Say what you will about the Wehrmacht, they were damn good soldiers. The idea of a light infantry rifle capable of automatic fire can trace some of its legacy to the SG44, but it was probably inevitable. The M-16 was the epitome of the concept, and the AR-15 was a civilian counterpart.
“The idea of a light infantry rifle capable of automatic fire can trace some of its legacy to the SG44, but it was probably inevitable.”
Trace it to the BAR.
But that was WWI so that won’t do.
“Say what you will about the Wehrmacht, they were damn good soldiers.”
Till they ran into better ones.
The Washington Post Devil is in the details that make a vast difference.
Any rifle modified beyond the original specs is no longer an AR-15. So there's that.
Correction the M16 was a development of the AR-15. The Airforce ordered tens of thousands of selective fire AR-15s at this point no civilian could get his hands on one. Early on the Army decided to switch to ball powder as I believe it metered easier that the tube type propellant. This caused higher operating pressures and faster cyclic rate approaching 1,000 rpm, not good with only twenty round mags at the time. We had to replace all the recoil buffers and break the old buffers using a lumping hammer. Did sever thousand of those over a couple of weeks, boring.
Untoward side effects; ball powder burns much dirtier that tube powder. Guess what started to have dirt issues requing cleaning on the order of every four hundred rounds. Bring back the tappet.