#Hk416

The French government has received the first production units of the Heckler & Koch HK416F as part of its long awaited Arme Individuelle du Futur (Future Individual Weapon). According to the French government Ministry of Defence website, the first 400 HK416F rifles were received by the Directorate General of Armaments (DGA) on May 3rd. The rifles are the first batch of an expected total contract of more than 100,000 weapons, grenade launchers, training, and accessories worth up to about 400 million Euros.

Today, a variant of the Heckler & Koch HK416 rifle is the standard squad infantry automatic rifle (IAR) of the United States Marine Corps, as the M27. At one time in the mid-2000s, though, companies from Colt to LWRC competed against each other in a competition to see which weapon would be the the Corps’ choice to fill the role, supplanting the belt-fed M249 as the squad’s automatic fire support capability. These weapons took a variety of approaches to meeting the USMC’s needs, from the constant recoil Ultimax MG, to the heat-sink equipped Colt IAR, to the open bolt full auto, closed bolt semiauto LWRC IAR. Ultimately, simplicity won out, and Heckler & Koch’s quite unambitious HK416-derived entry was selected to be the M27.

Earlier today, the United States Marine Corps Systems Command released a request for information (RFI) to manufacturers regarding the industry’s capability to fill an order for 11,000 new IAR-type rifles. You can read the RFI over at this link at FedBizOpps.

Heckler & Koch 416 “assault rifle lower receivers” are for sale in Germany.

If you want to run your Heckler & Koch rifle with original accessories only here’s your chance.

Even though the French government has adopted the Heckler & Koch HK416F assault rifle to replace the aging FAMAS, it seems “Le Clairon” will remain in service for at least the next decade. The reason for this is the recent re-establishment of the French National Guard (Garde Nationale), which was stood up as the fifth branch of the French military in late 2016 by President François Hollande.

My friend Kris K. complied a few pics showing some HK416C out in the wild. The HK416C is a short barreled PDW with a collapsing stock. I have only seen the HK416C by VFC.

In the first two parts of this article on a new long range infantry rifle paradigm, we painted a picture of what sort of weapons would be needed to maximize the infantry’s long-range capability, in theory allowing them to achieve “overmatch” versus enemy infantry armed with existing .22 and .30 caliber weapons. We created estimates for both the cost and weight of the infantry rifle, and we also examined the problem of training soldiers to maximize their capabilities with the new longer-ranged weapons.

Recent experience in Afghanistan, coupled with concerns about the effectiveness of the M4 Carbine – and perhaps also just a general long-term swing of the pendulum – has spurred many to advocate for a new configuration of infantry weapon centered around long range fire enabled by compact, efficient ammunition firing low-drag projectiles. I am not one of these advocates, and indeed it’s no secret that I find serious flaws with this approach to infantry small arms weapons systems. Still, this idea of having a long-range sharpshooter-centric force does seem to be gaining ground, and therefore I think it would be worthwhile to take some time to go down that rabbit hole and see where it leads. Our eventual goal in this endeavor is to paint a picture of a future infantry force that lives and works with these weapons, and what compromises they have to make to reap the benefits of such powerful long-range weapons.

Will Heckler & Koch’s HK416 rifle become the most successful assault rifle model of the early 21st Century? It’s starting to look that way. After the French adoption of the HK416F as their standard issue weapon to replace the FAMAS, and a likely Bundeswehr contract for the rifle on the horizon, now the United States Marine Corps is exploring the possibility of fielding its own HK416 variant – the M27 IAR – to all infantry battalions in place of the M4 Carbine. Military.com reports:

France has just adopted the HK416 as its new standard infantry rifle, replacing the FAMAS, and Germany is on a path to a new weapon, aiming to divest herself of the controversial G36. This raises the question: Will Germany and France adopt a unified arm? These two nations, historically enemies but often partners after the Second World War, could possibly standardize on the excellent Heckler and Koch HK416 rifle, derived from the American AR-15 with the HK-designed male-piston short stroke high strength operating rod. Polish writer Remiguisz Wilk, writing for IHS Jane’s writes a short report:

It seems the Iranian small arms industry is experiencing a bit of a boom – just released last week is another new rifle, called the MASAF, following the Fateh, Nabi, and two other unnamed rifles. The MASAF is obviously based on the AR-15, with a short-stroke operating rod in lieu of a direct impingement gas tube. This and other features suggest the new rifle is based on the Heckler & Koch HK416, although whether the MASAF is a true clone, and whether it is legitimate, remain unknown.

If any of you still had doubts about the HK416’s rumored win of the French AIF (Arme Individuelle du Futur – Future Individual Weapon) contract, doubt no more. The French DGA (Direction Générale de l’Armement, their defense procurement office) has released the final decision for the contract, naming Heckler & Koch as the winner. The press release is replicated in machine-translated form below:

Multiple French news outlets are confirming the victory of Heckler & Koch’s HK416 rifle in the French Army’s AIF (Arme Individuelle du Futur – Future Individual Weapon) program to replace the FAMAS, in which it has evidently unseated the FN SCAR, its closest competitor in that competition. While an official announcement is still pending, numerous sites like  BFM Business, Les Echos, and – most convincingly – Les Sentinelles, have all been reporting the decision, which could net the Rottweil-based gunmaker up to 400 million Euros. While this is good news for Heckler & Koch, it seems that Belgian gunmaker Fabrique National does not plan to go down without a fight: An article on La Meus.be reports that FN will appeal the decision in the Administrative Court of the French government.

In the ongoing controversy about the G36 assault rifle, German gunmaker Heckler & Koch have won a major victory against the German federal government, as the Koblenz court where the company’s lawsuit against the government was tried ruled that the company was at no fault for the G36’s design. Reuters reports: