Considered one of the "best assault weapons ever made,"[1] the H&K G11 is an assault rifle developed during the late 1960s by Heckler & Koch.[2] It has revolutionized assault weapon design and fires 4.7mm caseless cartridge, a round consisting of a block of propellant with a bullet buried inside.[3] The loading and feed mechanism is physically very complicated but exceptionally fast and reliable. Rounds are fed into the weapon from a magazine that lies above and parallel with the barrel.[2]
The rounds are oriented vertically (at 90 degrees to the bore) and are fed downwards into the rotary chamber so that they can be rotated 90 degrees for firing. Because the H&K G11 uses caseless ammunition, there are no extraction and ejection steps.[2] The resultant weight and space savings allow the H&K G11 to have a very high magazine of 50 rounds.