German rifles are hot
 

especially the assault rifle G36. As German media repeatedly reported now over the past weeks, the rifle gets easily very hot - and then (according to internal tests by the Bundeswehr with 89 rifles so far) the spreading of bullets becomes so wide that even at 200 meters range the effective combating against enemies is no longer possible. Ongoing, longer fire fights are impossible with this rifle, it is said. The BW says operations in such situations were seriously in jeopardy.

Now I think that any rifle, pistol, gun becomes hot when firing many rounds in a short period of time.

I wonder to what degree other contemporary assault rifles are effected by this? Anyone knowing what the standards are?

So are some german chicks.....

I prefer the chicks hot - over here "hot" can also mean stolen, and I prefer to avoid dealing with stolen firearms..

Still - I get your point and would have to say - totally sweet!

To answer - yes a firearm gets hot. Friction in the barrel and all that.
You can melt the barrel of any firearm if its fired too much. It really depends on the number of rounds that it takes before you start having issues and how rapidly those rounds went downrange.
An M16 for example, on auto (the early ones had a setting for such) can chew through rounds like nobody's business. With adequate magazines and a skilled operator, you could make the thing inop. But that takes a while.
I suspect that with the # of issues they have seen, the problem is arising too quickly.

Do you have a link that shows how many rounds and in what time frame this is occuring?

So far not. Just the generel media releases. But the BW is not happy and says the problem arises with all 89 rifles they had test runs with. And they rate - internally - ongoing firefights that do not end quickly as practically non-doable with this rifle, as described above. The problems internally are described to be of "utmost relevance for military operations". If the weapon is not allowed to cool down after a few triple salves or a sequence of rapid single fire shots, it can break down completely.

I do not know if there have been complaints filed from troops in Afghanistan. But the BW avoids scenarios with ongoing, long-lasting exchanges of fire.

If the enemy cooperates - and there lies the problem.

The G36 is in very high demand all around the world, the rifle is considered to be extremely sexy. I wonder why they realised the problems not earlier. Or did they, and the message just was hidden? :-?

According to an aquaintance on mine in ESTSOF who also use a G36 variant, the problem occurse only when the rifle is put into service in a role that should be filled by an LMG and overheating is a moot issue if proper triger discipline is maintained by troops.

Talking with some other friends who are either just active duty or former members of EDF who have come into contact with the G36 its pretty much the same thing. None of them had noticed the G36 overheating any more than the Galil's our regular troops are issed with and that the whole issue is more than likely a media generated issue based on very little.

Ofcourse my post is nothing but anecdotal, but meh.

I googled a bit and skimmed some blogs and forums.

The temperature problem arises after the third cartridge has been emptied in ongoing single shot scenarios. The weapon then creates a spread of 1.20 meters at 100 meters distance. Do not know if that is much or little, I have no expereince with these things.

The rifle is said to have a very good manufacturing quality and very good sights, but the precision beyond 200-300 meters in general suffers due to the light-weighted ammunition the BW fields for it.

The problem of heated weapons seems to be focussed not on the barrel itself, but due to the fact that while the barrel is metal, major parts of the frame are made of polymer components. Heat from the barrel cannot be transported away from the barrel into other metal parts, the plastic in parts block that heat transportation, or does not transport it as good as metal. Some people referred to other weapons made with plenty of plastic and used in foreign militaries also suffer from heat transportation problems.

It seems to be that the more plastic is used, the more problems with heat show up. An assault rifle certainly is not to be used like a LMG or MMG, however, that you need to fire two or three magazines in single fire when being in a war is something one should take into account as a possible and likely scenario.

I also found media reports quoting H&K that long lasting firefights were never a design criterion for the weapon.

While the Bild has been capütured the story today or yesterday, the first report was done three weeks ago in FOCUS and Der Spiegel. Also,m they base on internal papers they gained poessession of, by the BW, which as I said, rates the problem as "of utmost relevance for combat operations".

I really think those Kalashnikovs are better, tested hot and cold and battered for precision:

http://englishrussia.com/2012/04/22/...guns-are-made/

or the israelian UZI.

http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutsc...825030,00.html (German only)
I remember having read it on Spiegel online, though I didn't pay too much attention as the article was published on April 1st and it just states basic firearm knwledge.
It says that after several hundred shots in quick single fire or short bursts the barrel gets so hot that the probability to hit a target on 300m gets reduced to 1/3 (compared to a cold barrel I guess).
So the official German ROE advice to let the barrel cool down till it's "handwarm".
I can't think of any assault rifle which doesn't has this problem if you rapidly fire hundreds of shots.

The Bundeswehr in Afghanistan also uses a similar firefight doctrine as the US: pin down the enemy untill the cavalry arrives, so overheating might become a problem if you use an assault rifle in the role of a support gun. However this task should usually be fulfilled by the MG3 - or the LMG (MG4) which is still only sparely available, not sure how common the use of the latter is in Afghanistan.

I also found that the BW seems to have started in early 2011 with distributing old G3 with small telescopic sights to the troops in Afghanistan.

:o


But I am not certain if that is due to the temperature issue: it maybe is due to the fact that the G3 uses 7.62 mm callibre. Maybe the combat distances in Afghanistan were found to be longer than what the 5.56 callibre can negotiate with some minimum precision.

Also, the discussion on whether the loss in penetration power against thin walls and wooden objects when they went from 7.62 to 5.56 is worth to save money, is very old, but still being run. To go to 5.56 mm was a politically motivated, no military decision over here. Firing a huge cloud of small callibre in close-distance infights maybe is better, but at longer distances and against covered targets I - by amateur's instinct - would prefer the heavier callibre automatically, even at the price of lower firing rate.

The alternative would have been to introduce the G27 (HK 417) which uses 7.62 mm, instead of the G36. But that model now is only used as a sniper rifle in the BW, I think.

I had that news but did not post it because it gives no numbers that Haplo wanted. Whether "several hundred shots" is written in the BW paper or by a journalist trying to formulate a round and juicy sentence, is unclear.

Again, today's news reports quote the BW with hayving itnernally written in a report that the problems are of "utmost relevance for combat operations". I think you do not use such a formulation if the problem is a non-issue.

3 standard magazines for the G36 hold 90 rounds - almost the "hundred" the Spiegel report mentions, though not in plural, but singular.

It sure is unusual for the Germans to have such issues, they usually manufacture good/sound weapons.

Just a guess but when I see this stuff like this in the media. Its to stir up government and or public support for additional military spending. Maybe somebody else wants in on the action. Id bet a competing arms manufacturer or exporter is probably the source of this bad press. Either that it really is a piece of junk.

Modern assault rifles are not designed for automatic fire so if the the issue occurs when firing in controlled manner then i would say the gun must have design flaw.
In particular if its matter of 100 rounds but yeah it can get very hot.


MG's with their relatively heavy design usually have changeable barrels but still operators are toughed to shoot in relatively controlled way as well while switching barrels under combat situations.
Suppressive fire is not necessary about emptying all ammo supply in 5 minutes.

When i got to shoot MG i remember changing barrels in range of 250-500 bullets and sometimes colling the gun with drinking water to keep it going.
That is when intensivly shooting in long or short burst.
Or sniping long range with the same 7.62 Belgian MAG.:doh:

The Spiegel article says:
The "das" from the last sentence refers to the previous sentence, so it doesn't look like the journalist invented something but refers to the Bundeswehr investigation. Talking about several hundred shots, also leads to the assumption that we are talking about at least 300 shots (mehrere is at least 3). This would add up to at least 10 magazines, which is also the ammo capacity an infantry soldier would normally carry.
I would love it when journalists at least provide a link or a scan of the original sources, today's Focus article from also lacks this... :-?


Well, there is also the unofficial Bundeswehr field doctrine to urinate on the MG's barrel if you lack water or a spare barrel... :D

news - "This just in - detonation causes heat!"

people - "we are dooooooomed!"

facepalm

They don't make 'em like they used to -

Weapons & War Machines - Batchelor & Hogg 1976

Yopur Spiegel quotes only mentions "several hundreds shots", at ranges of 300 meters, reducing the precision by one third (btw, one third of what? one third of a 100% hit score? One third of the ordinary hit probability when a firefight starts?)

Now note that this bases on the reports coming up early April. Indeed it was 1st April when the first reports came in, saying what you said: 300 m, longer firing sequences, rducing hit probability by one third.

Now note two things. First, new, additional coverage has been reported, today and yesterday for the most, saiyng that the problems are even worse. Now by reference to the BW internal paper the tlak is of 200 m, and the possibility that the wepaon completely breaks down.

Second, I took info from a board where BW veterans posted, or a soldiers blog it was and they commented on it. There it was posted that it is known by experience that ater having fired 3 magazines, the bullets spray by 1.2 meters at 200 meters. 3 magazines is 90 shots.

It is also reported today that the Materialprüfungsstelle of the BW has started additonal exmainations on a wider scale than the 89 rifles they have examined so far - and of which ALL suffer from the described symptoms.

The Spiegel quote of yours is not clear on whether the BW mentioned "several hundred shots" (by one rifle), or the journalist just had read something in that paper and wrapped it up in a wording by himself that maybe is a bit farther away from the truth. We all know how easily media and journalists do that all the time.

Haplo asked for exact naumbers: rounds fired, time, ranges, spreading patterns - that si what it would be about. An spread to any side of 1,2 meters at 200 sounds like much to me, so I ask about people knowing such data for other assault rifles.

When the Americans got into the operation at Mogadishu to capture Aidid'S cabinet, they were confronted with a battle that they did not expect and that lasted for over 24 hours, with quite some very intense close range urban fighting. Around 1000 Militias got killed and several thoiusand wounded, I think, and 18 Americans. I strongly doubt that their rifles were on the brink of unusability after having emptied just three cartridges, because many of their soldiers saw much more intense firing action. Maybe it was not as close and dramatic like painted in Ridley Scott'S movie (which necessarily condenses time and personal fates to pout it all into a movie), but still... If their rifles woulds have degraded so fast, then i think they would have had much higher losses, and soldiers that became prisoners of the militias.

I don't know any scientific data but 1,2 looks terrible to me.
M16 with with a scope,improved more powerful ammo and thicker long barrel can be very accurate above 300 meters.
Regular short one is ok up to 300.

1,2 spread meters look like bad...made in Germany designed in china?:D

Mind you, 1,2 at 200 represents the error appearing not before the weapon became "too hot" (after three cartridges). If that claim is right.

In cold, normal condition, all what I find on the web says the G36 is extremely precise at 300-400 meters. The sight has markings for up to 800 meters, but I think they were a bit over-optimistic there. :D

Maybe before commencing battle we should sign a deal with the enemy so that after three empty magazins of the German shooter the enemy voluntarily withdraws or stops action right in place, until the weapon has cooled down again. Or one could make a gentleman'S agreement: the enemy throws over a bottle of cold water for the rifle (to shorten the time of interrupted combat), and the German answers the favour by trading him a handgrenade. :D

Question is haw this was achieved....you don't shoot like in Hollywood movies and expect the gun to work properly.
The issue should not happen when using the gun in controlled manner,that is in semi auto or very short bursts.

cartridges=magazines right?