Why did the U.S. Military give up on the M-14 so quickly?

[Exposure]

This is a serious question not intended to start any flame wars.

I own an M1 Garand and feel it is probably one of the finest rifles ever produced.

The M-14 with its box magazine and full auto capability seem like a wonderful evolution of the Garand. I have heard that full auto was not very controllable but from prone on a bipod how bad could it have honestly been? It seems as though the M-14 was replaced as the primary rifle to our troops LONG before its useful lifetime was up. I have seen pictures of our troops deployed now who are carrying the M-14 so it can't have been THAT bad if there are still those who carry it today.

Don't get me wrong, I love the black rifles, personally I have had great luck with them. I am just curious as to why such a potentially long lived, reliable, long range, heavy hitting, do it all rifle was abandoned before it even came into its own.

Again, please no flaming or bickering! I am just curious.

 

[spartacus2002]

IIRC, there was some idiotic study done that said lots of wildly sprayed fire would produce more casualties than the well-aimed shot, and thus the M16 was adopted. No, I am not making this up.

I agree that the M14 is the finest battle rifle the Army has ever had. Imagine if we had kept all our stocks of M14s alongside M16s.

 

[pauli]

I have heard that full auto was not very controllable but from prone on a bipod how bad could it have honestly been?

well, let's see. the original m14s weighed barely half what a BAR weighed, had a cyclical rate that was about 33% faster, and fired comparable ammunition.

personally, i can see how minor issues might arise, were such things issued en mass to vietnam era troops.

 

[critter]

I think the country had, by that time, raised far too many young men who had NO experience with firearms at all. They were not given enough time and training to master the M14 and learn how to effectively use it. There are quite a few stories of a few of the soldiers who actually LOVED the M14 and used it to great advantage. Early in the Viet Nam war, several groups of Marines had and used M14's very well indeed and were much put off when they had to trade them in for the mouseguns.

BTW, all my above 'knowledge' is second hand but based on reading books by some of those marines.

 

[Exposure]

well, let's see. the original m14s weighed barely half what a BAR weighed, had a cyclical rate that was about 33% faster, and fired comparable ammunition.

Most M-14's were set up so that full auto was not available. So that being the case I still fail to see why they were pulled as the main battle rifle so quickly.

 

[Oldnamvet]

I trained with the M-14 and the M-16. At times I carried each in RVN. The M-16 was lighter, and being a smaller caliber, you could carry more ammo. It was also being manufactured and issued to the ARVNs since they were not big enough to handle the M-14. I think it came down to standardization and weight. But when Charlie was hiding behind a small tree, the M-16 tore off chunks of bark. The M-14 shot through the tree and Charlie. More than once, when it was necessary to clear out a tree to allow a Huey to land, an M-14 was used to quickly shoot the tree in half. M-16 didn't have a prayer. The M-14 was also great at distance but then you couldn't see more than 50 yards much of the time where I was.
Personally, I preferred an M-14 on semi-auto over the M-16.

 

[Chawbaccer]

I think it was a feeling of needing something new, something that they thought could equal the AK 47. Maybe McNamara owed Stoner a favor.

 

[Cpl Punishment]

I believe that the M16 was another case of Robert McNamara shoving one of his boondoggles down the military's throat. We probably would have switched to something else in time, but the whole M16 project was shoved down everyone's throat, IMO before all the bugs were worked out.

 

[Oldnamvet]

Equal the AK-47? Not even close back then. The AK was one of the most rugged dependable rifles I ever saw. Where the M-16 would Jam, the AK was keep going without a hitch regardless of the amount of dirt and rust on it. I don't know the current reliability of the M-16 but I would bet that sand is much more of an issue for it than for the AK-47.

 

[1 old 0311]

The 14 I carried in Vietnam had a selector switch.It was heavier than the 16 but could really reach out stop what you hit.

Kevin
A 1/3 3rd Mar Div.
I Corp. 69-70

 

[pauli]

Most M-14's were set up so that full auto was not available. So that being the case I still fail to see why they were pulled as the main battle rifle so quickly.

right, but i was specifically answering your question about full auto controllability.

 

[Exposure]

right, but i was specifically answering your question about full auto controllability.

Sorry, I wasn't trying to jump down your throat with my response! No harm meant.

 

[MudPuppy]

A controllable weapon on full auto only in prone and with bipod was probably contrary to the flavor of the day in military strategy and tactics. We generally like to fight the last war--in the 50's I'd assume the War College was championing the lessons of the blitzkrieg.

 

[rbernie]

Why did the U.S. Military give up on the M-14 so quickly?

Because it didn't fit in with the war-fighting doctrine of the time. Therefore, if you want an answer to the question, you need to research what the warfighting approach and concerns were back in the late 50's/early 60's.

When the strategy makers perception regarding the rules of engagment change, the hardware changes with it. Nothing personal - just trying to match the tool to the job. Kinda like moving from battleships to aircraft carriers and from aircraft carriers to smaller coastal vessels - just an evolution of the tools to meet the perceived threats of the time....

 

[ksnecktieman]

I was regular army from 1966 to 1969, and my basic training and tour of duty was with the M14. No auto fire, semi auto only. I felt it was a fine weapon, and the first time I handled an M16 I was glad that my issue was an M14. I did not go into combat with it,,, but,,, if I did??? I do not think the weight of its ammo would have made me want to switch. The 16 felt like a toy, and the bullets looked tiny. I felt that if I was going to poke my head up where I could be shot at, so I could shoot someone I wanted the first shot I fired to be sufficient.

 

[mustanger98]

During the spring semester this year, I took a class on Vietnam. On the first day of this class, I guess I opened my mouth one too many times which didn't take but once, and wound up having to get research together to cover the M16. To give the class a better view, I went all the way back to the '03 Springfield and brought them up to date so they could not only see the M16, but also what all else "was available" and what our guys with M16s were up against.

John C. Garand was in on the improvements on the M1 that became the M14. IIRC, the development of the M14 started by the gov't before WW2 even ended and development of the M16 started in 1947 or '48 by Armalite which was a division of Fairchild Aircraft Co. I don't know what the relationship was between McNamara and Stoner, but I read that McNamara was the guy that brought us the 1957 Ford Edsel.

My 2nd cousin, actually two of my 2nd cousins, were Marines. One was there in '65-'67 and he had the M14. He said it's a superb weapon. His brother was there in '68-'69 and had the M16 and said it was a good weapon, accurate if it's operator was accurate, but it wouldn't be his first choice.

One of my online buddies (on another board) advised me, should I aquire a class 3 M14, to put it in a E2 stock (has a pistol grip) and add a sling, bipod, and stabilizer. The added weight and function of the accessories makes recoil more managable in full auto.

What was said earlier about not all M14's being issued with "the switch" is true to my knowledge. And there are times you do not want to be firing full auto anyway. IIRC, individual rifles were chosen at Battallion level to have the selector activated to serve as squad automatics.

All that said, other than politics and economics, I still don't see why the M14's were mothballed or scrapped. They're obviously needed today.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

I was one of those transitional troops. Trained on the M14 Stateside, and was issued an M16 when I arrived in Vietnam.

I loathed both of them. This far removed, I honestly don't recall which I hated more. Nor do I have any idea what I think might have been a better choice. All I remember is that anyone who could, picked up an AK-47 and carried that.

 

[Dienekes]

The book, "The Black Rifle", by Ezell covers it pretty well. Worth a read, covers the subject.

I was just an AF AP headed over to SEA in '66 and just prior to going over we got some familiarization training on the new wonder weapon, the M16. Ammo was issued in plain white boxes. It was a considerable step up from the clapped out M2 carbines we had so I suppose you could call it progress...

In later years I got acquainted with the M14 and currently own an M1A--no ARs anymore.

My own take on it is that the powers that were (who by the way did not have an * by being wrong) got infatuated with the whole idea. Sort of like the law enforcement stampede to semiautos in the 80s.

Don't look for any logical reasons, because there aren't any...

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Because it didn't fit in with the war-fighting doctrine of the time.

Actually, it was the M16 that didn't fit our tactics. The Army intially rejected the M16 because it failed its tests. MacNamara pushed it on us, and it was a miserable weapon as issued in the mid-60s.

I trained on the M1 right through OCS, shot the M14 in competition and in training as an officer, carried an M1 for most of my first tour as an adviser and managed to scrounge up an M14 (accurized and scoped, pre-M21) on my second tour.

 

[rbernie]

Actually, it was the M16 that didn't fit our tactics.

Bwahahahahaaaa - teaches me to presume too much.

Obviously, somewhere along the way our tactics changed to fit the M16 - was that a good or bad thing? (I suspect that's the real gist of the original question...)

 

[JohnKSa]

I believe that the M16 was another case of Robert McNamara shoving one of his boondoggles down the military's throat. We probably would have switched to something else in time, but the whole M16 project was shoved down everyone's throat, IMO before all the bugs were worked out.

It's not quite that simple but you're on the right track.

Had the military been more open and above board in their testing things would have probably gone a lot more smoothly, and the military might have ended up with something that was much more of a compromise. But it didn't take much investigation to determine that the military had been somewhat disengenous both in selecting the M14 and in the testing it did of the M16 prototypes. The military created an atmosphere that made it impossible for anyone to work with them because it had already demonstrated that it was willing and capable of playing dirty pool.

So instead of being a constructive part of the process the military ended up getting something shoved down their throat.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Obviously, somewhere along the way our tactics changed to fit the M16 - was that a good or bad thing? (I suspect that's the real gist of the original question...)

Pretty bad thing -- having full auto capability encouraged spray-and-pray shooting. When my company (one I had back in the 'States) had the M14, I kept the selector switches locked in the company safe.

My company in Viet Nam had the M16, and I made it an automatic Article 15 offense, with a $50 fine to fire it full auto.

 

[TwoGun]

It had a lot to do with the military's decision to go away from aimed fire to mass firepower. Fewer and fewer new soldiers knew how to fire a weapon properly as we became more and more urbanized. The amount of training time and money required to train troops to be good marksman was pretty substantial. It made a certain economic sense to save the training money and ammo and then spend it on massive firepower only in time of war.

I personally don't buy into it a lot, and there were numerous other influences, but money was a factor.

I was a marksmanship instructor in a unit for ten years. It took a great deal of work to get even half the company to shoot expert and I felt that the standards were low as it was. The desire, at that time at least, for individual soldiers who could halfway shoot was pretty low in the upper ranks in those days. I hope its different now.

 

[Preacherman]

One word - McNamara.

 

[Tse Gee La]

In the History Channel show on the M-16 they mentioned that after Colt had bought the rights to the Stoner M-15, they invited several 4 star generals to a picnic. At the picnic they allowed the Generals to look at and fire the M-16's.

The Air Force and Army ordered a few hundred for testing. These where sent to the Army's testing facility, who had been responsible for almost all of the Army's previous weapons. Due to animosity over the circumvention of the ussual process, the Test and Evaluation guys tinkered with the M-16's and managed to mess them up before testing.

After they where done locally they sent the T&E weapons where sent to Alaska for testing in cold weather. Again the rifles failed.

The Air Forse ended up liking the M-16 and wanted to use them for base security personnel. The army did not want the M-16 due to malfunctions, even though every problem they found came from unauthorized tinkering.

Maknamara (sp?) and the other bean counters hired by JFK wanted uniformity in the Military as an attempt to lower costs. So the M-16 was ordered for all branches of the military.

In an attempt ot lower the cost of the M-16 Maknamara also changed the specs on the ordered weapons. ie: Non-chromed barrels. With the leack of a chromed barrel and a surplus on new ammo designed to funtion in the M-16, as designed, the corosive properties of the ammo caused most of the malfunctions in the newer weapons in Vietnam.

These new weapons were also shipped without cleaning kits due to an initail misunderstanding over the self cleaning gas system. The M-16 was touted as a self cleaning weapon with no need to clean.

Once the problems where finally all known about, chromed barrels and cleaning kits helped to remeddy the failures.

As for pray and spray thinking, I think that is a pretty good reason to have gone to the M-16 when you get more ammo for the same weight and can cover a field of fire with lots of lead. Of course due to our newer rules of engagement and more common urban fighting the filling a field of fire with lead idea isn't any good.

Personally I think the "Men's Black Barbi Doll" is a nice weapon but, I would rather have the M14/M1A and lead me to purchase a Springfield SOCOM. Short rifle handeling with larger bullets.

In Mark Bowden's "Blackhawk Down" it is mentioned that Randy Shugart refused to use the M-16 and it's armor piercing rounds due to their ineffectiveness against combatants. The larger 7.62mm round was better at putting people down. The 5.56mm would simply pass throught the person with little affect.

Sorry for rambling on, I hope it helps.