More on G3s
Tim May
tcmay at got.net
Thu Jan 11 11:35:56 PST 2001
At 1:12 PM +0100 1/11/01, Tom wrote:
>Jim Choate wrote:
>> Up until then I thought I did too...I"m not so sure any more.
>>
>> It's not a clone of the HK G3 as it was explained to me, it was apparently
>> used as an interim weapon when the German Army dropped the HK G3 as a
>> standard issue weapon a few years ago (ala G11). Maybe FAL, they're
>> selling a 'G1' rifle that uses caseless ammo? Though I can't find a
>> reference to any such rifle. Maybe it was CETME you do see their gun
>> pushed as the 'G3' (the HK is a 'clone' or derived weapon from the Spanish
>> gun).
>
>a friend of mine was an officer in the german army until very recently
>(he decided to get a real job :) ) - give me 24 hours and I'll tell you
>exactly what the past and current standard issue weapons are and what
>kind of ammo they fire.
On Choate's point above, it is not FAL (a rifle, but I assume Choate
must mean the maker of the FAL, Fabrique Nationale, now owned by
another company, IIRC) who are making a caseless ammo rifle. Rather,
it is in fact H-K. The G11 has been in development for close to 30
years now.
(H-K are _also_ owned by another company. Last I heard, a British
company bought H-K, though the factories and design groups remain in
Germany.)
Most NATO countries have now adopted some variant of the 5.56 mm
cartridge, in either M-16-type variants or in bullpup designs like
the excellent Steyr AUG or the newer HK G36 (with a civilian model,
the SL8). Neither the caseless ammo of the H-K G11 not the
flechette-firing prototypes are getting wide acceptance.
And as relates to Choate's "I was right" point, repeated again
recently, the G3 in use by the German army was most definitely a 7.62
mm, i.e., a .308 Winchester. It was _not_ the 5.56 mm variant, at
least not for wide use. (I say this because quibblers like Choate
like to find examples where _someone_ used a 5.56 mm and then say
"See, I was RIGHT!")
--Tim May
--
Timothy C. May tcmay at got.net Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
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