Killer Rifles to Deadly M-16s: A History of Weapons U.S. Troops Take To War

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February 2, 2019 Topic: Security Blog Brand: The Buzz Tags: MilitaryTechnologyWeaponsWarGuns

Killer Rifles to Deadly M-16s: A History of Weapons U.S. Troops Take To War

The best and the worst.

Reports from Vietnam of the M-16 jamming in combat led to a congressional investigation in 1967 (the Ichord Committee). First the Army belatedly issued a proper cleaning kit and better instruction on cleaning the weapon to help reduce jamming. In the face of growing pressure, the Army Ordnance Corps made some reluctant changes.  These included altering the buffer system to slow the M-16's rate of fire, chroming the chamber and bore, and making minor changes to the cartridge to reduce fouling.

Further modifications to the basic M-16 design and changes in the weapons cartridges since Vietnam slowly overcame most of the technical problems that had caused jamming. However, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have produced more complaints from soldiers and Marines about the reliability of the M-4 and later versions of the M-16. Part of the problem is that the tight tolerances inherent in the design and manufacturing of the weapons simply mean that they require a lot of pampering and constant cleaning when they are used in dusty sandy environments.

This article by Jeff Schogol originally appeared at Task & Purpose. Follow Task & Purpose on Twitter. This article first appeared in 2018.

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