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