British Rifle?

the SAS/SBS uses the MP5 as does most SF fores of the western world or uses the G11, sometimes they use M4's or M16's but mostly it depends on the situation.
mostly though its MP5's
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I like to point out that special forces or any forces in the world for that matter, actually use the G11. The H&K G11 (which I believe you are referring to) was a caseless prototype rifle that never saw production. Possibly one of the greatest guns ever made, but sadly, funding was cut with the fall of the Berlin Wall.


As said before, the SA80/L85 has a lot of problems, enough that units with more flexibility in their arsenal tend to look towards alternatives such as the armalite series.

Bullpups have the advantage in a longer barrel in a smaller package, making the gun more manueverable with the smaller package and more accurate with the longer barrel. They do have some problems though, one being it is hard to switch shooting hands in the heat of the battle. Guns like the Steyr Aug can eject either left or right, but require a cool to do so, which isn't possible when you are getting shot at. The long term effects of shooting with the mag right next to your ear are still unknown.

So.. tradeoffs.

Yea, i'm new here, hello.
 
I wouldn't give the G-11 that much credit.
It was a prototype for possibly the future of ammunition storage in a firearm, the caseless block of explosives with bullets embedded in them.
Apparently the G-11's bullet is too suseptable to wind and obsticles. I think you generally don't want to get to a caliber smaller than a 5.56mm.

The MP-5 is still the mainstay in close quarters battles with the M-4 Carbine a close 2nd possibly.

Back to the point, bullpups probably have more penalties than benefits.
 
The G11's ammo went through a couple of different calibers, and since it was prototype, who knows what could've changed if it came out to finalized. That may just be my H&K bias speaking... But it sure was impressive.
 
The KEY great thing about caseless block ammunition is that it's lighter. That's what's great about it. I can't remember how many bullets went into each block though, but the more the merrier.
Sooner or later this technology will catch up and I think it will do well. The G-11 may just be a technology experimenter right now.
I've seen photos of it and it doesn't look like it is a weapon that's very comfortable to carry around actually. They might want to change the design a bit. Would feel like you're shooting out of a briefcase. And yes I know the HK guys have an MP-5K built into a briefcase as a personal defense weapon.
 
've seen photos of it and it doesn't look like it is a weapon that's very comfortable to carry around actually. They might want to change the design a bit. Would feel like you're shooting out of a briefcase. And yes I know the HK guys have an MP-5K built into a briefcase as a personal defense weapon.
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Do note that the gun was discontinued and that was a prototype. Prototype guns look vastly different from the final production versions.

Wait.... wasn't the reason for the caseless block ammunition was to get the extremely high ROF for the gun? In order to get the high ROF on the gun they had to remove the shell ejecting part and instead opted for the burnable shell?
 
I thought it was lighter bullet for bullet.
People have the tech to make REALLY high rate of fire stuff with the standard technology. The problem with some weapons like one of the German World War II machine guns (not the MG-42... dunno which one it was...) was that the rate of fire was too high.
 
The G11 was made to dramaticlly increase the first trigger pull kill ratio, problem was, one bullet wasn't always enough and burst fire was to inaccurate.

So what they needed was a gun that could do a three round burst accurately.

The answer... 2000RPM burst fire mode, bullets exit the barrel before the recoil hits the handler. Can't do that w/o caseless (talking about conventional non vulcan/minigun here).

That is not to say that the ammo weight saving wasn't important. 1/2 the weight of the 5.56 round, smaller, etc.

http://www.hkpro.com/g11.htm
 
Hmmm... I like the lighter weight per bullet story better.
I don't see why that's even worth the trouble. Just shoot the guy.
 
why dont they just make a bigger bullet, there are storires in Iraq right now where marines shoot some guy, but the guy gets up and keeps on goin. thats freaky eh. :?
 
It's not so much a bigger bullet. Here's the real problem.
1) The American green tip full metal jacket flies faster than most of the world's FMJs.
2) The American M-16A2 stabilizes the bullet more than most other 5.56mm chambered rifle. This increases accuracy but it doesn't make the bullet tumble on impact.

You add 1 and 2 together and what happens is the bullet doesn't tumble and flies so fast that it just glides through the enemy.

Also I read in Black Hawk Down and I think a Delta guy or one of the Rangers said it, that people don't just suddenly drop when shot. If nothing majorly crippling gets hit they usually keep going for a while before dying around the corner when the injury catches up. Heck you can take the bottom half of a person off and he'll still be talking for a few moments before dying (my grand dad told me a story about that).
So I think the Marines may not be realizing that the guys they hit are dying, just not in front of their eyes.
 
The L85 is supposed to be the most unreliable gun in service. There have been cases of it literally falling apart when fired.

Also, the reason the G11 was not adopted was because caseless ammo is extremely unreliable.
 
Yup like I said, G-11 is still very much a technology experimenter.

I reckon the British Army better find a replacement for those L-series.
 
Kozzy Mozzy said:
The L85 is supposed to be the most unreliable gun in service. There have been cases of it literally falling apart when fired.

Also, the reason the G11 was not adopted was because caseless ammo is extremely unreliable.
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The reason why the G11 was not adopted was the end of the cold war and more pressing needs came long than replacing the G3A3, like getting former East Germany on its feet.

The problem with the caseless ammo had been fixed.

Taken from this site

The closest to adoption of all of the exotics was the caseless cartridge, in the form of the Heckler & Koch G11 rifle. It was actually about to be adopted by the German Army to replace the 7.62mm G3 (Germany never having adopted the 5.56mm NATO) when the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall came down. Military re-equipment spending promptly halted. H&K were financially ruined by the cancellation of the G11 and fell into the hands of Royal Ordnance, where they have earned their keep by sorting out the long-running problems of the British Army's SA-80 rifle, but that's another story. In 2002, HK were taken back into German ownership.

Caseless ammunition has obvious benefits. It is much lighter and more compact (no metal case), and it is unnecessary to arrange for the extraction and ejection of the fired case (perhaps the principal source of weapon jams). The disadvantages are that it is much more vulnerable to damage (which H&K got around by supplying the ammo in sealed plastic see-through packs which clipped directly to the gun) and the propellant is more likely to "cook-off" in a hot chamber; a problem exacerbated by the fact that a brass cartridge case makes an efficient job of transporting heat from the gun. Despite this, H&K (or rather Dynamit Nobel) cracked the problem by developing a new heat-resistant kind of propellant and produced a battle-worthy weapon.
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