News.Ge reports that a German government commission investigating alleged problems with the H&K G36 found no problems with the rifle. In fact, they got glowing reports from troops who used the rifle in Afghanistan …

For Heckler & Koch, the report on the rifle’s battle efficacy could not have been better. Led by Green party politician Winfried Nachtwei, the commission questioned 200 soldiers to find out whether they had ever been put in danger, or indeed directly harmed, by the gun’s supposed lack of accuracy.

“The mission-experienced soldiers refuted the classification of the G36 as a glitch-rifle,” the commission said in Berlin on Wednesday. The report had already been leaked to Wednesday’s edition of the “Sächsische Zeitung,” in which one platoon commander who served in Afghanistan in 2009 offered nothing but glowing words about the gun’s accuracy. “We always felt in a superior position with the G36, particularly because we could have an impact on the target with relatively little ammunition,” he told the Nachtwei commission.

The commission was careful, however, not to question the scientific tests that had been conducted on the G36, confining itself only to the observation that they had tested “extreme cases” that were unlikely to occur on the battlefield. Christine Buchholz, defense policy spokeswoman for the socialist Left party, was also cautious about the findings. “Of course there are still a few questions,” she told DW. “It might be right that no German soldier was hurt in battle, but they didn’t ask whether all the targets were hit.

The report did criticize the company’s close relationship with the Bundeswehr. Given the German government’s constant attempts at destroying their own arms industry, I can only think they were desperate to find something, anything, bad to put in the report.

So H&K is vindicated and, I hope, the German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen is embarrassed by her over the top response to unfounded accusations.  TFB, as far as I can tell, was the only English-language publication defending H&K. Most publications reacted with glee at the opportunity to give H&K a black eye. We got hold of a full auto H&K G36 and tried to replicate the H&K’s alleged wandering aim without any success …