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Bye-bye G36


mpow66m

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They wont get rid of it.HK just might go bankrupt,or they better start selling to civies.Theyll let them fix it.

Are saying our bidding process is biased? How dare you... ;-)

Ok, serious now. The choosing of a new system now has some many "eyes on", that there is not much room for backroom deals.

If the request offers for a new rifle, in my experience that will not be before 2020, all european manufacturers can apply...lets see who makes the best(i.e. cheapest) offer.

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HK has been practically bankrupt for decades, had it not been for Bundeswehr sales. Depending on the development of the political scene it may however be that they may fall out of favor if they can't shape up.

If they continue to play the passive-aggressive game of "we didn't do anything wrong, the rifle performs as specified" their credit may dwindle rapidly. I think they underestimated the backlash that their stonewalling of the issue would create. It may turn out to be one fatal management decision that in the end doomed the company. Not many people in Germany will come to their help.

Oh, well...

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The funny thing is, it does.

Sure, but this kind of defense is arguing the wrong point. The issue is that there's now the impression that BAAInBw testers are in bed with HK, and that all reports from the frontline since Good Friday's battle have been swept under the rug. That's only partially HK's fault but their stonewalling creates the impression that they are more involved than it may be the case.

In the current atmosphere where a blood-thirsty public is looking for a quick scapegoat this is the PR equivalent to bleating "Pick me-e-e-e-e!". HK may know how to make guns but they know nothing about putting up a solid PR defense. Not only do they look like deer caught in the spotlight to the press, they look like particularly ugly wildlife that almost begs for being run over. The press has tasted blood; the reporters will keep digging, and I bet they'll find more.

Even I don't feel much sympathy towards HK, and I suppose I am about as uncritical or even positively biased towards them as it gets without being an HK fanboy/gun nut.

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HK needs to take a page from Magpuls PR dept and just admit something is wrong and say we are on it and will remedy the sit immd.

This has similarities with the with the UK, SA-80 debacle

It ended up the most expensive assault rifle in the world,

Funny thing is the Brits send the SA-80 to HK to fix the issues with the rifle.

They should all just buy the Steyr. LoL

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Just equipt everyone with a FAL,problem solved.I know its old,but its reliable,it works and you can use it as a sledgehammer when ness.:clin:

Theres alot of great modern rifles out there,SCAR,ACR,XCR,901 ect.

Having owned a (semiauto) G36 for years now, this is actually kind of refreshing to hear; I'd had terrible issues with poor accuracy (and worse, a wandering zero) on mine, and hitherto had assumed it was an issue with the conversion work I'd done on the rifle.

As to alternates, honestly, the M-16 family is still, in my opinion, the best game going. Despite the persistent (but in my experience, grossly untrue) rumors of poor reliability, it is the best performing military rifle I've ever shot; and I shoot and own a great many of them (to include the SCAR17S, which has good performance but miserable ergonomics; the ACR which is excellent but a bit heavy, and worse, nose-heavy; the XCR, which has possibly the worst trigger pull of any autoloading rifle I have ever shot- worse even than bullpups like the AUG, and the same weight issues as the ACR; and the Colt 901, which, owing to the weird buffer and tapered bolt carrier (for multi-caliber conversion), is less reliable than a baseline M16... and fit and finish on mine is pretty bad. Finish in particular.)

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This has similarities with the with the UK, SA-80 debacle

It ended up the most expensive assault rifle in the world,

Funny thing is the Brits send the SA-80 to HK to fix the issues with the rifle.

They should all just buy the Steyr. LoL

I wouldn't; the trigger pull on the AUG is so bad as to preclude any kind of accuracy. Also, it's mighty easy to burn one's hand on the barrel as it is unshrouded, it's hard to shoot accurately from the prone or any supported position because of the vertical foregrip, and the bolt locking sleeve on mine has broken teeth twice now, with a Mean Rounds Between Failure of roughly 3000-4000. Granted, a broken tooth on the bolt locking sleeve doesn't actually cause the rifle to fail... but that bit of metal the broke off, and goes floating around in the action, does cause failures until you can shake it out of the rifle. And if ALL the teeth break (without looking, I think there's four? Maybe three), it will allow the bolt to rotate into the closed position while the action is open; completely jamming the rifle.

Given the choice of anything to carry in battle, I would opt for the M16A4 with ACOG. Failing that, an ACR with the 18 inch barrel.

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More info here: With poor Google translations

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2...-audit-report/

If you check at the bottom of that page, you will see the related articles.

Wiki editors are quick:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_%26_Koch_G36

In April 2012, reports surfaced that G36 rifles used in Afghanistan would overheat during prolonged firefights after several hundred rounds were fired. Overheating affected the accuracy of the G36, making it difficult to hit targets past 100 meters, ineffective past 200 meters, and incapable of effective fire past 300 meters. The G36 has been called unsuitable for long battles. HK said the rifle was not designed for sustained, continuous fire. German soldiers gave no negative feedback. Operational commanders advised allowing the weapon to cool between periods of rapid shooting.[13][14][15]

In February 2014, the Federal Ministry of Defence announced that the overheating deficiencies of the G36 was not a result of weapon design, but of the ammunition. The manufacturer of the ammunition confirmed this,[16] although experts disagreed.[17]

A report by the Bundeswehr on February 21, 2014, revealed that the issues were not the fault of the rifle, but that one manufacturer of ammunition was making bullets with copper plated jackets that were too thin.[18][19]

On June 22, 2014, it was reported that Germany’s defense ministry has temporarily halted new orders worth €34 million ($46 million) over accuracy concerns for the rifle. The Bundeswehr consulted the Ernst Mach Institut and the Federal Criminal Police Office. [20][21]

On March 30, 2015, Minister of Defence Ursula von der Leyen told the Associate Press that the weight-saving design is the root of the issues.[22] This is based on a letter from Inspector General Volker Wieker advising the Stewards of Defence and Budget Committee of the Bundestag and the troops in advance of the publication of the report.[23][24]

On April 22, 2015, von der Leyen announced that the G36 would be phased out due to these concerns.[25]

As mentioned already, the only good thing here is the amount of good options the Germany army has.

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As to alternates, honestly, the M-16 family is still, in my opinion, the best game going.

I will have to agree with you there.....It is a simple, yet complicated & effective design. Once it got past it's government-induced teething troubles it started to shine.

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The funny thing is that the G-36 has been in service since 1995 and it is used by other armed forces as well and now they say it is not working good?

Did they needed 20 years to figure that out? :confused:

I have read here here that the barrel may get hot and accuracy may be an issue but as far as I know this is an assault riffle not intended to fire thousands of rounds in full automatic.

When do you need to use an assault rifle as a dedicated machine gun?

Something like?

n7q3yBy-7mI

Not sure what the problem is but even the mighty M3/MG42 would loose precission over extended full automatic shooting with no barrel replacement.

However after 20 years of use it is good the Bunderswehr starts thinking in a replacement but I would not call the G-36 a faulty item.

Anyway I am just an Air Force guy and in no way an infantry expert so I may be totally wrong :wink2:

And besides all this I like the G-36 a lot :)

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Personally, I don't have much love to lose for H&K as a company. Without going into a lengthy discussion, in the US there's a running joke that goes like this...

'Why won't H&K make that here in the US so we can buy it?'

"Because H&K says you suck and they hate you!"

The roller locked, stamped steel HK weapons that I have handled are fine weapons. I shot a G3A3 just briefly, and I liked it. I own US made semi-auto copies of the HK33 and MP-5 and both are accurate and reliable, the HK33 is a bit on the heavy side for a 5.56mm rifle with a 16" barrel, but it works. They're definitely an older design with some shortcomings (hard to mount a scope, crappy collapsing stocks) and some quirks (they don't stay open on the last round...CLICK!), but I would feel very well armed with any of them.

I would be absolutely thrilled to own an HK G41, but that rifle never took off for several reasons, so I doubt that will ever happen.

Having said that, I feel that they royally screwed up with the G36 and I don't understand how they could have allowed it. When I talk to other gun people and mention that they took the barrel and stuck it directly into plastic I get the same reaction every single time - instant recognition that this is a BAD IDEA.

Plus, that design has some other flaws. I like the idea of a rifle with an integral sighting system, the combination of a 3.5x scope for longer distance and a red dot for short range. I have no hands on experience with it but I understand that the field of view with those is a bit on the narrow side. I also understand that the backup plastic sights are permanently molded and can't be adjusted at all...I find that appalling.

The elevation aspect isn't necessarily so bad. If it shoots a little high you can aim a little low and still see your target, or carefully file down the front post to zero it at about 200m which is pretty much ideal for 5.56mm ammo. You're totally out of luck if it shoots low though. Even on handguns where sights need to be adjusted with a pin punch and a hammer, you can at least adjust for the left/right zero by drifting the rear sight.

The more I think about it, the more the G36 strikes me as a cheap product in a fancy wrapper and a big mark up.

M-16/M-4? rather not. I need be, a derivate like the DIMACO(better quality...)

If they can make anything in the quality of a G-3, I'm in.

To be fair, the M16/M4 and Diemaco (AKA Colt Canada) products are essentially the same thing. They follow the same pattern and are made from the same materials.

The first Diemaco made rifle (the C7) was the Canadian version of the M16A2, but retaining the old M16A1 style sights. The two series have evolved along parallel lines since then but the parts exchange because it's the same thing.

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There might be an alternative to the HK416, that is the MG36. It is in principle the G36 just with a thicker barrel, because it was to be used as an MG. The thicker barrel should help to fight against barrel deformation due to heat. It is of almost the same weight, and the advantage of this solution would be that all accessoires in service for the G36 still could be used and all training of active troops with this rifle would keep its merits. Also, the formal procurement marathon could be cut short.

Basing on the assumption of course that the critical part of the rifle that is responsible for the lacking precision is indeed the barrel. If it is some other part of the weapon, then what is said above is null and void.

My main issue is a different one anyway: the small calibre. I would prefer 7.62. This argument of ammunition standardisation I do not buy. And in general I think that the more diversity in weapons own side has, the more difficult it is for the other side to counter them all. I am no friend of monoculturalism in general. This should nto mean that multi could not be exaggerated as well. But I am not the first pointing at the questionable penetration and stopping power of the 5.56. I think deeply buried in all this preference for the small calibre is the fear that somebody could get severely injured if shooting at him. Nowadays even wars ought to be nice and poltically correct (especially ecologically, so collect all the bullet casings that you have fired).

reports on the lacking reliability, power and precision of the G36 are not new. Already years ago German troops that saw combat in Afghanistan, criticised the weapon on its lacking precision and lacking punch. I knew two such guys personally myself who were there. They too did not like the G36. I was also told that German squads in Afghanistan tried to get and use older MG3 (7.52) to replace with them the not liked MG4 (5.62). The claim was the same: not sufficient punch.

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I wouldn't; the trigger pull on the AUG is so bad as to preclude any kind of accuracy. Also, it's mighty easy to burn one's hand on the barrel as it is unshrouded, it's hard to shoot accurately from the prone or any supported position because of the vertical foregrip,...

I know of at least one top performing military rifle team who use it to great effect. They completely out performed the US Army's Marksmanship Training Unit guys with all their high speed gear. Some pics:

http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=1640833

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The funny thing is that the G-36 has been in service since 1995 and it is used by other armed forces as well and now they say it is not working good?

Did they needed 20 years to figure that out? :confused:

No. I first heard of criticism of the weapon in 2005 or 2006, internally the ministry knew of criticism even years earlier. Fog of bureaucracy - and lobbyism.

One has to understand that the rifle is popular with soldiers of armies and officers of police forces using it that mostly have not used it under combat conditions like in Afghanistan - real long distance firefights of extended duration, in extreme climate conditions. I read the rifle design was done according to demands from the 80s - a typical cold war scenario, in central Europe, with moderate climate, at not too long distances. Those were the demands formulated by the German defence ministry back then. Afghanistan however is hot climate, and long distance engagements 8extending the duration of firefights also), and so suddenly the deficits - lacking precision, lacking punch at long distance, lacking heat resistence - became evident. It really jumps to the eye how quickly the G36 came under fire by active soldiers using it in combat in Afghanistan. It was a dramatic contrast to the obviosuly somewhat sterile and clean testing conditions by which the bean counters have run their procurement and testing procedures (earlier, if I am not mistaken, the state attorney already has given arrest orders against BW officers who were guilty of corruption and bribery and were engaged with the procurement procedure, it seems they had manipulated the testing results or something like that. Two higher rank officers had been fired, though just from their job).

This may also explain why the rifle is still so popular in many customer services - they do not use it in conditions under which the rifle'S weaknesses became that easily noticable. They do some firing drills at best, but mostly carry it only, do not use it constantly in battle. It looks sexy and futuristic, has some nice gimicks like the scopes, and so is a nice rifle to boast and show off with. This may also explain why the Peshmerga call for being given the G36s that the BW may sort out. Compared to the unprecise very old AK-47 and other old Soviet kit of theirs, the lacking precision of the G36 still may be compensated for by looks, prestige and the option to show off with owning one.

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Thanks for the detailled information Skybird. I had no idea about that.

The Spanish Army has been in Afghanistan and used the G-36 in quite a bit number of ocassion while fighting the insurgency but I have not heard anything negative about that, although I am not an insider on the Infantry so that means nothing. I have a couple of friends that have been there and I will ask them about.

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Having owned a (semiauto) G36 for years now, this is actually kind of refreshing to hear; I'd had terrible issues with poor accuracy (and worse, a wandering zero) on mine, and hitherto had assumed it was an issue with the conversion work I'd done on the rifle.

As to alternates, honestly, the M-16 family is still, in my opinion, the best game going. Despite the persistent (but in my experience, grossly untrue) rumors of poor reliability, it is the best performing military rifle I've ever shot; and I shoot and own a great many of them (to include the SCAR17S, which has good performance but miserable ergonomics; the ACR which is excellent but a bit heavy, and worse, nose-heavy; the XCR, which has possibly the worst trigger pull of any autoloading rifle I have ever shot- worse even than bullpups like the AUG, and the same weight issues as the ACR; and the Colt 901, which, owing to the weird buffer and tapered bolt carrier (for multi-caliber conversion), is less reliable than a baseline M16... and fit and finish on mine is pretty bad. Finish in particular.)

I own an ACR and its a fine rifle the operator controls are IMHO are far more user friendly than the M16/M4 family.The CH is non reciprocating and fwrd of the breech,the mag.release and bolt/catch can be easily operated w/ the trigger finger or off hand.Though not supp. by BM or RemDef there is pleanty of user support and new parts being built.

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M-16/M-4? rather not. I need be, a derivate like the DIMACO(better quality...)

If they can make anything in the quality of a G-3, I'm in.

Seriously? Not to sound insulting, but I'm curious if you've ever actually fired (or owned) a G3 or derivative. It's the roughest-kicking semiauto I've ever fired (to include much larger calibers like .30-06), the corner of the magwell tends to dig into the heel of the support hand, the sights are a bit on the crude side, and it's made of stamped sheet metal. There were continuous issues with the sheet metal receivers bending or warping in field conditions, so each (if I recall) platoon (maybe company?) had an armorer kit with a mandrel to literally beat the bends out of the receivers when they inevitable were dented.

I would take a FAL long before I'd take a G3. And I'd take an M14 before either... though I rate the FAL and M14 neck and neck in most things, I think the sights on the M14 are leaps and bounds better, and I like the feel of the rifle better (but the feel is purely personal preference). I do prefer the FAL straight-in magazine, though. Never been a fan of the AK/ M14-style "rock in" magazine.

As to the M4/ M16, I agree, you need a quality manufacturer making a good build. That's half the reason the reliability myth has been perpetuated among the American gun-owning civilian population: they go and buy some cut-rate $500 AR15 from a no-name manufacturer, then when it has reliability issues, they blame the design specs, not the crappy build.

Never used a Diemaco, but Fabrique Nationale and FN-USA make AWESOME M16s/ AR15

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I have read here here that the barrel may get hot and accuracy may be an issue but as far as I know this is an assault riffle not intended to fire thousands of rounds in full automatic.

When do you need to use an assault rifle as a dedicated machine gun?

It's not that it doesn't fire thousands of rounds without heat issues... that's not even expected. BUT, you should be able to fire your rifleman basic load of ammunition (about 300 rounds) in 20 minutes without putting rounds all over the place (sustained rate of 15 rounds per minute). If what I've read about this Good Friday battle is accurate, they fired an average of 280 rounds per soldier over the span of like 8 HOURS, but still had heating problems. That's not indicative of a well-designed combat rifle.

My experience (granted, it's with a civilian version modified with mil-spec parts, but it ALSO has a heavier barrel, which should make it heat up more slowly) is that accuracy is absolute PANTS after as little as one magazine of 30 rounds through the rifle. I mean "pants", like "I can no longer consistently hit a standing-man-sized-steel-plate at 200 meters from the prone supported position" definition. And it's not just that the size of the shot pattern gets larger, it also MOVES. If I recall correctly, mine moves further and further down and left as it heats up. Something like 3-5 FEET at 200 meters after a magazine. I basically never take the rifle to the range anymore, because it's so frustrating to shoot.

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