On NOW at RadioFR!
Tonight The Shrew will host William S. Lind of the Free Congress Foundation on Radio Free Republic! Tune in to hear one of the foremost military writers discuss the article he has co-written with Paul Weyrich!
Posted on 08/04/2002 11:34:22 AM PDT by demlosers
It’s smaller, lighter and better suited for modern battles. And it might be headed into the hands of U.S. Marines.
Marine Corps officials wrapped up testing two new rifles as a possible replacement to the M-16A2 in stock now: the short M-4 carbine and the M-16A4, an upgraded model of the rifle Marines use now.
The jury’s still out, but a decision is expected soon. So far, though, the M-4 is garnering praise from the Marines and looks to be a front-runner.
However, some soldiers who fought in Afghanistan have expressed concerns about the M-4, which also is standard issue for U.S. Army infantry troops. Their chief complaints, though, appear to center on the ammunition used, not the weapon itself — and officials have said ammunition types are undergoing review.
The M-4 is hardly new to the Corps. Marine Force Reconnaissance units, Fleet Anti-Terrorism Security Teams and Military Police Special Response Teams have been using the weapon since 1999 as a replacement for the MP-5 submachine gun.
Corps officials tested the two rifles for more than 18 months. The latest test, held at Camp Lejeune, N.C., wrapped up in July. The rifles were put through the wringer, including shooting at known-distance ranges, live-fire field trials and force-on-force scenarios, said Capt. John Douglas, project officer at Marine Corps Systems Command in Quantico, Va.
Douglas said the M-16A4 looks and feels much like the M-16A2 but, like the M-4, has component parts. The Corps can buy either weapon of the existing Army contract, Douglas said.
“Both weapons have flat-top upper receivers with 1913 Military Standard rails for mounting optics as well as forward rail hand guards,” Douglas said.
“All accessories from lasers, lights, scopes, etc., mount to the 1913 rails as a standard mounting platform, allowing tailoring of the weapon to mission, billet, or individual ergonomic preferences,” he said.
But even if a new rifle comes, Douglas said, not every Marine will get one. They’ll be fielded only for ground infantry units.
The maneuverability, adaptability and ease of operation cause some to favor the M-4 for tomorrow’s Marines.
Mike Reissig, a sales representative with Colt Manufacturing, declined to answer questions before test results are released but forwarded a point paper provided by the Marine Corps to Colt Manufacturing. It says the rifle simply is a better fit for the way Marines will be fighting in the future.
The weapon, the paper said, is based on a proven design familiar to all Marines, and is equally well-suited for operations in all types of terrain, including use in urban environments.
The M-4 has interchangeable sighting systems, add-on vertical forward grips and even a detachable short version of the M-203 grenade launcher. The rifle itself is one full pound lighter than the M-16A2 and 10 inches shorter. The collapsible buttstock is designed to make it more adaptable to individual shooters, a benefit especially in tight-packed urban areas.
“This allows the Marine to rapidly shoulder the weapon from a proper fighting stance with combat gear,” the review said. “The reduced barrel length allows the weapon to be more easily maneuvered in restrictive terrain, urban areas, vehicles and aircraft.”
There are some drawbacks to the M-4, though. A shorter barrel means reduced velocity and accuracy at long ranges. But it’s unlikely, the Marine review said, that battles would be waged at more than 200 meters. At that distance, the M-16A2’s and M-4’s performance are nearly identical.
The M-4, the review concluded, “provides our infantry unit leaders with the ability to rapidly prepare for combat under varying situations, while allowing them to employ the latest in target acquisition technology. Its modular nature allows us to upgrade components as improvements become available.”
We are no longer a nation of riflemen.
You missed my point -it has nothing to do with "lowering standards". It has EVERYTHING to do with ensuring the highest probability of hits given a statistically valid population - not the population of Camp Perry on match day.
Forget the "feminization" issue for a minute, and just randomly choose 20 young men attending a local Monster Truck rally. Hand 10 M16's and the other 10 M1A's, give them 4 hours of training, and tally up the scores. The M16 "poodle shooters" will get better hits.
So, as a unit commander, you have a choice - everybody get's M14's, and a few guys can actually hit stuff, or you can have an equal number of guys that can all shoot an M16 reasonably well.
Given a truly valid statistical population, and a fixed level of training - once a week or 18 hours a day - the M16 shooters will outperform the M14 shooters.
At the end of the day, only hits count, and it's more efficient to obtain hits with 5.56mm rifles than 7.62mm rifles.
We could fix the problem if we could just clone the studs on this board that can hit the 10 ring offhand at 1000yds shooting Grandpa's Garand - maybe next year.
Can't argue with you here. Anyone who's been watching that real-life US Army 'Boot Camp' show on the History channel should know immediately that a 7.62x51 rifle is just too much gun for the dorks and dweebs that the Army is recruiting and calling a 'soldier' after eight weeks. The M-14 is a fine rifle for riflemen, though -- namely, Marines. No, we're not going back; I agree entirely.
I also think that most of these 'what's the proper caliber?' discussions also blur the distinction between the military and civilian riflemen.
Civilian riflemen need accuracy and power at long range first and foremost. That's nearly a bygone in the US military.
... Never mind the fact that they blew up all the time during US Army tests in the late 50s and early 60s, unfortunately.
The project was cancelled for good reason.
Andy, I think you may be right but perhaps we could have saved SOME of the Vietnamese population from the Communists. I am sure that even though we could not knock out North Korea that the South Koreans are very happy that we went there to help them out. I would be. :D
Shameful! In the USMC we had to qualify every year.
If you did not qualify you were not up for promotion, repeated failure to qualify could get you administratively discharged.
How can we scrimp on training ammo and then expect the troops to perform?
Trade that M-16 for an M-1, or a BAR, and you could do well with WWII type weapons.
My basic idea was to have 3 men on each fire team with rapid-fire, solidly reliable weapons for close work (AKs), and one man with a solidly reliable long-range weapon (M-14).
I could be wrong, but I doubt it in this case.
The US Army did want the M-14 and nothing else -- and I know the rest of the story of the rifle boondoggles from pre M-14 through the M16/A2 -- but the Armalite AR-10 failed on it's own. To look at the Fairchild/Armalite video from 1957, you'd think the AR-10 was everything a soldier could ever want, but in reality it had all sorts of problems.
The revolutionary multi-piece muzzle brake that looked like a tubular spaghetti collander was the part responsible for barrel blowups, along with ultra-lightweight Stellite barrels. The huge brake was the part that kept the AR-10 from bucking like a bronco on F/A, but when they removed it and replaced the hi-tech barrel with one made of iron, it experienced all kinds of jams, was front-heavy as sin, weighed more, and bucked worse than an M-14 on F/A.
The AR-10s ultra high-tech design was actually a liability, and the Army officers in charge of selection weren't about to get caught up in the late 1950s 'Space-Age' craze after just so recently fighting off human waves of Communist Chinese in Korea. They wanted a variation on something that they KNEW worked -- an accurized M-1 Garand. There have been grumblings about set-ups and rigged competitions, and though some of it must be true, it's not the whole story about why the AR-10 wasn't chosen.
Only the Dutch, Sudanese, Portuguese, and Tunisians adopted the Armalite AR-10, and I think that every one of those nations got rid of it after only a few years. The Dutch didn't even keep it for one year, I don't think.
I don't know by my own experience, but I hear that even the new Armalite civilian AR-10s are "Bang, Bang, JAM" in operation.
I do not like the fact that the bolt does not stay back when the magazine is empty. The difference felt when the bolt stops in the back position warns you that you have just run your magazine dry.
After you get used to it from firing enough rounds, you are eventually able to hear the bolt closing smoothly over an empty magazine instead of the shearing sound you hear when the bolt strips off another round from the mag. There is a noticeable difference.
mamelukesabre: You also need the F/A bolt carrier in addition to your lawfully NFA-registered F/A sear trigger pack, but you can have a decent gunsmith convert a semi-auto carrier for you.
On NOW at RadioFR!
Tonight The Shrew will host William S. Lind of the Free Congress Foundation on Radio Free Republic! Tune in to hear one of the foremost military writers discuss the article he has co-written with Paul Weyrich!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.