Should have been a French standard issue rifle to replace the famas why did it had to be the Hk416. The hk416 is not bad but the French have used their own standard rifles for centuries until now.
There are many reasons for it ;
It would cost too much to maintain a small arms industry compared to the needs of the French armed forces. Because the market is already very competitive,too much arms makers and survival is hard. Decision makers consider our sovereignty ins't put in question compared to a combat aircraft or a warship. (You can debate this claim though)
There are some small arms makers (Like Verney-Carron) in France but they are too small and the financial conditions (revenues) imposed during the tender meant they couldn't take part in them.
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The decision not to buy French made rifles has made so much noise in the past and I regret too this decision. I mean we can make nuclear capable missiles,submarines,tanks,aircrafts,helicopters (and much more) but somehow we can't design and produce a rifle ?
The HK416 is an excellent weapon,no debate here,HK even made competitive prices. Has been in use since years with French special forces with very positive feedbacks. BTW,these are just rumors but it seems the army prefered the SCAR L but politicians pushed for a German rifle..... I guess you'll understand the reasons.
When you watch forgotten weapons by Ian you really do appreciate French rifles and its history.
Famas is no doubt a famous assault and videogames just helped it even become more popular. Honestly I really do like the design its really futuristic.
When hearing the famas will get replaced I hoped a nice French rifle will succeed it.
European cooperation I suppose that the Hk416 was chosen.
Heh, speaking of french and Ian.... one of the hotchkiss cannon episodes was one of first ones I remember watching that got me into that channel.....channel was so much smaller back then lol it was just a few hardcore gun nuts at that time as viewer base. Now it has really exploded literally.
Hotchkiss!!!
Crazy thing is light machine guns in Turkey tend to be still called hotchkiss eventhough they are not. I showed some light machine guns to my dad all he ever did was call them hotchkiss. Im like whats a hotchkiss his like its a machine gun. Until I researched Hotchkiss comes from France.
Out of this research I found out Hotchkiss the founder was an American who spent half of his career in France.
Weird how that came about, when you consider that the vast majority of old Turkish machine guns were usually Maxims obtained from Germany or Vickers obtained from Britain.Hotchkiss!!!
Crazy thing is light machine guns in Turkey tend to be still called hotchkiss eventhough they are not. I showed some light machine guns to my dad all he ever did was call them hotchkiss. Im like whats a hotchkiss his like its a machine gun. Until I researched Hotchkiss comes from France.
Out of this research I found out Hotchkiss the founder was an American who spent half of his career in France.