Although the weapon was a technical success, it never entered full production due to the political changes of German reunification and lack of a procurement contract. The G11 project was first created by Mauser GmbH in the s. The Mauser G11 fired 4. Another entrant made by Industriewerke Karlsruhe IWK developed in the early s had 3 vertical staggered barrels. Simplicity of the IWK G11 was ensured by the fact it used interchangeable revolving round drum magazines.
Such a system, in addition to ease power supply circuit, high stability and provide ammunition to both mechanical stress and overheating when shooting, in fact the rifle was chambered in so much as there were leftover rounds in the magazine.
The price paid for this simplification, is that the weapon was too heavy, and the dimensions of the drum magazines, as well as the three barrels and the impossibility of automatic fire found in assault rifles, the IWK G11 rifle shot either single shots or volleys in three instant shots.
The Heckler and Koch G11 was originally slated to replace the aging G3 rifle. In March , after 14 different prototypes, the G11 later re-designated as the G11 K1 entered trial production. The design was modified further, and in , the G11 K2 carbine was developed and introduced. The rifle was struck from the procurement list in and by had been totally cancelled, in part because it could not be modified to fire the NATO-standard 5.
A variation of the G11 resembling the G11 K1 was entered in the Advanced Combat Rifle program held in the United States of America, along with three other contestants in the s, with the winner of the program replacing the M16A2.
However, none of the four contestants were deemed "good enough". The U. There were a total of G11 weapons produced numbered 0 through , all of which being prototypes and testing devices. The cartridges in the magazine are located above the barrel, pointing downward. Prior to each shot, a cartridge is pushed down from the magazine into the chamber, and then the chamber rotates 90 degrees to align the cartridge with the barrel. After that, the cartridge is fired and the chamber rotates back, ready for the next cartridge.
Also, this results in that the actual recoil affects the rifle AFTER the last bullet in the burst is fired. Rifle featured built-in 1X optical sight with simple circle aiming reticle.
Early prototypes featured one 50 rounds polymer magazine, while latest versions featured 45 rounds magazines - one in the loaded position within the movable housing and two spare magazines on the top of the rifle, asides from the loaded magazine. The caseless ammunition in its early appearance was designed as a block of the propellant, coated with flammable lacquer, with bullet and primer "glued on" the propellant.
Final ammunition design DM11, that. The cartridge propelled the bullet that weights 3. Early prototypes were prone to the ammunition cook-offs during the sustained fire, but later Dynamit Nobel solved this issue.
Initial batch of some G11K2s was received by Bundeswehr in or so, but due to some reasons the whole programme was cancelled by German Government. Main reasons of this cancellation were, in my opinion, the lack of fundings after the re-union of the West and East Germanies, and the general NATO policy for unification of the ammunition and even magazines for the assault rifles. The ACR programme was not intended to result in adoption of the new rifle for the US Army , just to test new technologies and designs, and the G11 proved itself as a very accurate, comfortable to handle and fire, and reliable weapon.
Military Wiki Explore. While a dependable design, and one still in use today, this brass case adds weight to an already overburdened soldier. West Germany would test the weapons system, as would the U.
Army in the s. In another timeline, the G11 could have been the next-generation replacement for the M The G11 abandoned the traditional casing idea and fired a 4. This new kind of ammo used propellant chemicals which formed a solid block surrounding the bullet. This design greatly lightened ammunition a problem gun makers are still trying to tackle 40 years later and increased the rate-of-fire since no casings needed to be ejected.
Combining the one-of-a-kind ammo with a gas-operated rotating breech action controlled by a recoil buffer system, the G11 could also fire in single shot, go fully automatic, or shoot in a hyperburst mode. By comparison the M16A1, the U. The buffer essentially stored the recoil until after the third bullet left the barrel. The recoil was also controlled by a special spring buffer system that allowed the barrel and action of the gun to recoil backwards up to 4 inches inside its stock before the operator felt the recoil.
Once the breech and barrel assembly is removed from the body, the complexity becomes overwhelming. In comparison to the AK rifles, used by Communist forces, the G11 had more than twice the number of parts.
Compared to this Soviet simplicity, the G11 was an engineering marvel, but how this incredibly complex design would have fared in combat will forever be a mystery.
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