M-16A1 vs M-16A2

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Shin:
Last Med float I went on, granted it was a couple of years ago. Every one I saw, infantry, artillery, airborne all carried M16s or Uzis. But that is not saying that Galil were not be found elsewhere.

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God truly fights on the side with the best artillery
 
The "best" M16 for 95% of military use would be this combination of the M16A1 and the M16A2:

Top Half

- C7 Upper (A1 Upper w/FA and BD)
- A2 Barrel
- A2 Front Sight (and Rear Aperture)
- A2 Handguards
- A2 Twist (1:7)
- A2 Flash Suppressor


Bottom Half

- A2 Lower
- A2 Pistol Grip
- A1 Stock
- A1 Fire Control (Auto)

Did I mention that this how the Canadians configured their M16, the C7? (Though I think they use the A2 stock).

Oops, Jeff did. :)

-Troy
 
I know this is getting to be a long post to read, but I gotta add my 2 bits.
IMHO the M16 is not a good combat weapon (Let the flames begin...) it is not reliable enough. That being said, I think 3 round burst is complete horsesh*t. The idea behind auto/burst fire is not to actually kill anyone. If it kills someone, that's extra. it's used for suppressive fire. ie guy a shoots while guy b moves closer and then a shoots b moves, and so on until the target may be eliminated by semi auto aimed fire. by removing full auto and putting 3 round burst in it's place you also eliminate the suppressive capabilites of the rifle. What is the point of even having 3 rd burst I don't understand. You can not use it effectively to hold the enemy in a position, and if there are alot of BGs you cannot use it to cover a large sector of fire. I absolutly think burst is one of the worst ideas ever deployed by any military.
Execpt for the burst, I think A2s are better than A1s. I like the barrel, sights, and stock of the A2 better. (Still think they are jam-o-matics though)
 
KY, you can call it a jamamatic all you want, but the real experience of myself and many others I have known doesn't bear that out. Plus, in actuality you're 180 degrees wrong about the three round burst, it was designed to PREVENT people from using full auto to "keep their heads down."
 
KY - ALL automatic weapons jam. I've seen AKs, M1s, Galils, just about every military semi or select fire rifle jam in 25 years in the Army. I don't know what makes you think M16s are jam -o- matics. I think I've probably observed every type of stoppage you can think of in the M16. Most of them are attributable to bad magazines or poor maintenance. The M16 is much more reliable then the other predominant American weapon at the platoon level, the M60. (sorry PJ11B3VF7, the M240B hasn't been distributed through the Army yet only the light units have them, that I'm aware of. I am impressed with the selection of it though). I hope you're not basing you opinion on reading of reports of the fielding of the M16 in the '60s. What rifle do you think our soldiers should have, that's not a jam -O- matic?

PJ11B3VF7 - Do you have any experience with the A1 and full auto fire? It is quite easy to learn to squeeze off 2 and 3 round bursts. I have to take issue with the thought that you never get enough time to train to fire bursts unless you are in SOF. Back in the days before the Army made me an artilleryman (I was 11B for 21 years) I trained my soldiers to control their rate of fire using blanks and even taught my platoon machine gunners to make their guns "talk" by having them set up their guns on the lawn, side by side. I gave the fire commands and they counted off the bursts by saying "bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!" when one gunner stopped the other picked it up. No ammunition required and the next live fire attack worked great, they had their rhythm down and maintained continuous fire across the obj. The same for writing fire control into your platoon SOP and enforcing it at all times. If you take what you are given and think of ways to train effectively with it, you don't have to depend on mechanical devices like burst controls to make up the difference. None of what I said was meant as a flame, just thought you might like to hear some other ideas. When you train reserve component soldiers for a living, you really learn to make do.

STLRN - you've got one of my new LTs down there now, hope he doesn't fit into the category that you described earlier.
Jeff
 
The 16 is indeed a jammalot. In my experience, I've witnessed jams at an unacceptable frequency in my squad despite the weapons having been cleaned the same morning.
I've fired other autorifles of various types, clean and dirty, and had far less jams per mag. M16s are certanly not the most reliable service rifle in the world.
One thing I like about getting out is that I don't have to rely on such an unrealiable weapon.
I'd rather hit the beach with an SKS. It'll go bang each time I pull the trigger.
 
Take the action from an FAL, The short barrel of an M-4, the trigger group flexability of an MP5 and the optics package of the G36.
Oh - hell - just go with a G36K and you got all you will need.
 
No flame, just an observation.

Some have noted the three-round burst as a POS. I know you can tease off single and double shots out of full auto without much trouble. Isn't it demeaning to have the gum't decide you're too stupid to be taught trigger control and try to substitute technology for your judgment?

Just a thought. :D

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o I raised my hand to eye level, like pointing a finger, and fired. Wild Bill Hickok
o If you have to shoot a man, shoot him in the guts... Wild Bill Hickok
o 45 ACP: Give 'em a new navel! BigG
o It is not the function of our government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error. Justice Robert H. Jackson
o It is error alone that needs government support; truth can stand by itself. Tom Jefferson
o When you attempt to rationalize two inconsistent positions, you risk drowning as your own sewage backs up. BigG
 
BigG, the problem is, look at Vietnam---it seems the average 19-year-old grunt IS incapable of using trigger control under stress. Personally I think they should have made the M16A2 semiauto only.
Shin, my experience runs counter to yours as far as reliability goes. Guess we will have to agree to disagree on that subject.
 
BigG - a good observation...
What the Gumit is doing is saving money by avoiding the additional training needed to get good with the trigger... What are they saving? About 4 or 5 magazines worth of ammo. I know many a grunt that even on FA could easily fire singles. Myself included and I was no Iron Mike.
By putting in a 3 round burst they are saving some cash in ammo and they think that they forcing the soldiers to fire more carfully.
I dont care for the 3 round burst feature - and with the A2 I always kept it on single anyways.
The FAL is intended to be a Semi Auto weapon by design - and shooting it, I dont mind that at all. You want to fire your rounds more accurately... you only have 20 in the box and your not packing as many either. Yet I dont feel undergunned at all with that in my hands.
Thats what the Army needs to do - make a that fires .308 again and keep the weight down to keep it handy. But I Dream here... In this modern foppish army they will probably go to .17 Remington and be semi autos that weigh in about 3 pounds most cause 1/2 the troops cant even do 20 pushups. Asking them to do so might get them to raise there Stress Cards!
:mad:
 
George - The Army Ordnance Department has an institutional bias against the troops being able to fire large amounts of ammunition that goes back alomost to it's inception.

Breech loaders, repeaters, and semi autos were all fought by the establishment. Our early repeaters all had magazine cut offs so that the troops could single load ammo. The intention was that the magazine should be used in a combat emergency only.

I think it's ironic that we forced the 7.62x51 round on NATO, when all of the Europeans wanted to go to a smaller midsize cartridge. The FN FAL was originally developed for a midsized round. Then a few years after we forced everyone to adopt 7.62x51, we changed our standard round to 5.56x45. NATO didn't catch up until about 85 when the SS109/M855 was designated the NATO standard round.

The adoption of the burst device doesn't surprise me in the least, given the history of American military small arms development.

Given that the wounding effects of M855 are optimized at velocities of 2700 fps and higher, I think we are giving up a lot of capability by going to the M4 in Infantry units. This cuts our effective range to a little more then 100 meters. (I don't mean effective range that we can hit a target, but effective range we can depend on the massive wounds that 5.56x45 is known for). Even the 20" barrels on the A1 and A2 only maintain this velocity out to about 180 meters. One could argue that most engagements are close range anyway, but I still like to be able to effectively hit out as far as I can.

There has been some talk of going to a 6mm cartridge, but I don't see that happening anytime soon. You have to remember that we don't even have enough money in the budget to give the entire force one rifle that uses one round of ammunition and that is at a cost of about $460.00 each. This would allow us to produce just one type of 5.56mm ammuntion. Although they may be keeping the A1s in the system to use up stocks of M193. The M1 Garand was originally supposed to be .276 caliber, but was changed to .30 caliber because of the large stocks of .30 Calber ammo that were left over from WWI. You can shoot M193 through the M16A2 without much loss of effectiveness if you do need to burn up the stocks of M193.

I would issue the Canadian C7 to most troops, save the M4 for special units and PLs, PSGs, RTOs etc.

I'm not familarwith the G-36 so I won't comment on it. But I don't see us making any big changes in small arms any time soon.

Jeff
 
I would give a SAW (M-249) to all infantry members and tell them to just deal with it.
The SAW was light and handy and plenty accurate, and fired at a very controlled rate that was easy as hell to fire singles and doubles with. Seriously.
They would have to go though a lot of ammo all the time but to compinsate I would fire and sell off the Ordinance Department and replace it with a more understanding system... Like the Marine Corps.

Hey - there is a Squad Automatic Weapon version of the G36, right? Dang - HK does good stuff - Didnt it? Watch out for Colt trying to make them produce the Colt 2000!

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I mean, if I went around saying I was an Emperor because some
moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, people would put me away!
 
Talk about heavy, the M249 PIP with the 200 round battle pack is around 24 pounds, well it is lighter than the M240G, but every riflemen with a SAW, wow that would provide hellatous firepower to the unit. The PIP SAWs have a 750-850 RPM rate of fire, and troops are told to fire 5-7 round bursts, because it under that rate sometimes compromises relability. The old SAW had a 1000 RPM (I know normal gave you around 750RPM, but who ever left the regulator in normal)
 
Or use the G36K with the weirdo double drum. Then you don't have to deal with the obnoxious box and bipod.
But I'd just stick with the 30rd mags. You know what's best about the G36? It's not an M16.
 
Jeff, I have a decent amount of experience with the A1 on full auto and you are correct that it is easy to learn how to control your bursts with a little bit of practice. However, the poit I was trying to make was that most infantry units will not have the time to not only develop the skill, but remain proficient in doing so. The ability to control your weapon to fire precise burst needs to be ingrained into muscle memory because when the brown stuff hits the fan most people will not retain the presence of mind to control their rate of fire. Yeah, if you're a team leader or a squad leader you have time behind the stock and you can do it, but your average private does not get the training to do so. I agree, blanks are a great training tool, and there is nothing sweeter than having your guns "talking" as the assault element moves up to your objective, but once again. It is a difficult skill to master if your unit does not have the funds and time to go to the range or even to get you the blanks you want to train with. My last job was as a PSG in the 10th Mtn. And I hate to admit it, but we were always short of ammo for training. Hell, I was lucky if my riflemen would get 120 blank rounds to train for a platoon assault with prior to going down range. I agree with all of your training techniques, have used many of them. BUT you can't train if you don't get the money or time because your troops are always on post police or funeral detail or West Point "Support" or deployed to Bosnia or the Sinai. That's why I say that you don't get time to get proficient unless you're in the SOF community. Remember, Its the zero defect army and we're "doing more with less" now. What an oxymoron huh?

So to stop myself from going on and on and on I'll just say that with training, time and funds any unit can become truly proficent and capable, it's just that not all/most units get those things.

Good luck with the reserve component

Pete

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Walk softly and carry a big stick (Yeah I know I stole it)
 
But the LandWarriorSysytem will give the Privets and PFCs space age computers so they can...Uh, use cutting edge technology to...Ah...It's a force multiplier allowing the average grunt to...Um...Compute...
 
STLRN - I thought the Marines didn't adopt the PIP M249. I don't see much use for the modifications they did on it. The one thing the could have done (beef up the bipod) they ignored, go figure.

Pete - I know what you mean about doing more with less. Some days I swear I'll put in my retirement papers the next time a field grade uses that phrase in a motivational speech :) I still think we should dump the burst device and go back to training our soldiers to be soldiers. I sense a repeat of the Task Force Smith debacle in our future. As soon as we deploy these troops who have spent all their time on post police, funeral and peacekeeping details into a real conflict. I guess we will just never learn. As a nation we seem to have to relearn these lessons over and over again.

Jeff
 
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