Is the M-16 the best weapon we can produce?

Factual Questions
41

This is a friend of Dave’s here…

I have some serious doubts on the ability of the 16 to stop the enemy with one round, or even a double tap. Some have said earlier that the stopping power is comparable to the 30 cal. I would like to see some info on that. It just doesn’t seem that the beloved 30 cal has the same effect as a little ole .223 (with an admitedly ripping fast muzzle velocity). It’s only THREE THOUSANDTHS OF AN INCH bigger than our boyhood pea shooter, afterall!

If you have read ‘Blackhawk Down’ there might be some combat proof. The Delta Force guy with a 14 seemed to put the enemy down TO STAY, whereas they noticed others hit with 16 fire getting back into the fight.

The m-16 is just plain too long. To put it vaguely, I was clearing a vehicle in an excercise in the last month and the thing was a klutz! M-4 where are you!?!?!

(By the way, max effective range of the 16 on a man sized target is 550m)

Now to address the range issue. The m-16 is nice; it shoots pretty darn far pretty darn well (assuming that is that it isn’t being operated by a human!). No foot soldier outside the Marine Corps has been trained, in recent times at least, to fire at over 300m. The Marine Corps must shoot “X’s” at 500m while making mag changes. In the Army, a soldier must hit a man sized target, exposed for 8 seconds, at 300m. To qualify for expert under the Army system you can miss all of the 300m targets.

I have said for some time that the 16 is a great weapon if you can hit the enemy in the head (it will surely go through his kevlar helmet), but the Army doesn’t train us to shoot that well!

Finally my last pet-peeve: one must maintain the 16 constantly. It definitely doesn’t deal well with carbon build up, like someone mentioned. In the field you ARE going to get dirt and sand and vegetation in the weapon. Let’s face it, the U.S. military doesn’t operate the way it used to. Less emphasis is placed on discipline and more on independent thought. The soldier will now it’s bad to have a dirty weapon but is too lazy to clean it. Give him an AK.

Does anyone out there realize that the bolt carrier group from any one weapon will only match that particular weapon? Not interchangable=BAD. There is that too-tight-tolerances point again.

It would be interesting to hear back on this topic, espically from those who have been around longer and seen this weapon’s workings in the ‘real world’ of combat.

42

I have had five AR-15s (I have three now). One is a Colt and the others are/were from different manufacturers and I built them myself. I have mixed and matched all of the parts. I used to have M-16 parts in them (including the bolt carriers, but not including automatic sears or automatic selectors) until the BATF decreed that possession of such parts are illegal. I have long-since replaced the M-16 parts with semi-auto parts. But no matter what parts I had in any of the rifles, they all worked flawlessly.

I was shooting in the desert one day with my Colt AR-15 strapped across my back while I was riding to the shooting area. I fell off my motorcycle and landed on my back – on top of the rifle. Of course I had forgotten to close the ejection port cover. I managed to get sand all over the bolt carrier. I pulled a rag from under the bike’s seat and wiped it off. Worked fine.

True. But the projectile is much larger (length and weight) and there is a helluva lot more powder behind it than there is in a .22LR or .22MAG. I’ve seen photos of the damage caused by the 7.62mm Russian round vs. the 5.56mm M-16 round. The abdominal woulds caused by the 5.56mm round were much larger than the 7.62mm round. One set of photos compared leg wounds. The 7.62mm round wound was a hole. The 5.56mm round took out the entire calf. There was jagged meat below the knee and above the ankle. There was bone between them. The photos I saw (and I don’t have a cite, as I saw these in the early 80s) may or may not have been typical; but they do show the potential of the 5.56mm round.

Maybe the M-16 is too long to carry in an enclosed vehicle, but it’s not too long for general use. That’s why the M-4 is often issued to people who are in vehicles most of the time. Have you ever used a FAL? Those suckers are long!

Speaking of the FAL, I think someone mentioned it earlier. (I’m not going back to look.) The Israelis used the FAL back in the 1960s. They found that it was unsuited to desert warfare. It was prone to fouling by dirt and grit. They liked the power, but they decided they could do better and made the 5.56mm Galil – which looks an aweful lot like an AKM. I liked my FAL, but I wouldn’t want to have to carry it into a fight. I have an HK-91 (really a Springfield SAR-8, but H&K made the barrel and bolt; it just wasn’t assembled by H&K). It’s shorter than the FAL and about the same length as the M-16; but it’s a heavy sucker! Also, the bolt does not stay open after the last round and the cocking mechanism is a pain.

As I said, I’m writing as a civilian; but I’ve used the civilian versions of the M-16, CAR-15, FAL and G-3, and I like the M-16 best.

43

You already have, if you’ve followed any of the links to Fackler’s work. The link I posted above is to a page that directly addresses your concerns.

Ever fired a .222? It’s even smaller, and is a respectably powerfull round. How about a .220 Swift? Another respectable round, and is exactly the same bore size as a .22 rimfire. Flechette-based weapons have been abandoned because they’re too deadly, and are considered inhumane (flechettes have a caliber hanging out around .10). Some of the weapons used in the ACR experiment were below 5mm in bore (4.92mm==.194cal).

Don’t get confused by bore size: Bigger isn’t always better. Example: .38 Special and .357 Magnum use exactly the same bullet, same bore, and in fact, you can fire .38 Special round from a .357 Magnum revolver quite safely (don’t youdare try it the other way around!). No one’s gonna say that the .38 Spcl is equal to the .357Mag.

As for combat experience, well, there was Vietnam, where the round gained respect as a highly efficient killer. My father came back from there calling the M193 5.56 Nato round a “hungry rat” based on the damage he saw it cause, as it chewed the hell out of anything it hit. The US has 30+ years of experience with the M-16 rifle and it’s varients, and poor ‘stopping power’ is about the only charge the rifle hasn’t had credibly leveled at it at one time or another.

As I’ve said before, nothing less the a truly heinous round/weapon is going to be 100% lethal and still be man-portable. I’ve seen some of these in devolpment, and even the US Army supressed them as too deadly.

44

With a projectile about 2.5 times heavier and 2.5 times faster, not to mention the fact that the .223 tends to break up inside the target. The 5.56 NATO is a good deal more dangerous than a .22 LR (Not that you’d want to get hit by that one, anyway).

I answer this one so many times on other boards, I’m surprised I don’t have it saved somewhere to copy&paste :slight_smile:

Delta was using specially-designed armor-piercing ammunition (Tungsteen penetrators, “Green Tips” if I recall correctly). No breaking at the canelature (SP?), no deforming on impact, and very little spall. Barring a hit to a vital organ, it’d go clean through without causing any serious damage.

Not a fault of the rifle, nor the caliber, but of the projectile chosen. Why in the WORLD did they choose then to load up specialty armor-piercing rounds? There wasn’t anyone there that was going to have extra-heavy body armor that would warrant it, and normal FMJ rounds are plenty fine for dealing with normal protective vests or cars. Bad choice…

45

Thanks for the responses, guys. I’ll forward these to my military buddy. It sounds like some of you know an awful lot about this.

46

Throwin a little physics at ya:

Energy = 1/2mv^2.

That means you can take a smaller bullet, propel it a lot faster and it will do as much or more damage to the target as the larger bullet.

Here’s an example I saw on the History Channel:
The showed an old musket ball (probably at least .5o in) being fired into a block of that balistic gel with a cow bone stuck into it. The musket ball drove in and embedded in the bone, fracturing it.

For a comparison, they showed a modern M16 round (I think) being fired at a similar target. The bullet bore a huge path through the gel. It vaporized the bone and sent fragments in a big cone shaped blast. If that was a persons leg, they probably would have lost it.
From what I understand from talking to veterns, getting hit by a high powered rifle bullet is not like in the action movies. You don’t just slap a bandage on it and go back to kicking ass.

I mean, think about how bad stepping on a nail or a piece of glass hurts. Now imagine that nail is traveling 1000 meters per second and just tore your ass off. I don’t know about you, but I’d be screaming like a little girl.

Can you even identify a camofladged man-size target at 550m? (thats about a qurter mile)? I was under the impression that was one of the big reasons the military moved away from those big, heavy battle rifles like the M14 in favor of the smaller, lighter assault rifles.

47

Muzzle velocity, my friend, muzzle velocity.

Ever been hit by a pitch playing baseball? I have. A baseball is a lot bigger than a bullet, and yet it didn’t kill me.

Force increases arithmetically with mass but exponentially with velocity. The M-16 has a very high muzzle velocity, about 3400 feet/second; the FN-FAL, in its various incarnations, is about 2800ft/second (I believe.) That’s a very substantial difference.

If you get a straight torso hit from an M-16, you’re a dead man or soon will be. The power of such a high-velocity bullet is awesome.

I have had the opportunity to fire both the AK-47 and the M-16, as well as FNs and some other weapons, and in my opinion there is simply no comparison; the M-16 is a vastly superior weapon in every respect, the best automatic rifle I ever used. It is amazingly light and easy to handle, has virtually no recoil, is easy to use and maintain, carries a good sized mag, is accurate with a very high rate of fire, and shoots through body armor. Oh, and mine was manufactured by Mattel, so you get nice childhood memories of favourite toys while you’re spraying a target with hot lead. What more could you ask for?

I never found much problem maintaining and cleaning it, either. The weapon today is much, much different from the Vietnam War issues; it’s far more reliable. I always had more problems with my FN. When I joined the Canadian Armed Forces I joined just before we phased out the FN, so I trained on it first, then later converted to the C7A1 (M-16A2.) No comparison. I always had more problems with the FN, and so did everyone else.

I also found it quite accurate. I was a better shot than most, but I could hit targets at 300-400m with ease; I found the -16 more accurate than the FNC1, although that could just be the -16’s lighter weight and my general wimpiness. Four hundred metres is a LONG shot, but even beyond that, your trusty M243 will lay down a nice suppressing fire, so who cares? Anything beyond 400 metres or so is a job for either heavier weapons or a sniper with a special weapon.

So they say, but I have personally loaded a bolt carrier group from one weapon into another and fired it without a problem. Maybe it’s a manufacturer’s recommendation or maybe it’s just a sea story they tell you to keep you on your toes around weapons security, but in practice you can switch parts in an emergency.

48

I think my friend got that idea about the bolts from being made to specifically match the bolt to the gun in the Army. Any idea why they would do that?

49

If true, it would reduce the motive for stealing Army parts, as there’d be no place to use the part. I rather doubt that’s actually the case, however, as it would make the armorour’s job almost imposible, and the supply situation wouldn’t be much better.

While I have no solid proof about inter-changability in the M-16’s parts, I’m pretty sure that an Army that wins wars through superior logistics (That’s our Army, thank you very much!) wouldn’t go with a limited-use part.

50

Sorry, but I have to disagree. The M-16 may be an excellent weapon, but it’s a bit of a broomstick. The carbine versions (M-4, CAR-15, etc.), while slightly less accurate in the longer ranges, are much less unwieldy in vehicles, trenches and urban warfare; and even in the open field, you can point them in the direction you want much faster. Plus, they’re lighter, a fact most soldiers consider crucial.

Besides, assault rifles aren’t designed for long ranged firing - most infantry combat should take place within 100 meters. I, myself, have never fired at a terget farther than 250m; anything beyond that is the job of machinegunners, snipers, rockets and mortars.

This is not just me saying this; ever since the IDF adopted the M-16 in the early nineties, carbines have become more and more prevelant - first of all officers, NCOs and special forces, then the more heavily-loaded grunts (mortar, radio, RPG), and today virtually all infantrymen except for designated marksmen (as well as machinegunners and snipers, of course). They’re simply more versitile weapons.

51

With regard to inter-changeability of parts on the M-16, in my old unit, when in garrison, the weapon and the firing pins, and maybe the whole bolt assembly, were kept separately in separate vaults in the arms room. I do not recall that the armorer had any trouble putting together a fully operating weapon, although the pins/bolts may have been tagged to the butt number of each rifle. I doubt that there was any significant problem with putting parts from one weapon in another weapon.

One thing that has been largely ignored in this discussion is the length and weight of the M-16 as compared with the M-14 or AK-47. The rifle is relatively short and light. Anyone who has humped a Browning Automatic Rifle or a M-60 light machine gun around the woods will tell you that weight and length is important, especially when you consider all the other stuff an infantry soldier in encumbered with. The lighter and shorter, the better. The last time my unit deployed overseas the weight going on to the aircraft was critical, so we weighed our people. This was an engineer headquarters outfit, not a line infantry unit. On average, each of our people had some 60 lbs. of stuff strapped to, attached to and hanging off their person. This is also the reason that MREs, dehydrated food, are such and improvement over C-Rations, canned food. Every ounce you can take off a soldier’s back makes his life that much easier and makes him that much more effective as a soldier.

52

I used to have an AKM (the modernized AK-47) back in the 1980s. It wasn about the same length as the CAR-15 with a fixed stock and a 14.5" barrel and “birdcage” flash hider. It was a little heavier though.

53

OK gents its Dave’s friend here again, under my own alias now…

Some good physics lessons that have caused me to kick myself in the pants. Thanx.

Now to a couple points of clarification…
First off the Delta Force guys etc were using armor piercing ‘green tip’ ammo. Now I know this sounds bad but, THAT’S ALL THEY ISSUE! The US Army (Marines?) has phased out the old (see, even call it old already…) ball ammunition a while ago. Yes, we are fighting fewer organized enemies and no, the average partisan type doesn’t have any kevlar anything but that’s what they’ve done. Remember that the military is increasingly becoming a peace time org so (I think I remember this right) when the old ball ammo required more maintenance be given to the weapons they 86’d it.

The inter-changeable bolts: Having spoken with the resident guru I have been provided with some facts. Head Spacing, head spacing is that gap between the bolt and it being seated in the chamber. Now, according to the guru, most weapon’s bolts are so similar that one won’t notice any effect. However the guru testifies that he has seen bolts get switched and bad stuff has happened, hot gas (that is escaping past a too big gap and not down the barrel) from the ejection port burning lefties etc etc. If tested closely switching bolts will have an effect. This whole thing is really a small point but in combat are you going to risk it if you don’t have too? That forward assist is always getting caught on stuff too, but in the field your tapping that thing ‘just to make sure’ cause your life depends on it.

To the length issue, the weapon IS too long. NO doubt about it. The M-4 is perfect, super short or extend the stock. Loss in accuracy at range, but do you really fire at great distance any how? In my first post when I brought the length issue up I said that ‘I had trouble clearing the vehicle.’ Oops on my part. I will put it more clearly, I had trouble pointing that thing around inside the enemy vehicle to kill people with it. Sure, your not crawling around in vehicles like some Vietnam era tunnel rat, but when your the one who gets stuck throwing the door open and peeking inside (can anyone REALLY cover you?) you have trouble moving it around in the confined space.

As for keeping it clean, the 16 still doesnt do that great when you have dirt on the bolt and grass etc getting caught up in the chamber or jammed in with a mag change. Come day 2 in the field without rest (for you or the weapon) that weapon may begin to give you problems. Maybe you aren’t in the field for days on end much, but when you are do you want to worry? This could just be a ‘the grass is always greener’ issue between it and the AK.

So I have certainly learned some things, thanx again. Maybe I hate the green tip more than the weapon now.
Thank you for conditioning my mind and my body, please feel free to do so at any time!!

54

Wow!! A truly humble reply. What an addition to the SDMB. Thanks Airborne!

P.S. I’ll tell you how great that Social Distortion concert was and really rub it in. OK?

55

Headspacing is always something to watch, true enough. Hadn’t realized it was so touchy with an M-16. Gotta call dad and ask him if there’s a way around that.

Welcome to the SDMB, AIRBORNE!