A Spanish naval boarding party armed with the H&K G36E (Koalorka/Wikipedia)

The 5.56x45mm Heckler & Koch G36, Germany’s regular battle rifle, entered service with the Bundeswehr in 1995, gradually replacing the venerable H&K G3 assault rifle, after the German ministry of defence had rejected H&K’s earlier two offerings, the G11 and the G3-derived G41. Variants have since been adopted by the Spanish armed forces, as well as several law enforcement organizations. The G36 is probably the first totally new firearm in the last two decades (other than the Austrian Steyr AUG) to receive worldwide acclaim as well as commercial contracts. The world’s most popular and widely used battle rifles are almost all derivatives of older weapons; case in point being the Kalashnikov and M16 families, as well as the H&K roller-delayed G3 series. Britain’s L85 was the first brand new service rifle to arrive on the scene after the desert of the 1970s, however its initial lack of hardiness and overcomplication of design (interestingly the same criticisms leveled at the M16 in the 1960s) scuttled any chance of commercial success. Continue reading “The Hollywood Gun”