The HK CAWS wasn't designed for the West Germans and they never intended adopting it. It was designed for the US Army under the Close Assault Weapon System program of the 1980s.
As for the G11, it most definitely was wanted by the West Germans. It was seen as a system needed to counter the Warsaw Pact's numerical superiority in manpower and was the result of studies conducted to find a system that offered a higher probability of first round hit than the then current generation of weapons. As mentioned previously, the G11 was to go to first line units while the G41 was to go to second line units.
There are two significant reasons for why it was stopped. The first being the reunification of the two Germanys (and subsequent end of the Cold War) and the fact that some of the people in other nations were survivors of World War 2 and were seen by the Germans as being potentially worried about Germany being whole again and then developing Wunderwaffe
|