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I was looking through the specialist games part of the German online-store. I came across a download for the Necromunda Enforcer rules (in english) and at the bottom of the page it said the rules were written by Jervis Johnson who is also one of the original authors of Necromunda. I thought Necromunda was basically the same as 2nd edition. And isn't Jervis opposed to 2nd edition? What made him make 180degree turn from complicated 2nd edition rules to sreamlined 4th edition rules?

Necromunda has a 2E engine at its core. But the idea that Necro is new is a mistake. Necro got warmed over to remove Follow Fire / Sustained Fire Dice which are no longer produced. Necro is one of several carryover games that will be replaced at some unknown future date.

From what I see, Jervis has been wanting to streamline the game for quite some time, probably since well before Epic 40k was released during 2E. He got torched for Epic 40k because it was too clean. 40k3 did very well, and it was much cleaner than 2E. BFG was well-received, despite being fundamentally similar to Epic 40k. 40k4 did OK, being further cleanup of all the "trial" rules, stabilizing the core engine. Then you have Epic Armageddon rehashing Epic 40k. And now 40k5 as yet another streamlining of the rule system, along with a major rethink of game concepts and balance.

The problem is partly that it's hard to make overly radical changes to an established game system, and partly that it takes time to figure out what new mechanics should be used to streamline things.

The original Necromunda was indeed basically just 2nd edition 40K with a few extra rules. The thing is, the 2nd edition 40K rules worked best for small skirmishes. In large points games, 2nd edition got bogged down really quickly.

So, while those rules worked beautifully for Necro, in 40K they simply weren't suited for what players were pushing for: bigger games.

And so, 3rd edition was born... but had the same problem as Epic 40000: They simplified too much, and removed most of the flavour that made the game interesting.

4th edition didn't do much to improve that, but did help to smooth out some of the wrinkles introduced in 3rd, while adding a few more of its own.

I would guess, given the new Ork Codex and what I've heard so far of 5th edition, that the focus from here will be to try to find a balance between keeping the rules relatively big-battle-friendly and reintroducing some of what made 2nd edition so much more interesting.

He also wasn't the only one working on the Necromunda line, alone. Back in the day, Jervis wasn't the frontman. He was more of the older, established guy. Andy and the rest of them were cranking on Necromunda, as Jervis was going back to doing things in the other game systems, that was around the time when he was put on the back burner in the " Specialist games" arena, pretty much overseeing the whole department, if for want of a better phrase to it.
It was only after Andy Chambers left that he started coming up for air and giving more and more face time.

The Enforcer rules came out around the same time as the Battles of the Underhive book, ( I think thats what it was called.) and it was kind of like a WD article at the time.

If Necromunda 3rd edition would incorporate Mordheim's melee and damage result table it would be just shy of perfection.

I've played a Necromunda Campaign with those house rules and it was great.