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Alex Luck Profile picture
@AlexLuck9
Sep 14, 2020 • 8 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
Haenel surprisingly wins German #Bundeswehr assault rifle competition against favorite Heckler&Koch, with its Mk556 AR15-architecture based product. No official confirmation yet but supposedly rifle matches spec and is cheaper than HK offering. Image Hk433 top, Mk556 below.
Haenel has a long history, but faced many changes due to hailing from Suhl, Thuringia in East Germany. Company re-established itself with production locally in 2008, but belongs to the Merkel Group (no relation to the Chancellor), which itself is owned by UAE-based Caracal Int.
A very interesting decision to be sure, with all sorts of ramifications, potentially overall very positive for GER small arms presence. Still, a protest by HK seems at least likely.

cc @LeighJNeville
Good read here. As TFB notes, the decision is yet to be confirmed and possibly subject to protest. Also, Haenel already delivers the G29/RS9 sniper rifle for German SOF since 2016, so they do have established reputation with the customer.
thefirearmblog.com/blog/2020/09/1…
As also noted in comments for above article, Haenel ironically was the company directly responsible for development of the StG44, the OG of assault rifles. This just to put their role in this competition as "underdog" into wider context.
Since the debate is already taking amusing twists and turns, here's another effort to inject facts for information of interested parties. Good review on the CR-223, which is the civilian semi-auto version of the Mk556:

all4shooters.com/en/shooting/ri…
Also, via @AugenGeradeaus now official confirmation from MinDef on selecting Haenel Mk556 as winner. Says parliamentary approval of purchase is hoped for by the end of 2020. Reaffirms HK right to object legally if they wish to do so.

augengeradeaus.net/2020/09/vertei…
A very good piece in German on what will happen next in this procurement. Key parts: HK protest may delay all steps by months but unlikely to change outcome. Operational evaluation will also take one year before full production order.

soldat-und-technik.de/2020/09/bewaff…

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More from @AlexLuck9

Alex Luck Profile picture
Dec 7, 2023
Thankfully the actual report by the German audit office is free to read, so I just looked at that instead. Link can be found here (pdf). Bullet points follow, as a comedy in eight acts: 1/
bundesrechnungshof.de/SharedDocs/Dow…
Effort to replace MCM capability by 2027 dates back to 2014. A standing commitment to NATO is to provide 11 boats with improved capability by 2031. Navy estimated original funding requirement at 2.7 bln Euros. 2/
For that cost Navy wanted 11 new, boats capable of long range deployments (current boats designed for Baltic/North Sea), improved C2 for multinational ops, wider USV/UUV integration. Despite all this obviously requiring larger boats, Nayv claimed it did not. 3/
Read 8 tweets
Alex Luck Profile picture
Aug 20, 2023
"According to the US Congressional Research Service, the US navy has 9,000 missile vertical launch tubes to deliver long-range cruise missiles, compared with China’s 1,000."

This is false. Greg Austin's claim of this as a CRS-estimate is also misleading.
theconversation.com/the-us-navy-is…
Actual source for these 1,000 cells for PLAN is Nick Childs, of IISS, himself cited in a CNN piece linked here. It is not immediately clear from that piece how Childs arrives at his claim, but it demonstrably wrong, unless "or so" is doing a lot of work. edition.cnn.com/2021/03/05/chi…
Image
Caveat straight up: PLAN is not at present confirmed to use LACMs on their surface combatants. But thats neither here nor there, the issue is missile cell count. Also PLA of course has a lot of land based land attack capability the USN does not have.
Read 11 tweets
Alex Luck Profile picture
Jun 1, 2023
Mal ein🧵auf Deutsch, weil es nun wild durch die lokale Diskussion geht bzgl "neuer" Eroeffnungen, angeblicher oder tatsaechlicher Skandale zum Thema F-35, Triebwerkproblemen, Block 4-Modernisierung. Was sind die Fakten?

gao.gov/products/gao-2…
Teil 1 - Die Bloecke: F-35 ist ein Programm, das, wie viele vorherigen Entwicklungen in Evolutionen stattfindet. Strukturelles Kern-Element hier sind die "Blocks", die neue Faehigkeiten integrieren. Das ist nicht unaehnlich zu Eurofighter mit seinen "Tranchen", siehe EF T1 vs T4.
Manche Bloecke sind relativ milde Neuerungen, mit entsprechend geringer Kostensteigerung. Andere sind allerdings fundamentale Erweiterungen. Block 4 ist mit Abstand die bedeutenste Modernisierung, die zahllose neue Faehigkeiten einruestet. Das erfordert mehr Triebwerks-Leistung.
Read 16 tweets
Alex Luck Profile picture
Jun 1, 2023
Rheinmetall announces they will in collaboration with Ukroboronprom start to refurbish Fuchs APC for delivery to Ukrainian forces. Related joint venture will commence work by July. In second step full local production is intended.
esut.de/2023/06/meldun…
Rheinmetall & Ukroboronprom previously announced signing strategic cooperation agreement for local manufacture of defence materiel. While observers (and CEO Papperger) named MBT, assembly of Fuchs may be more logical first step. UA said to have "four to five digit"-requirement.
Fuchs APC-production could be quick to implement both because the design is mature & required processes established, and because Rheinmetall already has significant experience establishing foreign production. Company most prominently sold a full assembly to Algeria back in 2014.
Read 4 tweets
Alex Luck Profile picture
May 30, 2023
Still not a fan of "MBT are outdated."-take on Russian tank losses.

Yes, the Russian Army lost a metric shit ton of them.
Because they threw a dramatic amount of materiel, clearly without coherent operational plans, into a grinding war of attrition. Not because tanks dont work.
Problem with such analysis tends to be that people fixate on "popular" weapon systems vs all the other stuff the Russians also lost immense amounts of.

Quite similar to the eternal "aircraft carriers are obsolete"-takes in naval discussions. Far less often a case for IFV or DDG.
This is doubly true for Soviet MBT. Which were designed for a very specific way of assault. As soon as you move outside of that CONOP, you get punished far more than with Western designs, which by nature had a broader field of roles in mind. But the broader point applies equally.
Read 4 tweets
Alex Luck Profile picture
Apr 26, 2023
Marles: "The Defence Strategic Review has observed that navies around the world are moving in the direction, to put it kind of crudely, of having a larger number of smaller vessels,"

Not supported by any evidence. In fact combatants are growing in size.

msn.com/en-au/news/aus…
Throw a rock in a random direction and it will land in the backyard of a navy building corvettes over 3,000 tonnes, frigates and destroyers blowing past 10,000 tons & shedding small specialist hulls for large multipurpose ones.
I dont know what the surface combatant review will come up with, but if the principal driver is an obsession with displacement, it runs a high risk of resulting in costly failure. Capability/cost needs to be viewed separate from displacement.
Read 4 tweets

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