#RS556

In Today’s Photo Of The Day we get some fresh air from the Austrian Mountains. We are looking at soldiers with the Sturmgewehr 77, the Steyr AUG (from Armee-Universal-Gewehr) which is a bullpup design in 5.56×45 mm NATO.

Since the late 1990s, the Heckler & Koch G36 is the standard rifle of the German Bundeswehr.

Steyr Mannlicher attended IDEX with a somehow low profile booth in the Austrian pavilion. In the small space, they managed, however, to showcase a good selection of their products, from the new A2 pistol in different configurations to the impressive HS50 anti-materiel rifle.

According to the website Augen Geradeaus (meaning Eyes Straight Ahead) the German-American company Sig Sauer is now out of the competition for the successor of the HK G36 rifle for the Germany Army.

DefenceWeb recently released a video overview of the new Steyr / Rheinmetall RS-556 assault rifle. The rifle, a sort of hybrid between an AR-15 and a Steyr AUG, was submitted to the Bundeswehr’s System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr trials, competing against both Heckler & Koch’s HK416 and the new HK433 assault rifles. The RS-556, mechanically, is substantially different from a basic AR-15, and therefore occupies an interesting spot in-between being an AR-15 variant and a completely different weapon. The upper receiver is a single piece forged unit, with an AUG-style fixed extension/trunnion and quick change barrel. An AUG-style short stroke tappet gas system and connecting operating rod replace the AR-15’s direct impingement system. In the upper, a steel insert, rather than the aluminum receiver itself, guides the bolt carrier group. This feature is supposed to increase upper receiver life, and improve its maintenance characteristics, although it does make the rifle significantly heavier.

Die Welt (“The World”) is a German National daily newspaper, and according to their information the tender to replace the current Bundeswehr (Germany Army) HK G36 contains a peculiar detail that the replacement rifle must not contain any ITAR regulated parts.

Representatives of the German gun manufacturing company Heckler & Koch confirmed today that the company has submitted both the HK416 assault rifle and the new HK433 modular assault rifle to the Bundeswehr’s System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr (SSB) rifle trials,  which are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2018.

The German site All4shooters.de published a Facebook video with the Rheinrmetal Steyr Mannlicher RS556 (that’s along name) shooting both semi auto and full auto.

The G36’s replacement is now known to be one of five guns – or at least that’s the report coming from reputable defense outlet IHS Jane’s. Competing in Germany’s System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr (Bundeswehr Assault Rifle System) will be the Rheinmetall RS556, Heckler & Koch HK433, Haenel Defence MK556, SIG MCX, and FNH SCAR. For four contestants, no known 7.62mm variants exist; only the FN SCAR has a 7.62mm variant – the SCAR-H – that is known publicly. This means the Bundeswehr will likely not be going back to .30 caliber infantry rifles any time soon.

I had the opportunity to examine the brand new Steyr-Mannlicher RS556.

The timeline for the replacement of the troubled G36 rifle with a new yet-to-be-selected weapon has been announced by the Bundeswehr. The German System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr (SSB)program was announced on February 3rd, 2016, with the solicitation itself being released on April 19th, 2017. According to Polish gun magazine MilMag, the testing and evaluation segment of the program was begun in July of this year, and is expected to be completed by November 2018. Between December of 2018 and April of 2019, the Bundeswehr will deliberate on the winner of the contract, which is expected to be awarded the following month in May. Final testing and troop trials will be conducted over the course of the next year, and fielding is expected to occur starting in September of 2020. Notably, it seems the new weapon is certainly not considered an “interim” item, as it is expected to serve through 2046.

Austria is investing a large sum of money for the protection of their soldiers.

The RS556 and RS40 are the outcome of German – Austrian cooperation projects, thanks to which Rheinmetall has now added two new key components to its portfolio of infantry products.

It’s not every day you get the privilege to write about a new rifle from Heckler & Koch, but we have the honor to present the brand new HK433.

The BAAINBw (Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support) has released an order for new assault rifles for Germany’s Special Forces.