We had such flyaway pallets ready to go........aside from carry on off rucks and duffles built up for specific regions and missions. As you state we had few people and multi-million dollar budget for our tools of the trade.
Over my 21 years active duty and 6 .5 years reserve I carried every type of XM177 / GAU/5/5A, M4 Carbine, M2 Carbine, Bushmaster 221 Fireball, M16, MP5 Series, M1A, M60, M79,M148, M203, Mk 19, Ma Deuce M2, M82A1 and even yer nifty Hk 21/23 your spewing lead with in the pics above.
ALL OF EM JAM if the weapon is not maintained properly or the ammo, belts and or magazines are not inspected at every opportunity.
The rifle in reach right now is a M4gery Bushmaster with an ANPVS-14 and a Aimpoint Comp M with Killflash, a Surefire M900 with an IR flip off cover, a redi mag and a stock mag pouch carrying a total of 91 rounds of SS109 in / on the weapon.
Same rig I shoot 3 gun with in retirement every other weekend. It gets a workout with close to 400 rounds as I shoot prior to the match and after the match ....never cleaning the rifle until after the match if at all. I shot 4 matches without cleaning the weapon as an “training/ peace time” experiment.....about 2000 rounds of black hills 69gr ball without a burp.
That is a civilian Bushmaster M4gery rig I use for sport and home defense. Granted it rides in a pelican case vs getting thrown in an out of and on nasty places like active duty troops do at times. Yet it is 100% reliable if cared for .
I’ve melted barrels on old 3 prong (wait a minute vine grabber) flash hiders just to see if it could be done when we had ammo lots to destroy on our range. I have zero issues with the AR system.
That said I carry a M1A as a truck gun just because I live and work on the open range where you can see weather coming tomorrow. So the extra range of my M1A makes rolling a coyote easier.
I think the mistake the DOD makes is trying to issue ONE primary weapon for a multi-use role. If yer going to urban or dense terrain go with a M4. Your going mountain or desert go M1A or SR-25 series.
Desert Storm I carried my issue Scoped M1A we used for SMUD missions. Running around the towns and dirt roads of south an central america I carried a MP5SDA3......
Small teams are better geared to such a selection ability of course and doing such with an infantry division would be tough no doubt. Yet such has to be done IMO. Select a M4 & a SR-25 platform as the either or........simple solution.
One more point .....our M60’s used to be crap. Runaways, fail to fire etc so we took a personal approach to fix what we had. determined that the rivets on the receivers we shit, found a armorers jig to align em perfect at after careful heating tack welded em. Op rods were swapped out for those with a dual sear notch and ceramic coatings. Also coated the trigger group with same ceramic coating.
Yeah our armorers had a shit fit and tried to get us hosed but we prevailed and lots of the improvements were incorporated force wide to the best of my knowledge.
If one thing should be said......take care of your tools and they will serve you well.