Opinions Please - Are Assault Rifles Perfected?

[Legbreaker]

Since I don't know how RDX feels, it might have been coated.

Haven't touched the stuff myself since I got out of the army 20+ years ago. Haven't even seen a 4.7mm round in the flesh either, so can't really comment either way.
I can say though that it makes no sense whatsoever for the round to be left untreated in some way and subject to moisture or damage from normal handling and chambering. Yes, it's certain to be less hardy than brass or steel casings, but not to the point of being useless as a military round.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

The 4.7mm round that was accepted for service used HMX rather than RDX (although HMX is closely related to RDX) and it was coated with a specialized lacquer to protect the round from moisture and minor damage during handling.

There's some good images at the following link (but no information): https://militarycartridges.com/categ...21mm-caseless/

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Just finished re-reading this thread and the notion that caseless ammo is a dead end made me laugh. There's a company in Austria called Voere that produced a hunting rifle using a caseless round. They started manufacture in 1991 and it was still selling well enough in Europe as of 2007.

Then there's the US Joint Services Small Arms Program project called LSAT (Lightweight Small Arms Technologies) that was investigating among other things, tech that makes ammo lower in weight. As far as they're concerned, the caseless ammo of the G11 is a proven technology and it formed one of the options they were pursuing in an effort to make both weapon and ammunition lighter overall. They were using a licensed 5.56mm variant of the ammo tech used for the G11.

https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ndia/2008/Intl/Spiegel.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_Small_Arms_Technologies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSAT_caseless_ammunition

https://www.textronsystems.com/what-we-do/weapon-sensor-systems/LSAT

[copeab]

Just finished re-reading this thread and the notion that caseless ammo is a dead end made me laugh. There's a company in Austria called Voere that produced a hunting rifle using a caseless round. They started manufacture in 1991 and it was still selling well enough in Europe as of 2007.

Military small arms have different requirements from civilian small arms.

A hunting rifle is probably not required to be capable of automatic fire, but an assault rifle is, and this is where the added heat build-up from lack of a case becomes an issue.

A civilian small arm that malfunctions seldom requires a speedy clearing of the action; a military small arm does. Guns using caseless ammo are slower to clear malfunctions than guns using cased ammo..

Stop ignoring the problems with caseless ammo.

[Legbreaker]

If caseless rounds really have so many insurmountable problems, why are they still the subject of research and development Why did the West Germans authorise the initial 1,000 unit production run of the G11 Why was development of a light machinegun also begun by H&K at the request of the West Germans and the US military are also now funding development of this

Caseless is far from a dead end technology. There are some issues to overcome sure, but as previously stated and shown, it's got many, many potential benefits.

Now as for the heat issue, are you aware the 4.7mm ammo actually has a cook off temperature 100 degrees C HIGHER than standard brass nitrocellulose ammo (which cooks off at 180 degrees C), and the major factor causing the cook offs was actually the high rate of fire of the rifle itself not allowing the chamber to cool down
I'd say caseless ammo is NOT the problem here....

[copeab]

If caseless rounds really have so many insurmountable problems, why are they still the subject of research and development

Why do people keep coming up with perpetual motion device designs, even though they can't work

Now as for the heat issue, are you aware the 4.7mm ammo actually has a cook off temperature 100 degrees C HIGHER than standard brass nitrocellulose ammo (which cooks off at 180 degrees C), and the major factor causing the cook offs was actually the high rate of fire of the rifle itself not allowing the chamber to cool down

I'm not talking about cookoffs, I'm talking about the gun getting too hot for the user to comfortably hold and the heat causing internal compoents, including the barrel, to malfunction.

[Legbreaker]

I'm not talking about cookoffs, I'm talking about the gun getting too hot for the user to comfortably hold and the heat causing internal compoents, including the barrel, to malfunction.

And where exactly are you getting that idea from
There's NOTHING I've seen in 20+ years of looking at the G11 that says anything like that. Also, if it were even remotely true, why would they have already made 1,000 of them
Oh, and you are aware that ANY automatic firearm can potentially get that hot if enough rounds are fired in a short enough period of time

[copeab]

And where exactly are you getting that idea from
There's NOTHING I've seen in 20+ years of looking at the G11 that says anything like that. Also, if it were even remotely true, why would they have already made 1,000 of them

Why did India build considerably more of the flawed INSAS rifle and after only 20 years are looking to replace it -- with a 7.62mmx51 rifle

Oh, and you are aware that ANY automatic firearm can potentially get that hot if enough rounds are fired in a short enough period of time

Yes I am. You are aware that without the spent brass case absorbing and removing some of that heat from the weapon, it will overheat more quickly

[StainlessSteelCynic]

The G11 and it's ammunition was a response to the desire for the individual rifleman to be more accurate with his rifle. It followed on from similar US projects (it shared the same intent as Project Salvo). The whole reason the 3-rd burst had such a high ROF was to fulfil the ideal of increased hit probability.
If the design rationale had considered that the problem with the accuracy of the rifleman is more often than not, the rifleman himself rather than the weapon, then there would have been no need for the 3-rd burst and/or it's extremely high ROF.

That would solve some of the heat issue but obviously this was not to be, so the G11 internal mechanism was designed to make use of their pressure release mechanism (which forced air through a high pressure vent underneath the buttstock) to help remove some of the heat buildup. Clearing a round from the chamber was as easy as turning the cocking handle counter-clockwise. With HK getting Dynamit Nobel to develop the ammo and using a denatured rocket propellant, they found one considerable benefit was the lack of propellant residue left in the chamber after firing.
The Mauser G11 candidate could not solve all these problems and faded into obscurity but the fact that the HK candidate not only got accepted for service but was also seriously considered by the US military hints that the West Germans were onto something.

Interestingly, the LSAT project was also looking at plastic cased ammunition and while plastic cased is not "caseless" it has the same lack of ability to remove the chamber heat bugbear but increases the robustness of the individual round... who woulda thought it, firing plastic cased ammo through an automatic weapon.
Oh and in regards to that civilian rifle that fired caseless ammo, while it did not make use of this specific feature of it's ammunition because it was a bolt-action rifle, the ammo was electronically ignited. This allowed the ignition temp of the ammo to be greatly increased while still be able to be fired. It was found that this helped reduce the possibility of cookoffs.

The real problem with the HK G11 was not the ammunition. It was the very average ergonomics of the rifle and the, to be expected, high cost of introducing a new weapons system. At the time, the cost could be justified but with the fall of the Soviet Union and even though the rifle and it's ammunition had been accepted for service, the peace dividend reared it's ugly head and procurement was stopped.
Procurement, not development. The West German government considered the weapon and ammo to be developed enough for it to be accepted for service but even HK considered that more could be done and continued to explore further options. Why would a company spend that extra time and money if the ammuntion was a total dead end

[swaghauler]

Even with the G11's issues, I have to agree with Leg about the future of caseless ammo. This is especially true with the invention of electrical/digital ignition of ammo (like FireStorm's system). I don't think you will see caseless ammo for at least a decade but the advances in Carbon Nano-Tube technology could revolutionize a polymer coating that makes caseless ammo CHEAPER (the current issue with it).

The G11 operating system IS FEASIBLE despite the US Army's misgivings. It was proven to be so by the FN P90 which uses a VERY SIMILAR (licensed) rotating breach and 50-round magazine for its 5.7mm round. The G11 had MAJOR heat issues but I'm not sure I'd attribute this to the ammo entirely. There was extreme heat after extended firing and loss of accuracy. Sound familiar The SAME ISSUES that plague the G36 also affected the G11. I think I know why though. POLYMER! Both rifles (one using cased ammo and one using caseless ammo) have a polymer TRUNION to hold the weight down. The barrel is supported by this trunion and I think it cannot stand up to the heat of sustained firing. The polymer also "insulates" the barrel's heat and actually makes the issue WORSE. Think about how the plastic covers on the handles of your pots and pans hold the heat away from you. This is the issue that we are seeing in both the G36 and the G11. All H&K weapons generate more heat than the average (P7 Pistols can become OUTRIGHT UNCOMFORTABLE after just 10 magazines of fire), these rifles are just more affected because of their construction.

[Legbreaker]

Indeed, and as has been stated earlier, 4.7mm caseless ammo actually has a much higher cook off temperature than brass cased ammo. The problem with heat was with the weapon itself, a problem I honestly believe would have been solved by now if the G11 had entered wider scale issue 27 years ago.
Just think of almost any other service rifle on the planet and how much they've been modified and (hopefully) improved in the last quarter of a century. There's no reason the G11 wouldn't have seen similar changes.
No weapon enters service in it's final, best form. Look at arguably the most successful and widespread rifle on the planet, the M16. It's first incarnation was by all reports plagued with issues, and I know from personal experience the A1 was pretty damn woeful too.