• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

Schmeisser is back.

FJAG

Army.ca Legend
Reaction score
10,891
Points
1,160
Many of you are probably familiar with the German WW2 submachine gun; the MP40 which was designed by Hugo Schmeisser in association with C.G. Haenel GmBG (and hence called the Schmeisser). Coincidentally they invented the modern assault rifle, the MP44/StG44 which influenced the design of numerous successors including the AK47). The company was stood down in 1945 and being located in Thuringen in East Germany merged into the state arms industry and much of their factory dismantled moved to the Soviet Union although minor production of hunting rifles and air rifles restarted in Germany in the late 1940s.

Haenel came back into more significant production in 2008 and most recently was one of two competitors to replace the G36 assault rifle being used by the Bundeswehr (The other competitor was H&K).

Today, Haenel won the contract for roughly Euro240 million to produce roughly 120,000 MK556 (Maschinenkarabiner 5.56) for the Bundeswehr.

Haenel_Vollautomat_MK556_01.png


See  Haenel's tech specs on the MK556

See article re contract here

See Wiki page on CG Haenel

:cheers:
 
FJAG said:
Many of you are probably familiar with the German WW2 submachine gun; the MP40 which was designed by Hugo Schmeisser in association with C.G. Haenel GmBG (and hence called the Schmeisser). Coincidentally they invented the modern assault rifle, the MP44/StG44 which influenced the design of numerous successors including the AK47). The company was stood down in 1945 and being located in Thuringen in East Germany merged into the state arms industry and much of their factory dismantled moved to the Soviet Union although minor production of hunting rifles and air rifles restarted in Germany in the late 1940s.

Haenel came back into more significant production in 2008 and most recently was one of two competitors to replace the G36 assault rifle being used by the Bundeswehr (The other competitor was H&K).

Today, Haenel won the contract for roughly Euro240 million to produce roughly 120,000 MK556 (Maschinenkarabiner 5.56) for the Bundeswehr.

Haenel_Vollautomat_MK556_01.png


See  Haenel's tech specs on the MK556

See article re contract here

See Wiki page on CG Haenel

:cheers:

It looks like an M4 knockoff. But I guess the price was right :)
 
Meh. Just another clone we can't have. Nice, but there's only so much you can do with the platform. I have one made with Fabrique Nationale parts. Same as Diemaco. You can play with tolerances and materials, change some cosmetics, but in the end it's still the same old, same old platform.
 
The element of interest here is that they did not go with the H&K offering. The HK416 was rejected early on as too expensive so H&K specifically created a new, less expensive model, the HK433, for this competition.

csm_HK433_li_33c0f2f026.png


HK433

It's noteworthy that the lower receiver of the HK433 is made of polymer which was also the case with the G36. During Afghanistan there were many complaints about the G36 as being inaccurate after several hundred rounds had been fired in a firefight. The Army originally blamed the polymer as softening during sustained firing thus putting the barrel out of alignment while H&K came back saying the problem was the ammunition used there.

Regardless of what really caused the problem, sometimes perception is reality and one would think that using polymers again would create concerns during the evaluations. The testing apparently put large emphasis on accuracy during sustained firing and during all types weather conditions/extremes.

:cheers:
 
Back
Top