The French Directorate General for Armaments (DGA) has decided to place an order for 12000 HK-416 F assault rifles in 2021 and will receive an equal number of rifles under an earlier order next year.
Another 12,000 HK-416 rifles were delivered in 2020, bringing to 45,340 the number of units currently being equipped in the armed forces, a French MoD release said. The HK 416 F assault rifles are made by Heckler & Koch SAS France and Heckler & Koch GmbH.
The HK-416 F was selected to gradually replace all the FAMAS rifles currently in stock in the three armies. 117,000 copies are expected to be delivered to the armed forces by 2028, including 93,000 by 2025.
The HK-416 F market was notified by the DGA on September 22, 2016, and the first deliveries started in May 2017.
The assault rifle has been designed to be compatible with the FELIN land warrior equipment, scalable and likely to be equipped with new current or future technical capabilities in the field of day and night optics and target seekers.
With a NATO caliber of 5.56 mm, it has the ability to fire rifle grenades. Easy to use, it comes in two versions: a standard version for infantry units and a shorter version for other units.
