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surprise_i'm_armed wrote:On page 1 of this thread, TAM had posted a longish piece which contained this:

U.S. special operations forces, with their own acquisition budget and the latitude to buy gear the other military branches can't, already are replacing their M4s with a new rifle.

Does anyone know what rifle this is?

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During a D-Day show, probably on the History Channel they interviewed an old man who
had been a German soldier who manned a bunker overlooking Normandy Beach.

He was a machine gunner. I don't know which German MG he had. Here was this pleasant
looking grandfatherly gentleman, recalling the battle. He had 12 boxes of ammo for his MG.
Each box had 1,000 rounds. After he had killed as many Allied troops as possible with his
12,000 rounds, he escaped from the bunker and was captured by Allied troops.

He never let on what his mission had just been since he expected to have been executed
on the spot. He may have been one of the deadliest German defenders that day.

No mention was made on how long it took him to fire 12,000 rounds. No mention was made of
any failures.

SIA

mbw wrote:I had a long talk with a little buddy that lives down the street who served 2 tours in Iraq and 1tour in Afghanistan. He carried the M4 and of course his squad had a SAW. His first thought was a maintenance problem. He said that the guys that stay in one place without running patrols tend to get real sloppy with weapon maintenance. And because they were in a fixed position, there is no explanation why all SAW’s did not have the extra barrels at the ready and located with the weapons.

He said that the guys that stay in one place without running patrols tend to get real sloppy with weapon maintenance

And because they were in a fixed position, there is no explanation why all SAW’s did not have the extra barrels at the ready and located with the weapons

casingpoint wrote:How did the Germans handle this problem in WWII?

The Annoyed Man wrote:FWIW, I don't buy into the much maligned reliability of the M4/M16. Is it the most reliable rifle out there? Probably not... but then I've read accounts of M1 Garands jamming in WW2, and a former roommate of mine who carried an M14 in Vietnam (Marine Corps, prior to Tet) said that his jammed once. I think the bottom line is that rifles, particularly rifles with a full auto capability, get abused when the fighting gets bad enough, and the abuse can lead to failures. It's a machine, and machines can break. FWIW, neither do I buy into the much vaunted reliability of the AK47. They aren't perfect or magically jam free either.

It sounds to me like the soldiers in this fight were faced with insufficient numbers and support against a numerically superior enemy, and they had to fight to the point of equipment failure. It's a sad fact, but it happens. A small number of good guys against a large number of bad guys means that the good guys need to individually fire more rounds than do the individual bad guys in order to achieve parity in the fight, and even more rounds than that to achieve supremacy in the fight. It would seem to me that there is a point at which the good guys just can't get enough rounds down range without hammering their equipment.

Longhorn_92, I think you're right... ...it's the HK416 I'm thinking of.

KD5NRH wrote:

bdickens wrote:I just don't get how after 40 years this myth is still going around that the M-16 platform is unreliable.

Name another platform for which very nearly every tactical instructor recommends you pull the mag back out and make sure a round chambered.

Name another platform for which very nearly every tactical instructor recommends that you short-load the mags by at least two rounds.

Silverhawk wrote:The M-16 series has had problems with jamming since coming in service. I hated carrying it in Vietnam. Gave it up for a M-79 Thumper and a 45. I'm amazed a General is unaware for the problem. When that young female was captured and rescued she said her weapon and her Sargent's weapon jammed and could not be cleared. Overheating can be a problem with any automatic weapon. The 2nd version of the M-16 had a selector switch for single or three shot burst. They removed the option of full automatic because too many troops would not use trigetr control and either overheated the barrel or ran out of ammo in the middle of a firefight. Everyone should know that it is impossible to maintain a weapon in the middle of a firefight, no matter how clean it was when you started. I don't remember any malfuncations with the M-60 machine gun, but wasn't round one much. We NEED a service rifle that will not fail when it is most needed.

The Annoyed Man wrote:

Purplehood wrote:In my experience, E. Afghanistan was fairly moderate for highs and lows of temperature. It reminded me of the Western Slope in Colorado where I grew up. I was right on the Pakistan border and visited some of the outposts. I doubt ambient temperature was the culprit. My guess is that it was simply barrels that could not take the extreme demands for Rate of Fire.

I meant barrel temperature, not ambient temperature. Sorry about the confusion. The article mentions "white hot" barrels. I assume that if a barrel glows white hot, the properties of the metal are changed, bore diameters are affected one way or the other, etc., etc.