguments for and against heavier rounds, no reason to repeat them here. But if there is a problem the solution is in the ‘bigger round’ direction, not the other way.
The second problem is being a pain to clean and needing regular cleaning in desert conditions. Well,the solutions to this are either lower tolerances (ie AK47) or an otherwise more reliable /easier cleaning mechanism.
In both these cases, it would appear the g11 goes the wrong way. Cool? Sure. Solution? No way.
G-11. I wonder how you go about unchambering a round? Depending upon the mission, you may have a loaded weapon that needs to be cleared other than firing the round.
Big problem with caseless rounds: heat. An enormous amount of waste heat is transferred to the brass casing in conventional firearms, which are of course quickly ejected from the weapon. On the G-11, all of that heat goes directly into the weapon. This necessitates a much thicker and heavier barrel and/or some other system of cooling the thing.
Guy,
In the event of a misfire/dud where you need to clear the chamber, the G11 is equipped with an ejection port at the bottom of the chamber. To clear the round you rotate the bolt downward and the round falls out. Not sure what the “stuck” round procedures are though, though I’m sure it’s something that was thought of.
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