Talk:Heckler & Koch G11

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Reason for failure?[edit]

So there is no reason for production of this gun starting?

If I understand correctly, with the German reunification, the Germans had both less concerns about their immediate national security, and more need for funding for administration, reabilitation etc. Hence, the costly project of mass-producing a radically revolutionnary weapon was posponned sine die. Rama 15:10, 3 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Rates of fire[edit]

I can understand the confusion, but I'm guessing the higher rate of fire in burst mode is correct. It would be more useful that way. The sources I'm seeing keep mentioning rate of fire in the 2000 rounds per minute range, but I haven't been able to confirm a difference between full auto and burst. Friday (talk) 22:47, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A bit further down in the article is "When firing in semi-auto and full auto modes, the rifle only loads and fires one round per transit of the barrel, cutting the rate of fire to a controllable 1/3 of its max rate.", which confirms what I suspected above. So I've put it back the way it was. Friday (talk) 22:55, 5 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It may also be worth mentioning the extremely long magazine. Watch the videos of the G11 in tests (Youtube has a few HK PR vids), the magazines were extremely long and thin other assault rifle magazines at the time. Plus it's perfectly straight, as the rectangular ammo wouldn't suit a curved magazine very well. It'd be a real pain finding a place to store any extra magazines above the three mounted on the rifle (though the video shows a smaller speed-loading device to quickly load twenty or so rounds into the normal magazine), plus more prone to being bent than a STANAG magazine.

So they purposely reduced the ROF in full auto to 400-600? Can it theoretically fire at 2000 rounds/min on full auto? Malamockq (talk) 04:25, 17 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I can only guess... I think it could but be impractical (too high a heat buildup , look at the M16, it's rated at only ~15 shots/min sustained. Yes, FIFTEEN. Not to mention that the clip would last no more than ~1.5 seconds). User.Zero.Zero.Zero.One (talk) 17:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Another reply seems to have slipped into the :Propellant: section below. I would move it here since it was meant to be here, but Wiki rules don't allow that. After all, I think it could go at 2000/min on full auto but the recoil would be unmanageable (esp. without any compensation), and the ammo would go to fast to use it fixed/bipodded for any useful length of time (1.5sec again). BTW each time I see that brick of a rifle, it reminds me of the Phaser rifle. Coincidence??? User.Zero.Zero.Zero.One (talk) 17:41, 9 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The reason for the radical design of this rifle and others of its kind were an attempt to emulate a shotgun with a rifle. The shotgun and the multi-projectile shot that it fires, exhibit increased hit probability on static and moving targets. The effect of increased hit probability is that it can potentially make the soldier more effective and reduce ammunition wasteage (given the estimated 1 Million rounds expended on average per enemy kill in VietNam). Tests with mult-projectile ammunition such as duplex and triplex (projectiles stacked one behind the other) or flechette bundles fired from the HK/Olin-Winchester partnership that resulted in a variety of prototype weapons such as SPIW, CAWS and the ACR programme in the 80's, showed that when used well, these weapons could indeed improve hit probability. The G11 was the only rifle submitted to the US ACR programme that mechanically increased the rate of fire to several thousand rounds per minute in a 3 round burst in order to emulate a tightly packed shotgun pattern and thus increase the soldiers' hit probability per trigger pull (HPPTP). The full auto rate of fire was in the region of 600rpm for two reasons, firstly, higher rates of fire can be wasteful with out proper fire discipline and secondly because the barrel, firing mechanism and magazine recoil within the rifle with each shot, it tended to be a little slower than a conventional rifle. Colt's ACR by contrast took a product improved M16 and used duplex ammunition, firing two projectiles from one cartridge to double the rounds flying through the air for the sam rate of fire. The two other candidate rifles from Steyr and AAI used conventional and unconventional mathods to fire lightweight flechettes (fin stabilised darts) at well over 1000 rounds per minute to achieve the same result. The end of the Cold War essentially put an end to potential infantry rifle refresh programmes in the late 80's and early 90's. Also the ACR project came into being because it was based on test data that came from infantry soldier shooting abilities in a variety of scenarios. Once the programme was up and running a dedicated test facilty was built and data collection was digitally acquired though systems developed by Allied-Telesis. These results ultimately showed that the base data was flawed and the ability of the infantry soldier was significantly better than first thought, narrowing the performance gap between what was currently in service and the ACR test rifles. Also at the same time a proposal for an even more complex system was put forward in the form of the OICW which ultimately fell by the wayside due to complexity, weight and cost. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.134.239.154 (talk) 16:02, 21 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Popular culture[edit]

Makes an appearance in the PC games Fallout 2, Delta-Force "Land Warrior", IGI2. Also in James Bond:Agent Under Fire Gamecube game.

I believe the JSSDF commandos in The End of Evangelion use this rifle. Freelancepolice 01:21, 26 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The currently policy on noting that a gun is used in a game or movie is to note it in the article for the movie or game. Reasoning was the following: If someone plays the game or watches the movie, he'll look at that article and follow the link to the gun article. As opposed to someone reading the gun article already and wondering "in which game or movie was this?". Otherwise, the list in this article would be quite long (hey, you forgot Jagged Alliance 2 - it is the rarest guns around, only carried by Mike The Mysterious Mercenary). Tierlieb (talk) 09:30, 20 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Also primary weapon of Phoenix in Demolition Man. Stuntman crow (talk) 01:00, 30 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It has now appeared in Call of Duty: Black Ops and this was the reason i came to see the wikipedia article on it cause it seemed very powerful which led me to believe it used a high calibre bullet, now it's in Call of Duty - Black Ops i imagine it the article will be viewed more often, maybe it's time for a Cultural Reference section, i'm not wiki editor so i don't mess with pages, it's trial and error just posting this message. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.9.192.109 (talk) 19:32, 13 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Propellant[edit]

Rate of fire is 2000 rpm on 3-round burst and 400-700 rpm on full-auto. Reason is that G11 has a system for delaying gases. In back of the rifle are three "chambers" for gases. On three-round burst all three chambers are used and fireman will hit the target with first shot and after he has fired all three rounds gases will be released, and this means lack of recoil during the fire sequence. On full auto is imposible to use all three chambers(beacuse there is only three chambers and you can fire all 45 rounds in one burst) so it is used only first and rate of fire is smaller beacuse gases need to leave the chamber after each shot, beacuse of recoil-delaying system. And there's yours 1/3 of its max rate(700 of 2000)


Now I have a question. Is there any special powder used in G11, beacuse 5 times smaller amount of propellant has almost same power as 5.56x45mm bullet?

As I understand it, normally a lot of propellant gas will be spent and wasted discharging empty casings. Because the G11 is caseless, none of the gas escapes in that manner, and it gets a lot more out of the same amount of propellant. I don't know how much of an increase in efficiency that would count for, but it's probably a lot. Also, in D20 Modern Weapons Locker it says that the ammunition itself is rectangular, or I suppose, the shape of the powder. Being that that's a game, I decided to research this a bit more just to make sure, well, yes indeed, it is blocky http://www.hkpro.com/g11.htm Look about halfway down on that page. That could help explain why it gets so much bang for its buck. Also, its barrel is a bit longer than the M16s, so that's probably another tiny nudge towards improved efficiency. All of that combined could easily explain where it gets all that power from. -NorsemanII 03:35, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Where have you seen the "5 times smaller amount of propellant" figure? The G11 bullet is telescoped into the propellant, i.e. the square body of the round is actually all propellant. Similar (kind of) to the way that the propellant charge for a mortar round is wrapped around the tail rather than behind it. To me it seems that there's roughly as much propellant there as you would expect to be in the casing of a traditional round of the same caliber. Riddley 10:18, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Not an expert, but the SoldierTech article (listed in External links section) mentions the following regarding the propellant. It does not mention weight, but it is a non-standard propellant. Perhaps the factor of 5 refers to the entire cartridge, which might well be a few multiples lighter (smaller bullet, no case etc.)
The most challenging of these obstacles was the development of the caseless ammunition itself. Early tests with molded gunpowder led to the development of High Ignition Temperature Propellant (HITP), a less sensitive compound that would reduce the risk of "cook offs" where the internal chamber temperature was high enough to ignite the propellant. The propellant is molded into a rectangular block around the 4.7mm diameter projectile and cartridge primer. The rectangular shape allows the rounds to feed more efficiently from the magazine -- since there is no magazine "dead space," as there would be with conventional round metallic cartridges, there is no room in the magazine for the bullets to shift and potentially mis-feed. In addition to improving feeding, the molded propellant also significantly reduces the weight of each individual cartridge (A G11 rifle, with 45 round magazines and 510 rounds of 4.7mm caseless ammunition, weighs as much as a G3 rifle with 20 round magazines and 100 rounds of 7.62mm ammunition).
Deon Steyn 11:01, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]
All other things being equal, a caseless round with the same bullet and the same amount of propellant is going to be lighter than the same round which has a metallic casing. This is great for the people who have to lug 500 of them about. But I still haven't seen any proof that the G11 ammo uses "5 times" less propellant to achieve the same ballisitic performance as a cased round. There are certain basic laws of physics which come into play here - I don't think anyone has developed a propellant which is 5 times more effective than what we have in traditional ammunition. Riddley 18:39, 24 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]


In Fiction[edit]

I have moved this section to a separate page as per the standard for sections of this nature when they grow to large (see MP5 etc.). Some would argue that these lists of trivia to not belong in Wikipedia (see WP:NOT), but for now it is at least in a separate page which not only cleans up this page and makes it more encyclopaedic, but also enables inclusion into List of firearms in films and List of firearms in video games. Deon Steyn 10:59, 24 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

DON'T DELETE THIS PAGE![edit]

I don't know who flagged this page for deletion, but for heaven's sake don't. As I've said before, not everything can or needs to be verified by reference to some previously published work, supposing that the author of the original article is an expert in his or her field and knows his or her subject. As a point of information, however, much of the information in the article can easily be verified by checking in Jane's All the World's Small Arms and Ammunition (or at least, I think that is the title), because that book is where I first found out about this weapon, in the mid-1990s. So DON"T delete it. Theonemacduff (talk) 19:22, 22 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Temperature for HITP cook-off fix[edit]

The page says they "increased the spontaneous ignition temperature to 100 °C (180 °F) above that of standard." Does anyone know what this resulting temperature was? --Trakon (talk) 10:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it says "...increased the spontaneous ignition temperature to 100 °C (180 °F) above that of standard, nitrocellulose propellant." I've found a lot of different ignition temperatures for nitrocellulose:
I'm not sure which is right, but 330°F seems like a decent approximation. -NorsemanII (talk) 11:13, 9 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Obviously specious in "Cookoff"[edit]

"This allowed the 50-round magazine to carry the maximum amount of propellant [should be rounds] in a minimum of space, since the wasted spaces between rounds that accompanies the use of cylindrical cartridges was eliminated."

The space isn't "eliminated", it's being used! So the only savings would be if the round was physically smaller than the cased ammo. This sentence needs to be dropped in favor of a comparison of the dimensions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 4.230.117.201 (talk) 07:14, 14 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Bullpup[edit]

Can this rifle be actually categorized as a bullpup rifle? The magazine is located above the barrel and is parallel to it. GregorB (talk) 14:18, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

That's true, but the lock action is behind trigger, not in front of it. Bullpup design tries to shorten overall length as much as possible, so although the magazine is located unconventionally, I believe G11 fits bullpup "philosophy" rather nicely. Same argument could be used against FN P90 as well. Cheers, Rayshade (talk) 19:01, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
This would mean that even designs with helical magazines might be dubbed "bullpup", as long as the lock action is behind the trigger. And, since the lock action can be either behind or in front of the trigger, all rifles in the world fall into two categories: non-bullpup and bullpup. Correct? GregorB (talk) 21:15, 6 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Basically, in my opinion, yes. Calico would be perhaps a bone of contention, refer to e.g. Calico M950 cut-out in the middle, which displays the action in front of the trigger. Overall length, compact helical magazine etc features suggest a "bullpup"-ish design but I'd tend not to categorize Calico as a bullpup. One could shave off some length by sacrificing magazine capacity and moving action behind trigger while retaining barrel length. Cheers, Rayshade (talk) 19:13, 7 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

removed unsourced section[edit]

I have removed the following section, since "various web sites" is not a valid source (WP:Verifiability). Marasmusine (talk) 08:35, 25 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Variants[edit]

According to various web sites, there was the LMG11 squad-level automatic weapon and the G11 PDW personal defense weapon planned on the same ammunition family as that used by the G11. Some hints of the former caseless PDW design can be seen in the current Heckler & Koch MP7 personal defense weapon. One of the most important reasons as for the creation of the new weapon and the new munition was the issue of weight: the M16A2 with a total of 270 cartridges weighs about 16 lb (7 kg), while a shooter with the G11K2 rifle would be able to carry 600 rounds of ammunition at the same weight. Another design feature of the rifle was the ability to mount three 45-round magazines on rails on the front of the rifle, making reloading much faster. Additionally, a factory-zeroed scope would give the shooter an advantage over an adversary using a rifle with iron sights, though the modern trend is towards integrated scope rails for greater versatility.

Separate Page for 4.73x33mm[edit]

Does anyone think it would be a good idea to make a separate page for the 4.73 x 33mm round? The random infobox about the 4.73mm round on the current page makes the page look sloppy, and a separate page could be used to have more in-depth information about the ammo itself. Darkman IV (talk) 09:05, 5 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Three rounds before recoil is felt[edit]

Is this feature unique to this particular model? If not, what other models have it? I'm asking because a few years back I saw an animation on Youtube of the internal mechanism of various guns in action, and there was this 3-round burst before recoil. I'm now trying to find that animation and which guns have that firing mode. Thanks. Wildespace (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:59, 25 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Expansion & Rewrite[edit]

Since, there were citation problems and a lot of mystifying going around I went to lengths to add information from real & important (historic) sources. Most of the major sources are in agreement about 95% of the time with differences due to wording or abridged information. Some other details like costs etc. were added from other smaller sources so citation placement may look a bit chaotic. Everything is a unifying summary so not all sources got it all or have all the same information nor did I add every detail. There's a lot more information of political, public inquiry and technical nature I've deemed too excessive to add. You can check them out in the specific sources provided. Also it appears someone might have messed up citing that the High Ignition Temperature Propellant (HITP) was based on hexogen, however, according to the real patent I cited it's based on octogen (Oktogen in German). If it's messed up then it needs to be corrected. Mightyname (talk) 13:32, 9 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]

HKPRO[edit]

I have deleted several citations to HKPRO.com. It is not a reliable source for Wikipedia articles because its articles are anonymously posted and there's no discernible editorial review process. See WP:V for general rules, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Firearms#HKPRO/ hkpro.com for a specific discussion of this source. Rezin (talk) 22:55, 30 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

H&K G11 Caseless Ammunition (4.73x33mm)[edit]

I've seen pictures and videos on the G11 because I think it has an amazing history, but the caseless round is just confusing to me. I've seen a video that showed the solid propellant with a combustible primer on one of the sides, the bullet, the plastic end cap, and the booster mix in copper cup. When I saw the booster mix in copper cup it reminded me of a primer, but then I thought how could the second primer ignite when it is inside the solid propellant? I did research but could not find an answer, so I am wondering if the booster mix in copper cup is really a primer? If it's a primer how does it ignite?

If you want to see the video type: Heckler & Koch G11 Assault Rifle — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marcomazza457 (talk • contribs) 16:40, 19 February 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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New article detailing this weapon in detail; I don't know Korean though[edit]

https://namu.wiki/w/H%26K%20G11

I did a google image search for this weapon and I found this Korean site that has an extraordinary amount of detail depicting this firearm, especially references in popular culture, but I don't know the language and don't know if this has links to more credible sources.

Nonetheless it could certainly be useful and informative material.

Going through this in Google Translate, I noticed that the standards of that website is not something that Wikipedia articles should emulate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CorruptSnowflake (talk • contribs) 16:32, 7 September 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Kraut Space Magic[edit]

This gun has attained somewhat memetic status online because of the overly complex nature of its firing mechanism. A search for "Kraut Space Magic" results in many pages of results specifically about this weapon. Would it be noteworthy to add a brief "In Popular Culture" section referencing this? A fairly well known reviewer of old firearms even made a video about the G11 recently, using it's memetic name as the title of his video. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.28.6.18 (talk) 21:25, 20 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

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