The Peace Dividend — A missed Opportunity

US Army statistics show that, during the Vietnam war, it took the US soldier about 200,000 rounds of 5.56 (.223) ammunition to incapacitate one threat soldier. The near-miss distance by which the average US soldier missed a threat soldier was about 51 cm (about two feet). The waste of ammunition was enormous and expensive.

Currently, all man-portable combat weapons still use cased ammunition. The shells are still mainly made from brass, which is an alloy of copper and zinc, both relatively expensive strategic metals of limited availability. All shells from fired rounds are wasted. In war, they end up somewhere in the environment and they can only be recycled when used under controlled conditions e.g., on a shooting range. The brass shell constitutes about 50% of the value of the .223 round. It also makes up over 50% of the space or volume a round consumes.

The vast majority of failures in automatic firearms that use cased ammunition occur during the ejection process. Ejection malfunctions and resulting feeding malfunctions are the number one failure in all conventional firearms. Linear ejection and feeding of cased ammunition are also limiting factors for the firing rate of conventional automatic firearms.

The ejection port is also one of the three main openings through which dirt can enter the mechanism of a firearm, causing it to malfunction.

When cased ammunition gets hit or is exposed to excessive heat it usually explodes throwing the case and the projectile around like shrapnel, which can cause serious damage.

When cased ammunition is transported or stored, the case takes up about 40% of the weight and 50% of the space. When boxing round ammunition, an empty space of a triangular shape remains between the rounds, regardless of how they are stacked. This empty space makes up between 25% and 35% of the total packaging unit. In other words: when transporting or storing cased ammunition you always move, carry, or store a significant amount of empty space.

The financial, risk management, and logistic disadvantages of the use of cased ammunition were obvious to the German Army, which started first experimentation into the use of caseless ammunition in the 1970s. The new system was to have a box magazine and three-round burst capability.

Several European arms manufacturers started caseless rifle and ammunition programs, among them Heckler & Koch GmbH (H&K). In 1973, H&K’s rotating breech design was selected for further development.

In 1974, H&K’s prototypes for its caseless rifle and ammunition system, called G-11, were presented to the German Army, the Bundeswehr. In 1977, after several changes to the caliber and the reflex sight were made, a preliminary NATO field test was performed at Meppen in Germany.

In 1983, I became the CEO of Heckler & Koch, Inc. (H&K Inc) in Chantilly, Virginia. In 1986, the US Army started its Advanced Combat Rifle program (ACR), which was managed by ARDEC out of Picatinny Arsenal, in New Jersey. When the ACR and the G-11 development programs were merged, I became the international program coordinator with a NATO reciprocal clearance.

In 1987, the Infantry School in Fort Benning issued a study that asserted that the rifle, as type of individual combat tool, had reached its technological limits and that a quantum jump could only be expected from exploding projectiles. Nonetheless, the joint German-American ACR program with the G-11 as its main contender continued.

Here, a cut-away model of the G-11 rifle and schematic images of the G-11’s rotating feeding system:

The caseless ammunition is rectangular. It consists of six components:

1. The propellant body;
2. the booster, which fractures the propellant for faster and uniform burning;
3. the primer, which ignites the booster;
4. the 4.92 x 34 mm projectile;
5. a plastic cap, which stabilizes and centers the projectile;
6. a layer of sealant that covers the entire external surface of the propellant to increase heat resistance.

The 4.92 x 34 mm rectangular caseless “round” was developed by the Dynamit Nobel Aktiengesellschaft (DNAG) for the G-11. The propellant was Octogen, with the chemical name of 1,3,5,7-Tetranitro-1,3,5,7-Tetrazocane, a powerful, yet relatively insensitive nitramine. The propellant is extruded in endless strands and cut and shaped using high-speed water cutters, which significantly reduces the risk of explosion during the production process.

In three-round burst mode, the projectile moves at a speed of nearly three times the speed of sound. The salvo firing rate is 2,200 rpm. The first round leaves the muzzle when the barrel is in its forwardmost position. The second round leaves the muzzle when the barrel has completed 50% of its recoil travel. The third round leaves the muzzle when the barrel has completed its recoil travel. This results in a defined dispersion pattern of the three rounds in the shape of a triangle with a side length of about 51 cm (about two feet) at about 250 m distance. Remember: The 51 cm came from Army data about the Vietnam near-miss research. At a firing rate of > 2,200 rpm, the G-11’s defined three round burst increased hit probability on a moving target under combat stress without any marksmanship training by 100%. This means that it met the key objective of the US ACR program.

The main advantages of the caseless G-11 system were:

1. No brass shells needed. Significant cost savings. No waste of these brass shells.
2. 50% weight reduction vs. brass case and 41% vs. poly CTA case, which permits doubling the soldier’s combat load. (Poly CTA = Poly cellulose triacetate).
3. Nearly 40% volume reduction, i.e. savings in bulk space in storage and transportation resp. 40% more ammo storage and transportation (depot, ship, truck etc.).
4. Significant increase in combat load:

510 caseless “rounds” to carry on the soldier vs. 240 rounds per soldier of 5.56 ammo without increasing the weight the soldier must carry. 135 caseless rounds on the weapon vs. 30 rounds on the weapon of 5.56 ammo.

This is a total of 645 rounds of caseless ammo total combat load vs. a total of 270 rounds of 5.56 ammo, which equals a total combat sustainability increase of 139 %.

5. Caseless propellant will burn but not explode when hit or exposed to excessive heat.
6. Three round burst with defined dispersion increases hit probability under combat stress by 100%.
7. The high velocity of the caseless projectile produces a higher target energy impact than the 5.56 mm round.
8. Very little training is needed to allow soldiers to operate the G-11 competently and efficiently.
9. The G-11 is a closed system. External contamination can enter this system only through the muzzle or to a lesser degree through the magazine opening, which automatically seals when no magazine is inserted.
10. The complete G-11 rifle and ammunition system costs approx. 20% less than any comparable quantity of 5.56 ammo or M16 rifles. Low training cost. No strategic materials needed.

The three major disadvantages or weak sides of the caseless system were:

1. The propellant body may crack or fracture under physical impact more easily than cased ammo.
2. Field cleaning or clearing of stuck round etc. can be more difficult than in conventional rifle.
3. “Cook-off” may occur more easily than with conventional cased ammunition.

Judging from the history of other combat rifle systems, these weaknesses could probably have been reduced significantly. Overall, it was obvious that the G-11 system had clear and significant tactical, strategic, logistic, and financial advantages over the M-16.

After extensive field testing at the test facilities in Hammelburg, Germany, between 1987 and 1989, the German Federal Office for Defense Technology and Procurement (Bundesamt für Wehrtechnik und Beschaffung) issued the Type Classification (Truppeneinführungsgenehmigung) in April of 1990. In the very same month, the US Army cancelled the ACR program. I remember the call I got from ARDEC: “Florian, the G-11 will never see the light of day.” What had happened?

On November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall fell. On October 3, 1990, Germany was officially reunited and on December 25, 1991 the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Most people believed that these events rang in peace for our time or at least peace for quite some time if not peace forever. In any event, even skeptics believed that there would be a “peace dividend”. The German and the US governments concluded that they needed to make a peace gesture and abstain from provoking the newly developing Russian Federation with the fielding of a new and more efficient combat rifle system. The German Federal Audit Office followed the ACR lead and removed all funding for the G-11 from the German 1989/1990 budgets.

In view of the current situation in Ukraine, Taiwan, Iran, Israel, Yemen with likely more to come, I am tempted to say that this move was overoptimistic and premature. The G-11 became the sacrificial lamb for the illusionary peace dividend in an effort to appease Russia, which is today our main strategic threat. Well, as they say: hindsight 20:20.

(This article is mainly based on my personal first-hand experience as international project coordinator for the G-11/ACR program and to a lesser extent on a presentation by my former employee Jim Schatz, who was also directly involved in the project.)