03-12-2012, 08:51 AM
Germany did field the FN-FAL for many years before they adopted the G3. The used over 100,000 of them! Probably sold them off to someone when they bought the G3 into service.
The G3 seems like a cool rifle, it certainly is accurate, but I found that when it gets dirty it can become unreliable in extraction. Never had that problem with the FAL no matter how filthy it became.
LRRPF52, I going to continue to disagree with you over the 5.56.
I do agree that the 7.62x51 is too powerful for a standard infantry round and even at the time open minded participants would have realised that they had missed the objective. If the M14 had been a better rifle, and the cartridge had been something closer to the 280 Brit, then it is quite likely the combination would have lasted longer (probably the late 1970s - after Vietnam) and the 5.56 would never have been. Both the 7.62x51 and the 5.56x45 are purely American in their conception and to me they are examples of tunnel vision. They really could have done with a red team review - are the requirements correct, are we designing something that meets the need, are we about to build the solution - or another problem?
They are not the first, and probably won't be the last.
The G3 seems like a cool rifle, it certainly is accurate, but I found that when it gets dirty it can become unreliable in extraction. Never had that problem with the FAL no matter how filthy it became.
LRRPF52, I going to continue to disagree with you over the 5.56.
I do agree that the 7.62x51 is too powerful for a standard infantry round and even at the time open minded participants would have realised that they had missed the objective. If the M14 had been a better rifle, and the cartridge had been something closer to the 280 Brit, then it is quite likely the combination would have lasted longer (probably the late 1970s - after Vietnam) and the 5.56 would never have been. Both the 7.62x51 and the 5.56x45 are purely American in their conception and to me they are examples of tunnel vision. They really could have done with a red team review - are the requirements correct, are we designing something that meets the need, are we about to build the solution - or another problem?
They are not the first, and probably won't be the last.