6
6
0
Rifle Shooting
Military History
Vietnam War
Posted 11 mo ago
Responses: 2
3
3
0
Well my (so Brief )history of the M16A1 began in October 1966 in Tuy ,Hoa Phu Yen Province and ended in the Central Highlands, Plieku Province during that ten months and fourteen days of my tour my Matty Mattel piece of junk jammed constantly and I am well aware of the early problems,stick vs ball propellant,non chromium bolt receiver group,gas return tube fragility,etc,etc,still to issue such a deficient weapon system was a grievous error that cost lives,my personal take anyway, Welcome Home Brothers.
(3)
(0)
SMSgt Lawrence McCarter
Later on they found actually what You described was caused by the magazine where the 20 rounds it was supposed to hold weakened the spring in the magazine and it wouldn't feed right and jam. Yes that did cost lives. They blamed the weapon but it was the cheapest part the magazine. We found by only loading 18 rounds instead of 20 it was intended to carry it fed ok and didn't weaken the spring . We were each issued 15 magazines but could pretty much get as much ammo as We wanted. that change of 18 instead of 20 in the 20 round magazine made a big difference and i 1968-69 while mostly at Da Nang I never had a jam in My M16.
(3)
(0)
SGT Philip Roncari
SMSgt Lawrence McCarter- My unit was also advised about loading the magazine with fewer than the twenty round capacity and that was in 1966,besides that we were told to change over empty magazines and refill so not to weaken the spring,our M16s constantly jammed no matter how often we cleaned them,piss poor early design,rushed into the field without proper further testing under conditions we faced.Welcome Home Brother.
(0)
(0)
2
2
0
McNamara's tenure is probably one of the best examples in the argument for incremental change versus meteoric change available. His service at Ford gave him an enviable reputation that supported his tackling the "optimization" of defense spending through standardization and dynamic innovation. While many of his dictates, such as clothing standardization did result in economies of scale with good results; but some of them had deadly results that could have been avoided by more development or evaluation. The M-16, Cat 4, and defoliation methods were but a few of his programs that were deadly to servicemembers.
While enlisted, I trained with the M-1 and the M-14 and remember the criticism and failures of the "Matell" weapon when it was introduced. A prominent argument in the Corps was the M-16 with all its problems wouldn't have happened if the Army hadn't adopted the "Spray and Pray" technique over aimed fire.
What works in the civilian arena is not always transferable to the defense community and the most rapidly available solution to a problem may not be the best.
While enlisted, I trained with the M-1 and the M-14 and remember the criticism and failures of the "Matell" weapon when it was introduced. A prominent argument in the Corps was the M-16 with all its problems wouldn't have happened if the Army hadn't adopted the "Spray and Pray" technique over aimed fire.
What works in the civilian arena is not always transferable to the defense community and the most rapidly available solution to a problem may not be the best.
(2)
(0)
Read This Next
Continue with Facebook 
Continue with Google