#Germany

German Oberland Arms has first shown the prototypes of this suppressor at IWA 2017. One year later, at the same exhibition, they brought the final version of the OA-KDA (KDA stands for Knalldruckabweiser which means sound and blast deflector). And a couple of days ago they added these suppressors to their website.

According to the German Magazine Welt, Heckler & Koch are fighting for survival as their credit rating keeps falling. You can find the original source here, in German.

This month Heckler & Koch employees will face legal proceedings in Germany for illegally selling firearms to Mexico.

Germany’s Hesse state police are in search for a new 5.56x45mm rifle. The German defence blog Strategie-Technik reports that Hessian state police have published a tender for ‘mid-range weapons’  to replace their submachine guns currently in service.

The yearly exhibition IWA is very soon upon us, and the German firearms manufacturer Oberland Arms is releasing a new 9×19 mm semi-automatic rifle in AR15-style.

The Mountaineering Brigade 23 “Bavaria“, which is specialized in infantry fighting in difficult to extreme terrain. They operate at high altitudes and under harsh climatic and weather conditions and is stationed in five locations in southern Bavaria with 5,300 soldiers.

“Here comes Santa from the sky…

The German Police in Schleswig-Holstein (location: think Northern Germany, Kiel) are spending $1.4 million USD to buy 522 pieces of SIG MCX rifles. The total includes accessories.

The Police in Berlin, Germany, chose the Heckler & Koch SFP9 TR as their new service pistol.

Hunters in the North Rhine-Westphalia area in Germany can now use sound suppressors for their hunting rifles. The Ministry of Interior has regulated this in a decree to the The Federal Hunting Act. 

The IEA Mil-Optics GmbH booth is always a delight to visit at the yearly IWA Show in Nurnberg. You can check our previous article for a few examples and see if you agree.

According to the German finance magazine BILANZ the former Managing Director of Heckler & Koch, Mr. Nicola Marinelli, wants to force his former employer before the Discritc Court to expose its true shareholders.

DefenceWeb recently released a video overview of the new Steyr / Rheinmetall RS-556 assault rifle. The rifle, a sort of hybrid between an AR-15 and a Steyr AUG, was submitted to the Bundeswehr’s System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr trials, competing against both Heckler & Koch’s HK416 and the new HK433 assault rifles. The RS-556, mechanically, is substantially different from a basic AR-15, and therefore occupies an interesting spot in-between being an AR-15 variant and a completely different weapon. The upper receiver is a single piece forged unit, with an AUG-style fixed extension/trunnion and quick change barrel. An AUG-style short stroke tappet gas system and connecting operating rod replace the AR-15’s direct impingement system. In the upper, a steel insert, rather than the aluminum receiver itself, guides the bolt carrier group. This feature is supposed to increase upper receiver life, and improve its maintenance characteristics, although it does make the rifle significantly heavier.

The roller-locked* Heckler & Koch G3 rifles and MP5 submachine guns have become iconic weapons of the Cold War era, being used in conflicts everywhere from civil wars in Africa, to hostage rescues and counter terror operations in Europe, to anti-cartel operations in South America. The operating system of these rifles is as unique as they are, and dates back to the death throes of the Nazi regime at the end of World War II. Desperate to save their failing state, the Nazis tasked engineers with developing new weapons, and the engineers were all to happy to oblige, lest they too be handed an old rifle and sent to the front!

The day before yesterday it was 40 years since the German Special Forces group GSG9 stormed the Lufthansa Flight 181 in Mogadishu, Somalia, and rescued all of the 86 passengers.