5 Guns from the World's Armed Forces That Can Kill You
Charlie Gao
Security,
And are extremely complex.
While it was approved for adoption by the Bundeswehr after passing soldier trials in the early 1990s, financial difficulties from the peace dividend lead to the G11 being abandoned. However, of all these guns, the G11 is perhaps the most mechanically complex of any of them.
When a military and police force picks a gun, they generally pick the least complex design that can fulfill the requirements. History is filled with failed prototypes that were better in some ways than the adopted rifle but were simply too complex for the end user and logistical services.
(This first appeared several months ago.)
But sometimes, complex guns make it through. Here are the top five most complex guns ever approved for adoption by a military.
1. H&K P7:
For the end user, the P7 is a simple pistol. Squeezing the grip cocks the pistol’s striker and makes it ready to fire. Releasing the grip resets the striker and returns it to safe. The grip also functions as a slide release after the gun locks open.
But behind the simplicity of the controls lies an extremely complex weapon. The designers at H&K used a gas-delayed blowback system in the pistol, where gas from firing was tapped into a piston which prevents rearward motion of the slide until the bullet has left the barrel, which allows gas pressures to drop in the piston.
This tiny piston below the barrel, in addition to the “squeeze-cocking” mechanism in the P7’s small frame, makes it incredibly mechanically complex. Even the .32 ACP version of the pistol, the P7K3, which doesn’t use the gas-delayed blowback system, is complex, as a hydraulic recoil buffer is installed in place of the gas piston.
Anecdotally, assembling a fully disassembled P7 without diagrams or instruction has been used as a test for some armorers.
The P7 was originally designed for German law enforcement and saw somewhat wide adoption among small organizations worldwide. As of 2018, it is still in service in some German states (primarily Bavaria), although more recent and simpler pistols have been replacing them in service.
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