Kraut Space Magic: the H&K G11
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Publicado 2018-12-25
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I have been waiting for a long time to have a chance to make this video - the Heckler & Koch G11! Specifically, a G11K2, the final version approved for use by the West German Bundeswehr, before being cancelled for political and economic reasons.
The G11 was a combined effort by H&K and Dynamit Nobel to produce a new rifle for the German military with truly new technology. The core of the system was the use of a caseless cartridge developed in the late 60s and early 70s by Dynamit Nobel, which then allowed H&K to design a magnificently complex action which could fire three rounds in a hyper-fast (~2000 rpm) burst and have all three bullets leave the barrel before the weapon moved in recoil.
Remarkably, the idea went through enough development to pass German trials and actually be accepted for service in the late 1980s (after a funding shutdown when it proved incapable of winning NATO cartridge selection trials a decade earlier). However, the reunification with East Germany presented a reduced strategic threat, a new surplus of East German combat rifles (AK74s), and a huge new economic burden to the combined nations and this led to the cancellation of the program. The US Advanced Combat Rifle program gave the G11 one last grasp at a future, but it was not deemed a sufficient improvement in practical use over the M16 platform to justify a replacement of all US weapons in service.
The G11 lives on, however, as an icon of German engineering prowess often referred to as "Kraut Space Magic" (in an entirely complimentary take on the old pejorative). That it could be so complex and yet still run reliably in legitimate military trials is a tremendous feat by H&K's design engineers, and yet one must consider that the Bundeswehr may just have dodged a bullet when it ended up not actually adopting the rifle.
Many thanks to H&K USA for giving me access to the G11 rifles in their Grey Room for this video!
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Todos los comentarios (21)
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This rifle was designed so that in the field you can disassemble it and create a steam engine for quick evac.
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>takes it apart >is built like a watch Yup, it's German.
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I'm surprised that Switzerland wasn't all over this one: if there's anyone who could be taught to field strip that monster it's probably a hardened watchmaker.
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No matter how long you've been around guns, this is like learning about the rotary engine after 1 week in mechanical engineering school
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"We fire the whole bullet, thats 65% more bullet per bullet" - Cave Johnson
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Pulls off front Ah, it's just a barrel. Pulls off back Ah, it's just a time machine or something.
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It's incredible to see all the cost and precision that went into this gun be almost entirely in the internals while the outside is just a plain, albeit rugged, plastic shell. Like a 5 gal bucket housing an atomic clock.
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Jonathan Ferguson was right when he said. “This gun is like if you gave a clock maker class A drugs and asked him to make a firearm.”
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Before taking off the plastic: oh this looks like a sci-fi gun After taking off the plastic: oh it's a steampunk gun
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here at aperture science, we fire the whole bullet. thats 65% more bullet per bullet
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I remembered as a 6-7 year old boy I was peering through this new set of encyclopedia my mom bought and in one of the volumes was the G11 rifle dubbed as being "advanced warfare". I remembered that some of the things alluded to here were discussed: the rotating chamber, the 3-shot no recoil, the caseless ammunition. One of my earliest memories as a kid just gobbling up information like a sponge. Thank you for this trip down memory lane.
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Literally every aspect of this gun is a gigantic departure from everything in conventional firearms. Can you imagine how different the gun landscape would be today if this design had been pursued more?
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"We fire the whole bullet! That's 65% more bullet per bullet!"
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Looks like it does +20% damage against giant space insects.
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I freaking love the fact that each prototype of G11 has their looks reflective of the futuristic aesthetic of the respective time period.
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I wish I could see the face of a basic 17 year old boot who has to field strip and put it back together in under 2 minutes while an instructor is yelling at him.
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"The redstone is simple"
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So, a watchmaker, a steam locomotive engineer and a chemist walk into a bar.....
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This is my "Aliens" of forgotten weapons episodes. I have it memorized but I keep watching it and it never gets old. This is the coolest functional firearm on this or any other planet
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You could just hose it down with WD-40 on occasion and it would probably run forever
