Besides the catastrophic jamming, it didn't kill reliably and I saw many VC take a hit and keep going. He may have died later but the immediate effect was to doubt the weapon. It also had crappy sights and the safety would jam on "safe" and it took beating it with a Kabar butt to move it to "fire".
My guess as to why the ARs and AKs are effective in these bear confrontations is that they fire several rounds very rapidly, overwhelming the bear. You'll note that none of these kills was with a single round.
"As I recall" leaves a bit of room for error in memory from 50 years ago...
"As I recall" leaves a bit of room for error in memory from 50 years ago...
Yes. I agree.
My guess is that, under stress, the probability of missing is high for many shooters. Being able to fire many times quickly increases the probability of getting a few hits in vital places.
” can tell you definitively that the M-16 was issued in March 1967”
I was in 1/9 at Dong Ha in April ‘67. After a quick class and sighting-in on a 100” range we traded our M-14’s for M-16’s. Soon after we made our first outing. My company was helilifted to set up as a blocking force while the remainder of the battalion humped in. Guys on the hump were ambushed and in the fight more than a few M-16’s jammed. In close quarters fighting, some Marines were killed while trying to clear their weapon – it being in some stage of field stripping. Others resorted to using NVA weapons. Other than we weren’t cleaning our new rifles properly, no explanation was offered. Snuffy McNasty’s opinion was “following Bootcamp, Marines don’t need further instruction on cleaning rifles”. During previous service with 3/6, I participated in a 2-3 month field test of the Stoner-63 weapons system. Aside from too much choice in how to option the Stoner, I thought it a superior weapon. Corps may let the wrong ship sail.