Posted on 08/10/2003 12:26:06 AM PDT by Destro
US to Send Kalashnikovs to Iraq
VOA - To some, it might sound like shipping oil to an OPEC member or ice to Antarctica but, as the Pentagon says there are good reasons why it's planning to send AK-47 firearms to Iraq.
In Iraq, hardly a day goes by that the U.S. military doesn't report finding AK-47s - sometimes just handfuls, sometimes dozens, sometimes hundreds. There is no total, but Pentagon officials say the numbers are in the thousands, perhaps the tens of thousands.
Despite this, the Baghdad-based, U.S. run Coalition Provisional Authority has been soliciting bids from arms dealers to supply 34,000 of the Russian-design assault rifles for Iraq's new security forces.
A Pentagon spokesman says the reason for looking to buy new AK-47s is simple - the weapons seized so far in Iraq are not sufficient in either quantity or quality for a new Army or the police. The spokesman says the U.S. military does not want to give Iraqis unserviceable, hand-me-downs. It also doesn't want to force U.S. made assault rifles on Iraq because these would be unfamiliar and could run into servicing and maintenance complications.
One potential beneficiary could be Poland, a close U.S. ally whose troops took part in the war in Iraq. Its arms industry is hoping to win the bid.
I was distressed to hear of reports that the M-16 performed poorly in Iraq with many cases of it jamming. The weapon was notorious for that in Vietnam because it is fickle and requires a lot of maintenance to function properly. The AK-47 can be stored in mud without it affecting its firing capacity.
It may also be the case that M-16 wielding soldiers got lazy and did not clean their rifles on a daily basis as required for the dusty atmosphere of Iraq or any combat environment
Time to replace the M-16?
Frederick R. Carlson
March, 1999
NAVAL POSTGRADUATE SCHOOL
Monterey, California
REPORT
Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited.
The M-16 The M-16 was a replacement for the M-14, a heavier weapon that was the previous standard. The M-16 was derived from a commercial rifle developed by the Armalite Company and known as the AR-15. The AR-15 was the most reliable and most lethal infantry rifle ever invented. However, within months of its introduction in Vietnam, it was known as a weapon that might jam and misfire, and could pose as great a danger to them as their enemy. These problems - all Human Factors related - were directly and completely the result of modifications made to the original design by the Army’s own ordnance bureaucracy. By the middle of 1967, when the M-16 had been in combat for about a year and a half, a large number of soldiers had written to their parents about the unreliability of the M-16. A sufficient number of parents had sent those letters to their congressmen that a congressional investigative committee. The committee, headed by Representative Richard Ichord, a Democrat from Missouri, conducted an exhaustive inquiry into the origins of the M-16 problem.
In the 1800s, there was a significant find in the grisly science of "wound ballistics". Weapons designers found that a small, fast bullet would do significantly more damage than a large bullet. The reason for this is that a small round will tumble as it passes from air to flesh.
A farsighted troop commander, General Wyman, had asked the Armalite Corporation to design a rifle to take advantage of smaller rounds. The AR-15 used .22-caliber bullets instead of .30-caliber bullets that had been the Army standard for years. A second discovery about weapons came out of World War II. Historian S.L.A. Marshall found that nearly four fifths of combat soldiers never fired a round in battle. It turned out that one group of soldiers were an exception to this rule: the troops that carried the Browning automatic rifle (BAR). These were essential portable machine guns that could spray an area with fire. The normal rifleman (with the M-1 vice the BAR) could not dominate an area and therefore could not see an area clearly or have any sense of whether he had hit.1
The end of World War II there was a great demand for a new infantry weapon that would give all soldiers, not just the BAR gunner, the ability to "hose down" an area with automatic fire. The response of the Army Ordnance Corps was to build the M-14. The M-14 was basically an automatic, less solidly built M-1. Like the M-1, the M-14 used a large .30-caliber round. The disadvantage of the M-14 was that it was virtually uncontrollable when in full automatic mode. The explosive charge to propel a heavy .30 caliber round and the rifle itself was so lightly built that the kick was ferocious. A soldier who used it on automatic fire was likely to get a nosebleed.
The ordnance corps had every reason to dislike the AR-15. It came from an outside inventor and threatened to displace a product of the corps own arsenal system – the M-14.
My experience with the M16 has been very positive. It is a very accurate weapon and is very well designed ergonomically. The safety is quiet, smooth, easy to reach and reliable. That being said the M16 is not without it’s shortcomings. The M16 is a good system to show human factors considerations as most problems between the soldier and the weapon.
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Problem – Cyclic Rate
The major problem with the M-16 was that it was prone to breakdowns and jams. A letter that ended up in the office of Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin:
"The weapon has failed us at crucial moments when we needed fire power most. In each case, it left Marines naked against their enemy. Often, and this is no exaggeration, we take counts after each fight, as many as 50% of the rifles fail to work."2
The technical data that came out of the congressional investigation showed that the M16 jammed because it’s "cyclic rate" was too high. That was due to a letter-of-the-law application of technical specification. Weapons designers speak of automatic rifles as "resonant mechanisms," in which several different cycles must all work in harmony. One of the factors in determining these cycles is the explosive characteristic of the gunpowder. The AR-15 was designed to fire between 750 and 800 rounds per minute and used IMR powder. The Army insisted on using ball powder, which brought the rate of fire to 1000 or more rounds. The effect of the higher cyclic rate was immediate and grave. What had been a great rifle now jammed continuously.
This problem has been fixed. Colt, the manufactory of most M16s produced some hydraulic buffers that work well to reduce the cyclic rate. A Company called AAC makes 4 models of a hydraulic buffer that brings the rounds per minute down to a range of 475 to 600 rpm. This is a human factors problem as well as an obvious engineering problem in my view because the higher cyclic rate causes the weapon to jam, thus increasing the workload on the soldier.
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Problem – Trigger Mechanism and Automatic Fire The M16 rifle allows semi only fire in the semi position, and semi or Full Auto in the Auto or Burst position, depending on how hard you pull the trigger. The way you negotiate between semi and full automatic is with a selector switch on the side of the weapon. Most machine guns allow you to shoot one round in full automatic mode, but you have to concentrate to do it and it takes a lot of practice to get it right.
It would be very advantageous if you could control the firing mode from the trigger itself, instead of using the selector switch. There is a modification to the M16 that allows you to control switches to full automatic right from the trigger. The TAC trigger allows you to fire one shot, then go to full auto if needed, without releasing the trigger. This modification gives tactical users a millisecond advantage in a firefight, which is significant.
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Problem – Vibration and Control
One of the major problems that any soldier has in firing a rifle is vibration. Full automatic fire with any of the standard military flash suppressors is useless past 25 yards and 3 rounds. The M16 tends to rise up and to the right. This is undesirable from a military standpoint and downright dangerous with inexperienced shooters. It is very easy for rounds to escape the backstop of the rifle range, travelling several thousand yards.
This problem could have been prevented if the flash suppressors were more robust and if the rifle was slightly heavier (which is a significant trade-off).
A fix for this problem is a "muzzle brake". A muzzle brake reduces the rise in the muzzle but at a cost of creating a higher level of noise for the shooter to contend with. Muzzle brakes can allow the shooter to control an M16 with one hand and get very good accuracy.
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Problem – Maintenance of the Handguard
The handguard is a plastic tube that surrounds the barrel of the M16. One of the perennial problems is the maintenance of the handguard. The bottom line is that it is difficult for even a strong soldier to remove and replace the handguard in field conditions. The locks for the handguard are spring loaded and very secure.
A possible fix for this problem is to change the locking mechanism from a spring loaded one to one where a switch would decrease the pressure between the rifle and the handguard. This would be a major design change. The M16A2 improved this situation somewhat with new handguards.
There is no fix for this problem short of redesign that I can find save doing a lot of hand strengthening exercises to have a strong enough grip to remove and replace the handguards.
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Problem – Uniform Velocity The best way for a soldier to shoot with accuracy is to achieve uniformity. Uniformity includes a good gun, your aiming, holding, breathing and squeezing precisely the same shot after shot. Training in the military is fairly rigorous to insure that the aiming, holding, breathing and squeezing. In the U.S. Army, we use a device called a "weaponeer" to do range simulation. The "weaponeer" is a computer-generated range where soldiers can practice uniformity before stepping on a real range. What is difficult to account for is the ammunition. Chronographs can measure the uniform velocity of ammunition.
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Problem - Round Capacity of Magazine The round capacity of the M16 has been a problem that I have noticed for years. The largest issued magazines has a 30 round clip. It would be very advantageous to double this. In many Hollywood movies you see two clips taped together with duct tape. When the top clip is expended, you then flip to the new clip. The regular clip is simply to short of rounds to last any amount of time on full auto.
I would like to see a 60 or 70 round clip. Instead of a linear magazine a circular or box-shaped one should be used. I do not know if one has been designed yet. I could not find one researching this paper.
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Problem – Sighting
Three problems exist with sighting the M16. The first is a problem with sighting accuracy; the second is with target recognition and the effect of conflicting visual fields. The Canadian Army has a novel system that proposed a helmet mounted display to improve these problems. The prototype system was assembled using off the shelf commercial components. The system works as follows. A low light-level sight is mounted on the M16 with a transceiver that communicates with the soldier’s helmet. The problems I see with this system are that it restricts your field of view and the "simulation sickness" problem.
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Conclusion
There is no area in the military where man-machine considerations are more significant than in the area of infantry rifles. The human consideration is completely intertwined with the engineering of these systems. I have attempted to show some of the human factors implications in the use of the M16 rifle and how engineering oversights affect the soldier. The good news is that ergonomic and human factors considerations have started to become a fixture in the design of rifles.
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References:
James Fallows, National Defense, Random House.
Hearings, Special Subcommittee on the M-16 rifle program, Committee on Armed Services, U.S. House of Representatives, 90th Congress.
People also tend to over-lubricate them, which of course, attracts dust and grit. The action should be dry when done cleaning!
People also tend to over-lubricate them, which of course, attracts dust and grit. The action should be dry when done cleaning!
JERUSALEM (AFP) Jul 22, 2003
The Israeli army will from next year be increasingly equipped with the new Tavor assault rifle, made by Israel Military Industries (IMI), the defense ministry said on Tuesday.
The ministry has already ordered 15,000 guns with a view to eventually phasing out and replacing the American M-16.
A ministry statement described the Tavor as currently "the best assault rifle in the world".
The Tavor is particularly efficient in street combat, due its precision and lightness, the statement added. The 5.56-millimetre rifle can fire between 750 and 900 rounds a minute.
At 72 centimetres (28 inches) long, it weighs only 2.8 kilogrammes (six pounds) when empty. When equipped with a telescopic sight, complete with night vision, and a 30-round magazine it weighs 3.635 kilos (eight pounds), IMI said.
You are probably right. Back in the day (Army 1991-1995)...I know I've had at least 1200+ rds and 3-4 days of build-up before I got a chance to clean my weapon and not once did "Jennifer" jam. I named her(my M16A1) that. In the 3 years I had her I had only one misshap....a double feed that I contributed to a POS magazine spring.
Now the Marines are going to jump on me because I didn't clean my rifle after every other breath. :) Flame suit on, diving into the ditch, preparing for incoming.....
Well, that's a point well taken. When I got done with my semi-annual qualification, the official AF clean/lube was Break-Free CLP. That stuff always seemed awful oily and gummy to me. Never used it on my own firearms. I'm thinking a Teflon or PTFE-based dry lube would be a better idea for the M-16. Something that's not a stinking dirt magnet.
The teething problems of the M16 in Vietnam were fixed ages ago, like while we were in Vietnam. When I was in, we punished the A1s, and they were actually very reliable. Even under dirty dusty field conditions, the rule of thumb was that the rifle was good for 1500 rounds before filth might interfere with the proper functioning of the rifle. In other words, it was perfectly reliable under normal infantry conditions. We usually cleaned the rifles WAY more than was actually necessary for the action.
Most people don't get the opportunity to engage in training that allows you to truly appreciate some of the really superior design features of the M16 system. For example, the AR15 action is super-quick for multitarget engagement, way better than the AK action systems. While the M16 action is obscenely accurate, I don't think that is a terribly relevant point; most decent combat rifles have adequate combat accuracy, including the better AKs (which can do 1-2 MOA for really nice variants). The kind of combat environment where a properly configured M16 system really shines in the hands of a professional soldier is in the fast and furious <200m firefight or CQB scenarios. In that envelope, there really isn't anything better.
In my not so humble opinion, there isn't a common combat rifle that is really well-configured for longer range open field combat scenarios (yes, including the M14), primarily because this is generally considered an edge case that can be sacrificed somewhat for the more probable <200m firefight case. A really good long-range solution necessarily sacrifices short-range performance. Part of the problem is that none of the common combat cartridges other than the .50BMG is a worthwhile long-range cartridge. The .308 is no more an adequate long-range cartridge than the .223 is, even in theory; a 20" barrel is capable of keeping a .223 supersonic at 1000 yards, but it isn't the best choice. The expense and logistical requirements of actually developing a new platform probably aren't worth it for the military, pragmatically speaking.
I'd like to say that I have never found a "bullpup" style assault rifle that was really particularly satisfying. The design has so many mediocre aspects that it really nullifies the obvious benefit of very compact form factor. I think they could be done well, and some of the H&K stuff comes closer than most, but this Israeli design looks like Yet Another Shitty Bullpup.
If anyone is likely to perfect a usable bullpup design, I'd guess it would be H&K. But as they've discovered solving some of the most obvious problems creates new ones...
We had the same stuff when I was in the Corps, twenty years ago. It isn't bad stuff, it just needs to be removed when the cleaning process is done. Some always remains at the sub-detectable level, and that's what does the lubricating.
I have a friend who chronically over-does it. His action is always dripping with the stuff. Next time I see him, I am going to dump a handful of dirt in there, hand the weapon back to him, and say, "Your front door just got kicked in. Quick- respond"!
I'll be a sport about it and help him clean it out, but the message will stick. As will the crud, until he learns to keep the darn thing dry.
Bullpups. Well ya gotta admit, they look cool. Not too good for people like me, who shoot from the wrong side, unless you like being slapped upside the head with hot brass every time you pull the trigger. It was bad enough when .223 brass got in your collar or your sleeve from the guys next to you. OUCH.
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