[X] My Assistant

[Wounded Ronin]

Was the M16A1 responsible for funky Vietnam era music?

[Faelan]

No I think it was Heroin that pulled that off.

[Zaranthan]

No way, man! It was the Purple Haze...

[psychophipps]

M16 was tested in Vietnam (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) It failed miserably because well the troops expected it to work. The M14, which preceded it was an incredibly accurate beast of a rifle. Seriously though the M16 is a rifle I love and hate. The only thing I hate is the caliber, because it is the root cause of everything wrong with it. So when I got the extra cash I will be buying one of these http://www.barrettrifles.com/rifle_rec7.aspx. All the ergonomics, and accuracy, none of the problems and more punch.

What killed the original M16 was the US Army, to be honest. The US Army spent so much time and energy fighting the new weapon that Robert McNamara thought that the request by the Dept of the Army for a chromed barrel was just another stalling tactic. The Army also had swapped the clean burning stick powder of the original design for dirtier ball powders that gave better long-range ballistics in arctic conditions. The lack of effective corrosion resistance and the dirtier powders resulted in many of the earlier M16s jamming in the jungles of Vietnam (which in all honesty is about the single worst place for a rifle to be if you're discussing reliability anyway). Once effective cleaning kits were issued and the soldiers were trained to use them, the issues with the weapon largely disappeared.
Of course, the weapon has henceforth been colored by the brush strokes of this pissing contest between the McNamara's Wonder Kids and the Dept of the Army which has earned this excellent weapon a bad reputation for reliability.
Proponents of the M16 series include various US, Israeli, and United Kingdom special operations forces who, while having the pick of basically any weapon they wanted, selected the use of the M16 to be used in their world-wide mission locations. The fact that these men, and sometimes women, specifically selected the M16 series over a great many other great weapons out there for use in their limited support, often behind the lines, and everything we have for this mission is on our backs and LBE speaks volumes as to the true level of reliability and effectiveness of this weapon system.

[Wounded Ronin]

Do you have any sources to cite? I'm not saying this as a challenge. Instead, I'm really interested in history and would like further reading.

[Faelan]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M16_rifle

I know don't ever use wikipedia, however this article is actually pretty damn accurate.

@psychophipps as previously stated the reliability issue was and is 90% user failure, combined with 10% weapon design (it does get dirty quicker than most). I certainly never had a problem trusting it.

[Dumori]

what UK force uses the m16? The SAS use what ever they feel like depending on the misson really but they might use the m16 the SBS use some funky guns including a foldeable sky that is poket size if my source is right. The enfeild 85 is used heavily. I'm just cureipus at what park of the British armed forces use the M16.

[Shiloh]

what UK force uses the m16? The SAS use what ever they feel like depending on the misson really but they might use the m16 the SBS use some funky guns including a foldeable sky that is poket size if my source is right. The enfeild 85 is used heavily. I'm just cureipus at what park of the British armed forces use the M16.

The SAS, the SBS. Tend to choose M16 variants for personal weapons, with the underbarrel grenade launcher almost ubiquitous, rather than one or two per squad. They use the Minimi SAW in higher than normal proportions too.

They both use whatever they think gets the job done best, including SMGs and, I suppose, 'funnies'.

Our 'more elite' formations (paras and RM) just use the standard issue SA80, same as our line infantry battalions.

[psychophipps]

what UK force uses the m16? The SAS use what ever they feel like depending on the misson really but they might use the m16 the SBS use some funky guns including a foldeable sky that is poket size if my source is right. The enfeild 85 is used heavily. I'm just cureipus at what park of the British armed forces use the M16.

As stated before, the SAS and SBS have used this weapon for quite a while now. The SAS has used the M16 extensively at least since a photo of a 4-man 1964 cross-border patrol in Borneo. The weapons were still being manufactured by Armalite and probably didn't have the powder swapped as had happened with the US M16 with the associated disastrous results.

[Dumori]

The SAS, the SBS. Tend to choose M16 variants for personal weapons, with the underbarrel grenade launcher almost ubiquitous, rather than one or two per squad. They use the Minimi SAW in higher than normal proportions too.

They both use whatever they think gets the job done best, including SMGs and, I suppose, 'funnies'.

Our 'more elite' formations (paras and RM) just use the standard issue SA80, same as our line infantry battalions.

The SBS use lots of guns really but i didn't know about the M16 but i manly read up on the sub to boat/land raids where ligher weapons are need like Mp-5s. I know about the SA80 (witch isn't that good (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) my dad was in the navy and work as faslane or how ever you spell it as well as a few ships and he didn't like that gun even with his 70%+ average).

[Wounded Ronin]

Didn't the SA80 have a reputation for the magazine falling out during Gulf War I?

[Dumori]

Yep that the one I still dont think they fixed that at least not when my dad was still in service.

[Shiloh]

Yep that the one I still dont think they fixed that at least not when my dad was still in service.

They fixed that with the A2 (I think it was) revision. The weapon in service now gets a thumbs up from the people actually using it in south Asia and the Middle East. Yes, it was crap in GW1, fit only for deployment in Germany, but it's been quite severely revised in its 20 year life. I found some quite glowing stuff from combat soldiers by Googling. I gather the M16 is simpler to field strip though, still.

[Dumori]

Ah yes i forgot the brought out the A2. But I still know of a lot of actions where the M16 wasn't used. Btw dose any pne know if theres a folding/colappesable version of the SA80 (may not be a SA80 but nor can i find any folding weapon in sevis in the British army) I remember being told about one in use at a range but I cant fined any recored of its existence.

[psychophipps]

Considering how the entire action of the rifle is in the butt stock, I would think that a collapsible stock would be pretty hard to manage with a SA80. If you look at the lower receiver you will see that the butt plate and the pistol grip are all of one piece making a collapsible stock feature all but impossible.

[Shiloh]

Ah yes i forgot the brought out the A2. But I still know of a lot of actions where the M16 wasn't used. Btw dose any pne know if theres a folding/colappesable version of the SA80 (may not be a SA80 but nor can i find any folding weapon in sevis in the British army) I remember being told about one in use at a range but I cant fined any recored of its existence.

I't s a bullpup so that you don't need to collapse the stock. It's already over 20cm shorter than an M16 while having a longer barrel. As pschohipps says, the structure pretty much precludes the stock folding any. You could have a model that folds in front of the pistol-grip, I suppose, but it wouldn't be operable in that configuration. You could shorten the barrel, and then you'd get the L22 carbine variant, issued to crews.

It's a battle rifle; concealability isn't an issue, and it's already a handy size.