Army covered up failures of faulty rifle for more than a decade

USArmyM4Carbine.jpg


U.S. Army covered up failures of faulty rifle for more than a decade. As if it’s not bad enough sending men over there with rules of engagement so restrictive they can’t do their jobs, we also give them a rifle that jams as soon as they’re in a firefight. The money quote:

“Why does the world’s greatest superpower have less capable small arms than the enemy? For whatever reasons, we are perfectly happy to give soldiers and Marines crappy small arms and not pay any attention to it.”

This post was last modified on February 23, 2014

J.P. Travis: Born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976 graduate of University of Michigan, father, grandfather, husband, founder and CEO of Travelyn Publishing (http://www.travelynpublishing.com/), and passionate anti-government believer in individual liberty.

View Comments (49)

  • This is what happens when the lowest bidder is selected. This is what happens when those screening are hand selected by those in the pentagon. What needs to happen is that people are selected just like for jury duty and the observe the testing. If they wish they can partake in the testing as well.

    • I don't believe the government ever selects the "lowest bidder". That is just eyewash for us proles from the nomenklatura. The bidder that is selected is the one that offers the highest kickback to the procurement and elected people. Thus quality is the lowest concern.

      • Remember the story about the Bradley? How they went through the process of making it into something it wasn't originally intended to do.

        • If you're talking about the Pentagon designing weapons by committee, and the committee being overly influenced by the contractors, I think you've hit on the problem with the M4. And the F-35. And a hundred other procurements by the Defense Department. By the time each service representative gets done listing their requirements, and the contractor gets done making it cheaper, you have a monstrosity of compromises that isn't really especially good at anything. My dad talks about how bad the American grenade was in WWII, and the American radios. Both items were jettisoned almost as fast as the chemical warfare gear. As soon as they could get German versions - which actually worked - they did. And I'm sure you could go back in time to British military history and find older examples. So this is the history of military procurement. Nobody gives a shit about the grunts.

          • My great uncle always said you could tell the German machine guns from the American ones because they fired a lot faster. I assume he was referring to MP-40's.

          • From what I've read:
            Probably the MG 42. The Germans figured out that putting ball bearings on the bolt assembly allowed it to move a lot faster. The M60 was designed around the MG42 but the rate of fire was deliberately reduced to prolong periods of fire between barrel change outs.

          • Yeah, Dad also says the German machine guns were better. Which surprised me because I've always heard about how great the M2 is. Hell, they still use the M2 today, right? So how could the German have had something better?

          • No the M2 is the exception, its a beast that serves well from antiaircraft to anti -badguy.
            Its a "heavy" machine gun ( and it really is..near 80 pounds) that fires a huge 50 caliber projectile.

            The German MG 34 and 42 were "light" machine guns with an extremely high cyclic rate.

            The MP40 is a "sub machine gun" that fires 9mm pistol rounds.

          • Ma Deuce. Behind a door? No problem! Behind a cinder block wall? No problem. Behind a cement wall? Takes a few more rounds, but no problem!

          • Yeah, the police here in D-land have fully automatic MP40's clipped in their cars....but think American cop's are brutal for having 12 gauge shotguns.

    • They had a competition a while back. The M4 carbine jammed three times more often than any other gun. Then the Army's inspector general came down on the Army for having the competition - she said they didn't need a new gun, they just needed to fix the M4. She must have stock in the manufacturer, only thing I can figure.

  • In Afghanistan they'd be better off with an M-1 Garand or an M-14. They can reach out and touch someone a lot farther than any .223.

    • Honestly, I was never impressed with the M-16. Just a few grains of sand will jam it up, and the .223 is just an overgrown .22. The round is just too damn light to have any real stopping power, although I do like the way it is designed to "tumble".

      Just my humble opinion though.

  • It isn't like this administration gives a damn about our military, I sure if obama had his way our soldiers would be limited to cap guns.

  • I sent my youngest son magazines for his M4 in 2007 Iraq.

    My oldest son mostly carried an M-14 but sometimes carried the Belgian made SCAR in Afghanistan. He has a custom built AR-15 {Paid $1200 for it two years ago} which he took to the Fort Bragg area. He said there was only one other comparable gun on the whole base. They couldn't believe what he paid for it.

    I bought a Colt AR-15 in 1979 for $309. It has never jammed. It is way more accurate than the ones they make today.

    • My son also went to Iraq in 2007. Since he was an NCO in the national guard, one of his jobs was to literally go all over the state borrowing enough equipment for the 100 man unit to deploy (this was a volunteer group that deployed a year before the rest of the brigade).

      Until they got to Kuwait and received new issue, they had exactly ONE rifle that functioned.

      A few years later when he went to Afghanistan, it became obvious that the M4 lacks the range for most of the remote areas, so does the AK, but the old soviet Mosens could reach way out there.

      The 5.56 / .223 is a great plinker, and obviously has been used with a measure of success, but it is a compromise for sure.

      And yes, we bought his magazines to send with him, including 9mm for the sidearm he also had in Iraq.

      • The .223 was (I believe) developed originally as a varmint round. Like for prairie dogs, etc.

        If you watch history you can go back to the Philippines in the early 1900's. The .38 Long Colt didn't do shit as a man stopper so they went back to the .45 Long Colt. This was the impetus for the .45 Auto being developed.

        So we had the 30-06 and the .308 tossed under the bus for the .223. We get the same results.

        Those who don't read history are doomed to repeat it.

        • The .223 is the reason for the AR-10, which is basically an AR-15 chambered for .308. Not much difference between them except for the round and appropriate parts.

    • In the article there's a Green Beret who buys his own magazines. He says the Army magazines are old and the springs are often shot, and of course the middle of a firefight is a bad time to learn you have a magazine with a bad spring. A general asks the question, why are men dying for a $1.79 part when airplanes cost $500 million? This stuff just pisses me off. Politicians back in D.C. waste enough money in ten minutes to buy the very best magazines available for every single soldier in Afghanistan.

  • Nice to know our troops are going into combat with a state of the art rifle, that's easily out classed by a stamped out soviet rifle designed by in the 40s.
    Somebody's covering their asses, it kinda reminds me of the WWII submarine torpedo malfunctions nobody wanted to admit to.

  • FTA: “The M4 was the basic individual weapon carried by U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan and was not designed to fire at the maximum or cyclic rate for extended periods."

    Well WTF why not?!? Isn't that what a effin war is?!?

    Isn't this Vietnam all over again? I heard how they'd ditch the M-16s (was that it then?) as soon as they could scavenge an AK off Charlie.

      • AND every soldier since then, kinda a corporate memory. Also, Rodger, I think this means that you're a VN Vet. Thank you for not runnin off to Canada older brother! HOOYAAH

      • The Marines refused to give up their M-1s until they were literally confiscated from them. They knew there were problems with the M-16s when they were issued to them without cleaning kits, and told they didn't need to clean them. They held out until they got cleaning kits.

        • The problem is too many rifles, thankfully a White House resident came with a brilliant solution while having a golf party with McCain and Chris Christie, the new executive orders is that there will be only 1 rifle for every 5 soldiers...

          • Oh Lord, don't get that debate started. I'm not a gun person like the rest of you but I am a cesspool of irrelevant factoids and I tried to tell a relative once that a musket could have a rifled barrel and he kept insisting that if the barrel is rifled it's not called a musket. I say, if you load it like a musket it's a musket, no matter what the barrel is like inside. During the Napoleonic Wars the British made extensive use of riflemen who loaded their guns like muskets - it took them much longer to load than a normal musket so their rate of fire was slower but of course much more accurate. Since they were called riflemen, I think that's where the habit started of calling front-loaded guns with rifled barrels "rifles" instead of muskets, but I don't care, they're muskets to me.

          • According to WIKIPEDIA JP, you're wrong wrong wrongity wrong, again. LOL
            j/k bru
            A rifled musket or rifle musket is a type of firearm made in the mid-19th century. Originally the term referred only to muskets that had been produced as a smoothbore weapon and later had their barrels rifled. The term was later extended to include rifles that directly replaced, and were of the same design overall, as a particular model of smoothbore musket.

          • Hey, they call it a "rifled musket" right there in your quotation so it's a musket. And why did you have to say "again"? The only time I've ever been wrong in my life is once a long time ago when I thought I was wrong and it turned out I was right... so I was wrong about being wrong.

          • If you guys don't knock it off, I'm going to bring in my buddy with ALL the info on every gun ever made to tell you the story of firearms from the beginning to modern day.
            It will take him about 10-15 years to finish.

        • We carried M-14's....Made us turn them in for the 16's which failed miserably (see the battle on hill 881 s). Gave us back the M-14's for a while and then re-issued the 16's again. Brass blamed the problem on us then too. Nothing changes.

          • I typo'd, I meant M-14s. Sometimes the new computer drops a letter when I'm typing, and I don't always catch it.

          • Not a problem...comes with advanced age.... What, I think, bothered us most was that we all went through boot camp, Infantry training, qualifying, with the M14. You get to VN and they take a weapon you are familiar with and replace it with one you've never seen before...much less fired. No training whatsoever. What could possibly go wrong???

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