Is this another "M-16 style system" failing as before?

[greensideout]

Can someone here share some insite, knowledge of the M4?
We went this route before in Nam with the M16!

WASHINGTON (AP) — It was chaos during the early morning assault last year on a remote U.S. outpost in Afghanistan and Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine had quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either.

When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S. soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a "critical moment" during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents.

Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, do U.S. armed forces have the best guns money can buy?

[StoneTheWeak]

Negative. As accurate as our M-16 might be, its still a ****ty weapon from a reliability standpoint. Works fine, and yeah we're supposed to keep it clean, but in reality, we all know that there isn't always enough time to get every bit of sand and piece of **** out. I'd rather pick up an AK from a downed insurgent.

[tangovictor87]

If you take care of it, it will take care of you. same with any weapon system.

[Wyoming]

If you take care of it, it will take care of you. same with any weapon system.

Maybe so, but the bad guys are still using AK's.

You think maybe they know something?

[Gunner 0313]

Seriously, I don't know why this is discussed in the open squad bay.

[StoneTheWeak]

If you take care of it, it will take care of you. same with any weapon system.

Within reason, but it's not always possible to stop in the middle of a firefight and clean sand out of the bolt. Yes, theoretically, all our weapons should be kept at 100%, but in a combat environment is it always possible? I don't know, I've never been shot at, but my first thought isn't going to be, "****, better clean my bolt."


H&K was developing an assault rifle that had the same ballistics performance as an M-16 with the reliability of an AK, it was on future weapons, some bad azz chit.

[BR34]

From what I understand from what I've read about this incident, that soldier fired 12 mags through his rifle in a short time span. Now I'm no M16 apologist (I actually hate the rifle and the caliber) but no matter what weapon system you're firing if your barrel starts melting you're going to have reliability problems.

[Garyius]

While I was in the guard, we were switching over from the A1 to the A2. We had thousands of rounds of 55gr to burn off our last trip to the range, and I shot thirty five magazines from my A1 at a night range (army, 75 to 300 yards with lit popups). We had footlockers full of mags, and spent a while loading rounds even with the stipper clips.

I shot all the mags full auto, even with gloves the barrel got too hot to hold and I had to hold the front of the mag. By the last 5 mags the barrel was glowing so red I could see from it. The rounds were cooking off as I went from the bolt release back to the trigger.

She kept chugging out the rounds anyway. As did most of the rifles there.

[brian0351]

There are too many factors to consider! I was actually at Keating this time in 2007...it starts to get really cold and wet up there!

How fast did he shoot those rounds off? How old was the weapon? How clean? How dirty did it get in the firefight before it malfunctioned? How old was the ammo?

For every person who condemns a weapon you'll have someone who swears by it.

And the thread starter mentioned "As before"...if your referring to the M-16's initial deployment to Vietnam and the problems it had then, most of those problems were tied to faulty ammunition.

[StoneTheWeak]

The M4 and M-16 are the same weapon aren't they? Aside from the barrel and stock, they use the same receiver, and the M4 is full auto.

[ggyoung]

Seriously, I don't know why this is discussed in the open squad bay.

Because we as former Marines and the Marines of today (my youngest son included) need to know about the short comings of our weapons. It was our life support system and still is. The M-16 was a pile of crap in Vietnam and is now. Just ask the Marines that were on Hill 881 South. I lost a couple of damn good buddies on that hill. The M-16 was a good money maker for the Johnson family that is in Pres. johnson as they had a lot of stock in Colt Firearms. One other thing here ladybirds family had a lot of stock in the Huey helicopter company.

[Garyius]

The M4 and M-16 are the same weapon aren't they? Aside from the barrel and stock, they use the same receiver, and the M4 is full auto.

No, the M-4 uses a barrel ramp to get it to feed correctly, and uses a different buffer.

Some of the M-4s are full auto (the A1s), most are three round burst.

[0331 2 0369]

Unless we see a detailed report of the findings of their weapons after the firefight, we will never really know. However, the M-4 is a good weapon. Like the M-16 series, you dont have to give it a good detailed cleaning all the time but you do have to keep it well lubricated. I engaged the enemy on numerous occaissions when my weapon was dirty. It worked good for me because I always kept it well lubricated especially when I didn't have time to clean it properly. I always kept the ejection port cover closed also. I saw a lot of Soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq that walked around with their ejection port cover opened.

As for the AK..... Great weapon but lacks accuracy at longer ranges such as what we can do with our m-16. At least the ones that I have fired but they were older AK's that were worn. Those weapons were designed with that type of environment in mind.

[Quinbo]

Arm chair quarter backing here.
I guess the Army completely skipped the training on what to do if your weapon fails to fire. Apply SPORTS .. if that doesn't work go to secondary weapon. No secondary, fix bayonets.

[stretchusa]

The machine gun he grabbed was a SAW that failed to fire after 600 rounds according to the full story. If you fire the SAW in the cyclic rate with changing the barrel that is what happens. But as has been said before, there is not enough information to reach a conclusion.