Did anyone else get disappointed when the "real" M1A2 Abrams _didn't_ get a self loading gun, or the G-11 (bullpup) not getting adopted by NATO? Also later on finding myself as gunner of a M2A1 BFV, I expected a few more advancements. I have to find my old books.
For certain!
The G11 is a prime example of a piece of hardware that never saw light of day in service IRL, but by necessity must be a standard item in the game.
By 1991, the rifle had gone through all the necessary technical and troop tests with Bundeswehr, and was ready for being issued Permit for Fielding. Only the political decision to put it into service remained. And then the Soviet Union collapsed ... and bye-bye G11. The official decision to postpone the programme (indefinitely) was made in the Bundestag in 1992.
The G11 was set to be supported by a whole ecosystem of firearms, with an LMG using the same cartridge, and a sidearm using a short version of it. The question however whether the 4.73x33 ammunition could ever have been adopted as a NATO standard cartridge is somewhat diffuse. The G11 (under the moniker "HK-ACR") had - in spite of very successful trials at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds - been, along with all the other contenders, rejected as a replacement for the US M16A2 with the closing of the Advanced Combat Rifle programme (on slightly diffuse grounds ... ostensibly because "hey, none of the contenders is really better than the M16 anyway", but "hey, the Iron Curtain just fell, so why bother?" also seems to have been a factor) in 1990, and the Bundestag officially stated that "adoption as NATO standard is unlikely" in 1993, but I hear some conflicting accounts.
In the end, the conclusion that had the USSR and the Warsaw Pact not collapsed, history would most likely have played out very differently for the G11, is inevitable.
(Just for the record - what makes the G11 unique is
not its bullpup configuration - both the British and the French have had bullpup assault rifles in service since the '70's and '80's, with the SA80/L85 and FAMAS ... apart from the dozens of countries that have adopted the FN P90 into various services since the '90's, etc..
What
does make the G11 unique is (a) the fact that it uses caseless ammunition, and (b) it's "designed dispersion" ultra-rapid three-round burst, that considerably boosts a rifleman's hit probability.)
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EDIT:
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Just came to think of something, re. the above:
Looking at it neutrally, it is indeed all but a foregone conclusion that the G11 and its 4.73mm ecosystem "siblings" must be a major piece of hardware in the game's setting, as a standard firearm in, most certainly, the West German armed forces; possibly one or two other countries; quite likely even being introduced into the US,
if we assume — as I believe we must — the ACR programme had been followed through as it was meant to.
However, if all the military advisors commissioned into this project are American, this particular perspective may struggle to come into the forefront. For America to adopt any piece of foreign hardware as a major ingredient in its arsenal is a major mental step (remember all the hand wringing and soul searching that went into accepting the M92 as a replacement for the old Colt?), and I feel that mentality shines through also in fiction.