multifunctional Croatian machine gun) is a 5.56×45mm NATO bullpup assault rifle designed and manufactured by HS Produkt of Croatia.

The VHS rifle was first introduced at the 2007 iKA exhibition, the annual Croatian innovation display that takes place in the city of Karlovac.

[7] During the Croatian War of Independence, HS Produkt (then called IM Metal) created a bullpup variant of the 7.62 mm Kalashnikov assault rifle.

[2][8] This rifle had a number of flaws, partly caused by limited technological capabilities of IM Metal, but provided a valuable learning experience for the company.

[8] A new prototype, externally quite similar to the French FAMAS, was publicly announced in 2005 and presented to Croatian Minister of Defense Berislav Rončević.

[16] On May 12, 2009, Croatian Minister of Defence Branko Vukelić confirmed the positive conclusions of a series of torture tests and on May 15 officially signed a contract with HS Produkt for the acquisition of 1,000 rifles (both variants).

One involved a hypothesized venting system which recovered part of the gases generated from firing the weapon to cushion the bolt and dramatically buffer recoil.

[9] According to the schematic filed at the European Patent Office (EPO) the misconception may have come from combining two different features: a forced air ventilation system similar to the one in Pecheneg machine gun and a mechanical buffer reducer, similar in conception to the one used in Ultimax 100, a weapon Croatia used in the Croatian War of Independence and retains in its reserve inventory.

The next year, it was changed to a direct gas impingement system with a forced ventilation feature that formed a pneumatic cushion behind the bolt.

It is also for right-handed use only; the receiver can only eject shells out the right side and cases leave sharply toward the rear, with a chance of hitting an extended elbow.

[22] The VHS-2 was shown to the public for the first time in April 2013, during the Adriatic Sea Defense & Aerospace (ASDA) exhibition in Split, Croatia.

[23] Its improvements include a more conventional fire selector, a redesigned carrying handle, an adjustable-length buttstock, and an ambidextrous cartridge casing ejection system that can be reconfigured in less than a minute.