It is an old design (from the 70s-80s), afterall. I figure it would be possible to take the G11 mechanism and improve it as well as the the weapon's reciever and make a more up-to-date model. With sufficient R&D, an advanced variant could be developed and all contemporary combat rifles would look like antique junk in comparison.
Okay, now I jump in. From the very analogy you used about DVDs and Blu-Rays, you should realize they're isn't much of a big "leap" caseless would bring to the scene. PMR, multi-layer, higher frequency (tighter) laser, and so on that have been made commercially viable in the past 5 years for recording mediums have given us some amazing things yes. To get a terrabyte of harddrive space we just need one harddrive compared to 3 or 4 in the past. A disc can hold an entire season or have higher resolution images. But in the end, the result is still the same. There has been some changes but not enough to warrant blowing the competition out of the water (we still have CDs just as we have black powder guns and they're no joke). Caseless rounds just replace the case with an adhesive or some other substance which reduces weight and what not. But still, it is a solid chemical propellant firing a bullet with same or slightly better ballistic performance. The benefit would be mostly logistical which, as you can tell, many companies are trying to solve (with plastics) right now.
Now, I'm not attacking the G-11 because that is truly a delicious gun. That's right, delicious. If it was food, you'd eat and it would taste great even if it looks kinda disgusting. But caseless is not the quantum leap your making it sound to be. It's still only an upgrade like the Blu-Ray is to DVD. You're still using a disc with magnetic blocks embedded in it.
Coil, rail, CLGG, plasma, and liquid propellant firearms would truly blow the competition away. How does this sound: A weapon that only feeds on hydrogen atoms, surrounding air, or what ever you give it to work with. It has a chamber with a micro computer that can alter the supplied atoms into any substance to deal with any target. For example, if some one was wearing magnetic armour, you can create a projectile in your gun that is diamond tipped with a silicon body. The barrel is an adjustable rail gun so you can fire the bullet, of a desired make and calibre and set to shoot in either hypersonic speeds or subsonic speeds. Not only that, the projectile can be composed of a water forming core in a shell of cesium that is encased in tungsten. Set the rail gun to low power, lob that grenade and when the water hits the cesium you get one hell of an explosion. Everything is held together by simple supports and can be folded into about the size and weight of a 15" laptop computer. Compact, lethal, powerful and just feeds off a simple fuel cell. Logistics is simply getting the soldier food, maybe spare parts, and the occasional battery. Now try that for revolutionary.
Don't get me wrong ,though, if caseless matures before any of the chemical electrical, chemical, or magnetic weapons (most likely), it will be adopted. The logistics benefits would be too great for any politician to handle. Less resupply, less fatigue, less fuel used, less materials needed = less money. But looking at the individual combat soldiers overall offensive effectiveness; a slight improvement. Remember, the G-11 uses 4.7mm bullets which is smaller than 5.56mm NATO. Current combat situations found that the round is not effective in a real combat scenario involving armoured targets or using with shortened barrel weapons (or not effective enough. hmmm, argument can go both ways but that's a different can of beans). Average for a man is in the 6.5mmm to 7mm range (I could be incorrect, I don't remember. So many studies) so the bullets won't be as small. IIRC, the caseless rounds being tested by the US Army still holds similar ballistic characteristics. So in conclusion, the benefit would be mainly logistical (which is what armies live on).
And yes, I can be hypocritical but that's because I'm open to all sides of the argument and make my conclusions from that. As you should be aware, both sides to a story have truths and lies.
