In recent days, mainstream media in Europe, firearms and defence magazines have been reporting about concerns of the German Army about the Heckler & Koch G36 Assault Rifle. Last 30 March, the German Defence Ministry, issued an official statement stating their concerns after several years of investigation by the Germany Army, the Bundeswehr.

According to the test reports, the G36 accuracy becomes suspect after a sustained full automatic fire, which heats up the barrel. What is suspected is the composite that holds the barrel in place starts to loosen when the temperature goes up, with shifts of impact of up to 50cm. This has been noticed by Bundeswehr personnel who were deployed to Afghanistan as part of the ISAF. Previous investigation put the blame on a bad batch of ammo but this time the rifle itself is found to be the source of the problem.

The resulting problem has prompted the Bundeswehr to start considering other rifles to issue to soldiers according to Reuters. Last year, the German Army put a hold on purchasing more G36 rifles pending further investigation brought about by complaints of accuracy. The Bundeswehr have purchased 176,000 G36 rifles from Heckler & Koch since 1996. It is also in use in other defence forces and military units around the world, including the Kurdish Peshmerga who have been supplied with such rifles in their fight against the ISIS.

The assessment of G36 Assault Rifle was done by the Bundeswehr with the Ernst-Mach-Institut, an independent organization, the Bundeswehr Technical Center for Weapons and Ammunition and the Bundeswehr Research Institute for Materials and Supplies.
With more involvement of German forces in and foreign policy concerns of the German government together with their allies and NATO in climates that are warmer. They have been thinking of looking into a rifle that can withstand the desert climate as the Middle East is now embroiled in much warfare such as Syria and Iraq in the North and Northeast, and Yemen in the South. As we all know, this region supplies much of the world's oil.

So far, Heckler & Koch has denied that the G36 rifles they supplied to the Bundeswehr are prone to accuracy problems when they get hot.