The Bundeswehr, or German federal military, has tapped the home team at Heckler & Koch to supply it with a new model of sniper rifle based on the company’s MR308.
The recently teased A6 Designated Marksman Rifle variant was shown off by HK at trade shows in Nuremberg earlier this year–we saw it at EnforceTac– and was formally announced (German) by the company as the Bundeswehr’s new G210 rifle on Aug. 27.
HK officials stated the semi-auto 7.62 NATO-chambered MR308A6, with a 16.75-inch barrel, abbreviated M-LOK handguard, and full-length top Picatinny rail, was developed specifically for the G210 tender.
Some 500 rifles will be delivered beginning in 2025.
The company is also supplying the Bundeswehr with the HK416A8 in 5.56 NATO as the G36 – the country’s standard infantry rifle – as well as the HK437 in .300 BLK as the G39 SD.
German Army’s new Basiswaffe System Sturmgewehr will be the HK416 A8. Adopted in two different lengths as the G95A1 and G95KA1, for the Bundeswehr the new guns will replace the HK-made 5.56 NATO-caliber G36, which had been adopted in 1997.
While the HK416 family may look like any old AR15, they are piston guns rather than the more traditional gas impingement system familiar to the Stoner design. Ironically, the proprietary short-stroke gas piston system is derived from the G36 family, which, in turn, owes a lot of groundwork to Stoner’s AR-18 design. The 416 has proven popular enough to be selected as the main infantry weapon for the French and Norwegian militaries as well as to be fielded by the U.S. Marines as the M27. (Photo: Bundeswehr)
HK has produced the futuristic-looking G36 in several variants, including the standard model, the shorter G36K carbine, and the G36C compact, over the past 25 years, and the type is in service with over 40 countries although its primary user has always been the German military, who has used in combat in Afghanistan and Mali.
Prior to the G36, the West German military’s standard battle rifle was the HK-made G3 in 7.62 NATO, which had won a federal government tender in the late 1950s.
West German panzer grenadier jumping off an M48 Patton during the Cold War, HK G3 in hand.
Of course, the G3 owed its lineage to the Spanish CETME 58, which was basically the final version of Ludwig Vorgrimler’s experimental StG 45(M) developed by Mauser for the Wehrmacht at the end of WWII, using the then-innovative roller-delayed blowback operating system that went on to make HK famous.
In the 1960-1970s a lot of NATO (and some Warsaw Pact) countries came up with micro machines for niche jobs. We here in the U.S. were stuck with the Chance-Vought M561 Gamma Goat and the M422 Mighty Mite, the first weighing in at 4-tons and the second barely topping 1,700 lbs curb weight. Armoring up, there was the Marines M50 Ontos (Greek for “thing”) at 9.5-tons with a four-pack of M40 recoillessrifles, and the Army’s M551 “Sheridan” AR/AAV which had a M81E1 Rifled 152 mm Gun/Launcher and could withstand anything (up to) .50 cal but weighed 15-tons.
For comparison, the Soviets had their ASU-57 assault gun, which was a 3.4-ton 57mm motorized gun that could be airmailed into forward positions.
In West Germany, they went with the Porsche/Rheinmetall AG Wiesel armored weapons carrier.
This cute 2.75-ton armored vehicle is the closest thing there is to a modern tankette and uses either a commercial 86 hp Audi 2.1-litre diesel or a beefed up 109hp 1.9L Volkswagen in-line four-cylinder turbo diesel– either of which can be serviced by a local Audi or VW/Porsche dealer.
Capable of being parachuted or choppered in (the HEER operates CH-53s, which can carry two at once!), Wiesel is a fast little critter capable of speeds over 40 mph on roads while maintaining good off-road capability. The Germans ordered more than 500 of these in a bunch of different packages including some with a Rheinmetall MK 20 Rh202 20mm cannon (though tests have been done with 25mm and 30mm) and others with a TOW launcher.
In the longest version, they are just 15.75 feet from front to back, or about as long as a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited.
Due to their small footprint, which includes the ability to operate on narrow roads and over bridges made out of well wishes, the Germans have extensively deployed them on NATO/EU/UN missions to abroad such as in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Afghanistan (where these images are from).
