Heckler & Koch has been under fire recently in Germany for their G36 rifles. Soldiers in the field have been complaining about the terrible accuracy they are seeing during sustained firefights, and the complaints have been so persuasive that the German government stopped buying them altogether. A proper solution to the issue hasn’t been found yet, but there’s some circumstantial evidence to support the idea that Germany is about to switch from the G36 to the newly designated G38 — otherwise known as the HK416 . . .
From a German gun blog:
The assault rifle HK416A5 made by Heckler & Koch now runs under the German procurement official designation G38. The Bundeswehr cataloger recently took the version with 11 “pipe (279 mm) under the short name G38c in their overviews on. Background: A federal agency has already obtained this version of the weapon.
The move would make sense. The armed forces of Europe have been using wildly different firearms for decades, but most seem to have standardized around the STANAG M-16 style magazine for interoperability. One of the only countries to shun that ammo-sharing capability is Germany, which has stuck with their rocking G36 magazine design (pun intended).
The accuracy issues seen with the G36 might be just the excuse that the boys in Berlin have been looking for to switch over to the HK416 platform and join the rest of Europe in STANAG compatibility. Especially since joint military operations seems to be a permanent fixture for peacekeeping and military action for the foreseeable future, being able to play nicely with your allies would be a definite benefit.