{"id":75689,"date":"2022-12-15T02:00:33","date_gmt":"2022-12-15T07:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=75689"},"modified":"2022-12-14T09:38:59","modified_gmt":"2022-12-14T14:38:59","slug":"kraut-space-magic-the-hk-g11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2022\/12\/15\/kraut-space-magic-the-hk-g11\/","title":{"rendered":"Kraut Space Magic: the H&#038;K G11"},"content":{"rendered":"<p align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"854\" height=\"480\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QGKcvM2Hh4g\" title=\"YouTube video player\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Forgotten Weapons<\/strong><br \/>\nPublished 25 Dec 2018<\/p>\n<p>I have been waiting for a long time to have a chance to make this video &mdash; the Heckler &#038; Koch G11! Specifically, a G11K2, the final version approved for use by the West German <em>Bundeswehr<\/em>, before being cancelled for political and economic reasons.<\/p>\n<p>The G11 was a combined effort by H&#038;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&#038;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.<\/p>\n<p>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. <\/p>\n<p>The G11 lives on, however, as an icon of German engineering prowess often referred to as &#8220;Kraut Space Magic&#8221; (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&#038;K&#8217;s design engineers, and yet one must consider that the <em>Bundeswehr<\/em> may just have dodged a bullet when it ended up not actually adopting the rifle.<\/p>\n<p>Many thanks to H&#038;K USA for giving me access to the G11 rifles in their Grey Room for this video!<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! shop.bbtv.com\/collections\/forgotten-w&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Contact:<br \/>\nForgotten Weapons<br \/>\nPO Box 87647<br \/>\nTucson, AZ 85754<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Screenshot-2022-12-15-at-09-36-51-Kraut-Space-Magic-the-HK-G11-Quotulatiousness.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Screenshot-2022-12-15-at-09-36-51-Kraut-Space-Magic-the-HK-G11-Quotulatiousness-480x270.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"270\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-78646\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Screenshot-2022-12-15-at-09-36-51-Kraut-Space-Magic-the-HK-G11-Quotulatiousness-480x270.png 480w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Screenshot-2022-12-15-at-09-36-51-Kraut-Space-Magic-the-HK-G11-Quotulatiousness-150x84.png 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Screenshot-2022-12-15-at-09-36-51-Kraut-Space-Magic-the-HK-G11-Quotulatiousness-768x432.png 768w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/Screenshot-2022-12-15-at-09-36-51-Kraut-Space-Magic-the-HK-G11-Quotulatiousness.png 854w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forgotten Weapons Published 25 Dec 2018 I have been waiting for a long time to have a chance to make this video &mdash; the Heckler &#038; 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 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1118,7,5,13,663],"tags":[311,263,930,108,140,1366,49,174,1436],"class_list":["post-75689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-germany","category-history","category-military","category-usa","category-weapons","tag-1960s","tag-1970s","tag-1980s","tag-coldwar","tag-design","tag-forgottenweapons","tag-guns","tag-innovation","tag-westgermany"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/favicon.png","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-jGN","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75689"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75689\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78647,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75689\/revisions\/78647"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}