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

[9mmepiphany]

it is also interesting that the 7.62x51mm was rammed down the throat of our NATO allies during the early cold war years.

the allies were quite taken with the blitzkrieg tactics and the german "assault rifles" (G43/44). they wanted a gun that could be issued to every soldier with controlable automatic fire... the english actually had a very promising 7mm round.

the US didn't want to go with somthing NIH (not invented here) and put forth a very slightly shortened 30'06 round. the round was marginally shorter and less powerful, but it proved less than controlable, in full auto fire, in a shoulder fired weapon...thus negating the original intent of the "assault rifle". but since the US was the "big kid on the block" they were able to force it's adoption by NATO. they should have just copied the 8mm kurtz (short) round the germans were using, maybe adapted it to the more common, in the US, .30 calibre bullet for the true assault weapon.

oh wait that's what the russians did ...and didn't their round and companion rifle remain the standard for multiple countries for decades?

i believe that the M14 had a limited service life, as a ageneral issue rifle, because it didn't really meet the needs of the military as a general issue weapon. it was really designed to fill the role it plays now in the military...assigned to a designated "long rifle" guy

 

[Gabe]

Nitpicking here, the G43 was a German semiautomatic in 8mm Mauser. The MP-43 is what you're referring to but that came about long after Germany's blitz days were over.

Criticizm for the M-16 actually falls into two areas, the rifle, and the ammunition. The original rifle was not a mature combat weapon. This is what happens when you issue something new in the middle of a war. People forget that the original Garand from 1936 had problems with its gas system also, but we ironed them out by the time the Big One started.

As for the 5.56 ammunition. I think it was actually ideal for a jungle environment where small units had to patrol out and leg all their supplies. The ammunition was effective enough and you got enough to last.

Obviously there were things 7.62Nato did well like barrier penetration. But that's what the M-60 is for. Yeah I know nobody loved The Pig either. Maybe they should've issued Bren guns in 7.62Nato.

My choice of platoon weapons for Vietnam would be Brens and AR-18s. The Army should've tried both the AR-18 and M-16 in the field and ordered the superior rifle, which in the 1960's surely was the AR-18.

 

[Sam]

Robert S. McNamara. Remember the S. stood for STRANGE, and the only noteworthy thing he did before becoming SECDEF was the Edsel.

Really the 14 was and is a nice rifle for people that know and like rifles. The 16 is a good thing for people who cannot or will not learn to know and like rifles.

The switch was a bad thing to put on a M14 The switch was a bad thing to put on the a M16. Install riot locks on your 16's and your troops will do better and live longer.

Sam

 

[Gabe]

You guys are too hard on MacNamara. If he had his way US would've pulled out of Vietnam long before it got bad. Call him a bean counter, but he dramatically increased airforce bombing profeciency over Germany and Japan.

Plus he's the guy who started doing automobile crash tests and brought us crumple zones and seatbelts from a major carmaker.

 

[Jeff White]

The M14 was scrapped because they couldn't successfully mass produce them

Originally they were supposed to be able to be built on the same machinery and tooling that the M1 was built with. That didn't turn out to be the case. There were all kinds of production problems. It was a big scandal that the troops at the pointy end of the spear in Berlin were still armed with the M1 in 1960 during one of the Berlin crisis' 3 years after the M14 had been adopted.

The commanders in Vietnam were screaming for the M16. The M16 was bought as an interim weapon for use in Vietnam and McNamara ordered development stopped on the M14, because any minute now the big breakthrough in the SPIW program was supposed to happen. McNamara didn't see the need to keep developing the M14 and buy the M16 for the units in Vietnam when he planned to replace both of them with the SPIW. So further development and production of the M14 was stopped in either 63 or 64 and the savings from that program went into development of the SPIW.

It turned out that the big breakthrough in the SPIW never happened and sometime right before I went in the Army in 74 the decision was made to give everyone the M16 by whoever was Secretary of Defense then.

We're still trying to build the SPIW only now the program is called the OICW and if they ever get it working it will replace the M16. So I guess we're still on track with McNamara's plan....It's just taking several decades longer to work out the bugs in the replacement.

Jeff

 

[Tony Williams]

The postwar history of US (and NATO) military rifle ammo is a long and tortuous one which is difficult to summarise briefly (those who want the history in more detail can always buy Assault Rifle )

However, several factors came together, namely:

1 - lots of US research which showed that a small-calibre, less powerful round would have advantages over the big 7.62x51

2 - the availability of an alternative in the form of the AR-15, backed up by glowing (and rather misleading) reports of the effectiveness of a trial batch of AR-15s in Vietnam

3 - a poor production quality record for the M14

4 - McNamara did not like the Springfield arsenal and was determined to close it.

There could be others...

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

[rabbit]

Read a book called "Misfire" some years back and tried to buy it recently but it is out of print and the lowest price I could find is like 50 bucks. If half of what that book says is true, and other books I have read mostly support it, then the M-16 would have been the best weapon we ever had if the defence department had not screwed with it. After seeing what the military has done with other originally decent peices of equipment- trying to make it "better" I tend to believe this. I wont go into a long dissertation on what the book says; here is the short course.

1. Firepower kills. In real combat, statistically, the more bullets you shoot in the direction of the enemy, the more chance you have of winning. The germans understood this in WWII and turned their infantry into what we would have called machine gun companies, with everything supporting those hi-speed machine guns.

2. In MOST firefights, statistically, automatic fire at under a hundred yards, is the most effective type of fire. Compare an M14 and an AK (or M16) and you find the M14 guys at a big disadvantage.

3. More ammo carried, controllable in automatic fire (M-14 was definitely not) and lighter. The green berets spoke very highly of the original un-screwed-with model. Mcnamara chose the right weapon, but the army was unhappy with it and decided to make "improvements" and also use ammunition not recommended- which is what made it prone to jam.

I believe in Operational Research, using numbers to win. It's what defeated the Uboats in WWII, and was always successful when applied properly. If we had just copied the AK (unthinkable!) we probably would have been ahead of the game.

 

[Cpl Punishment]

This might be straying off the original topic a bit, but. . .

I think it's funny, that it took us 40 years to finally come to the right answer: combined weaponry.

The M16 (the 20" specifically, don't care if it's A2 or A3) is a nasty little weapon out to 300 meters, with the proper ammunition. The proper ammunition being the original 55-gr FMJ or the new 77-gr OTM. The SS109 bullets are simply not as effective, and were a NATO stipulation to make believe that the 5.56 was a hard cover penetrator (we rammed the 7.62mm and just a few years later the 5.56mm down their throats, and they rammed the SS109 up our butts).

Combine that with a GPMG (M60 or M240), SAWs, rifle-mounted grenade launchers, and fill out the unit with designated markmen using much more powerful and longer ranged weapons than the general-issue rifle.

Hell the Russians figured this out in the 50's, what with the AK, the PPSh (not sure of the designation, the GPMG in 7.62x54R), the RPK (as their SAW) and the Dragunov.

The army is finally getting it's crap together by adopting the "every man's a rifleman first" philosophy that the Marines have used all along, adopting the DM role that, again, the Marines and Airborne units have been using, and emphasising individual marksmanship over spraying.

1. Firepower kills. In real combat, statistically, the more bullets you shoot in the direction of the enemy, the more chance you have of winning. The germans understood this in WWII and turned their infantry into what we would have called machine gun companies, with everything supporting those hi-speed machine guns.

2. In MOST firefights, statistically, automatic fire at under a hundred yards, is the most effective type of fire. Compare an M14 and an AK (or M16) and you find the M14 guys at a big disadvantage.

3. More ammo carried, controllable in automatic fire (M-14 was definitely not) and lighter. The green berets spoke very highly of the original un-screwed-with model. Mcnamara chose the right weapon, but the army was unhappy with it and decided to make "improvements" and also use ammunition not recommended- which is what made it prone to jam.

Yes and no. CONTROLLED full auto fire is a killer. You generally speaking, need a heavy weapon to control the recoil. This is the job of the M240/M249 gunners. The individual rifle is NOT good as a full auto weapon. It should be used against point (i.e. single) targets. Which is exactly how our guys are doing it, and it's working very well.

Maybe Vern can afirm or correct me on this, but I believe we would ahve been much better off using this philosophy way back in Vietnam as well. We didn't have SAWs back then, but from what I read, several spec-ops guys used the Minimi machinegun (which is what the SAW is based on) and loved it. Maybe if we'd adopted that back then and issued scoped M14s and the DM concept, our guys would have been that much more effective (although we lost that one due to political BS, not flaws in our tactics). Of course if you look at the casualties we dealt versus what we took, our guys still did extremely well back then, contrary to their reputation.

 

[LeonCarr]

If what I have read on various boards is true, most of the M14s in the US military inventory are not in storage, they are being used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Can any of the THR guys in Iraq or Afghanistan comment on this?

Just my .02,
LeonCarr

 

[buzz_knox]

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.

Blackhawk Down also makes abundantly clear that the 7.62 wasn't doing a good job of putting people down either. One M60 gunner put a burst into a Somali who kept going.

As for the M-14/M-16 controversy, the M-14 was developed in order to refight WW2. They wanted a full power cartridge and automatic fire. They apparently forgot that after WW1, they'd wanted to reject the full power cartridge as it wasn't needed anymore. WW1 and WW2 both emphasized the need for lighter calibers that enabled troops to carry more and which didn't need to be strong enough to bring down a horse (the traditional reason for such powerful cartridges, hit the horse and the calvalry advance is broken). They also wanted a weapon that would replace the M1 rifle, M1 carbine, BAR, and the various submachineguns. I think someone mentioned something about trying to cut costs as being a negative about the 16 right?

So, we get a nice rifle that was uncontrollable in full auto fire and which couldn't do the various jobs required.

Then, we get into Vietnam and the AR-15 (which had been moving along slowly) gets sent over as part of a program to equip Asian troops, and the American advisors think it's great. So, DoD is forced to test it and the head of Ordnance does everything possible to see it fail. Did I mention that Studler (the head of Ordnance) was the father of the 14 and was afraid that it would get cancelled if the 15 performed well? And it actually did well . . . once you take into account the rigged tests.

The historical problems with the 16 came from Congress monkeying with the ammunition (using powder it wasn't designed for in an effort to cut costs, leading to severe and predicted problems) and someone taking the "you don't have to clean it" bit and running with it. Too bad neither Armalite, Stoner or Colt ever said that.

I'd second the Black Rifle books. It sheds a lot of light on the subject and will disperse some of the myths surrounding the 16.

 

[Slater]

The US came very, very close to adopting the FN FAL (T48?) as it's standard issue rifle. In the end the M14 was chosen because (as was mentioned) it was thought that the M14 could be produced on M1 Garand tooling.

Edward Ezell's book "The Great Rifle Controversy" gives an interesting insight into the program. In the end, no one wanted to take responsibility for what was a politically sensitive decision, so the M14/FAL choice was bucked up the chain of command to the Army Chief Of Staff (the buck couldn't be passed any further than that). It took over a year for the final selection to be announced.

 

[BigG]

I will agree with the guys who said the Army (Springfield Armory) sabotaged the M16. The M16 is not all things to all people but it is a quantum jump past the M1 rifle of which the M14 is a derivative. I won't say the M14 is a POS, but close, and as one guy correctly stated of the Armory, H&R, and TRW only TRW could produce working M14s.

You really need to read some of the collector grade publications like The Black Rifle to get the full picture. The history channel ain't gonna do it. If you're going to spend multiple thousands of dollars on weaponry, fifty bucks on a book that will answer all your questions is not going to kill you. JMTC YMMV

 

[pauli]

The M16 is not all things to all people but it is a quantum jump past the M1 rifle of which the M14 is a derivative.

if that were the case, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

 

[Lonestar.45]

Dad was in the Marines, the 3/5, in Vietnam from May '66 to Sept '67. He started with an M-14, and then went to the M-16. He said once he got the M-16, he never looked back. They had a good armorer in his battalion that had devised a fix for the jamming problems. He could carry much more ammo, and it was so much more controllable under full auto apparently. His reasoning was that when you're in the jungle and ambushed at 50yds, you want to be able to snap shoot from the hip, and put out lots of rounds in a controlled matter. I have asked him several times about the so called jamming problems, and he kinda laughed about it. He said there were a few gun-caused issues, but nearly all the problems he saw was a direct result of guys not taking care of/cleaning their gun properly. If you do what you're supposed to do, the gun worked great. It did take more effort to keep clean, but hey, it's only your life on the line, right?

He learned to shoot it from the hip, they had full-auto air powered BB guns they would practice with. The M-16 was great for this, the M-14 on full auto was definitely not. This skill saved him dozens of times (that, and the 5+ grenade launchers he "requesitioned" for his platoon that went on patrol with them every single time out).

When I was 7 years old, years after he was out of the Marines, he would take my Red Ryder BB gun and shoot cans off the fence from his hip, and hit them about 8 times out of 10 or more.

 

[BigG]

The M16 is not all things to all people but it is a quantum jump past the M1 rifle of which the M14 is a derivative.

if that were the case, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

In my mind, there is no debate. I was just offering my opinion.

 

[buzz_knox]

if that were the case, we wouldn't be having this discussion.

The existence of the discussion doesn't eliminate the fact. A lot of people who never carried the M-14 in combat hold it up as a paragon of martial virtue, contrary to the opinions of many who did. Similarly, a lot of people who only have experience with 16s that worked well can't believe stories about it's failures, while people who experienced said failures can't recognize improvements.

Discussions about firearms are based more on feelings than facts. There are some who argue we haven't had a decent rifle since the Garand, and that the M-14 was a mistake.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

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.

You can't "cover a field of fire with lots of lead." All you can do is bring down the leaves. The Viet Nam war offered more fleeting and concealed targets than the present war, and marksmanship would have been even more of an advantage there.

Fortunately, the Army is starting to produce some fine riflemen, and giving them the sights to maximize their capabilities.

 

[hillbilly]

I like and understand and value rifles.

I own an M14 clone.

I also own an AR-15 variant.

I think my M14 is a much better rifle, especially beyond 300 yards

But as a general issue weapon?

I wonder how many of the folks on this thread have carried an M14 for long periods of time.

I'm a big guy, and humping that M14 around isn't very much fun.

When it comes down to it, I really, really prefer my accurized Rem 700 with the mildot scope on it, but then, it's even heavier than my M14 clone.

hillbilly

 

[Vern Humphrey]

I wonder how many of the folks on this thread have carried an M14 for long periods of time.

I carried the M14, both in the states and later as a Company Commander in Viet Nam (mine was an accurized and scoped version, a pre-M21 sniper rifle.) On an earlier tour I carried an M1, which I had also carried in the states.

Frankly, an M14 or M1 and enough ammo to accomplish the mission weighs less than an M16 and enough ammo to accomplish the same mission.

 

[Onmilo]

Forget all you may have heard about quality control issues, weight of the individual weapon, etc.
The whole decision was based on logistics and goes back to the early 1950s.
'Simplification of individual field small arms requirements.' circa 1951 was a Quartermaster report on how simplifying the small arms caliber requirements to just one caliber would greatly 'simplify' the supply and maintenance of individual small arms in the field.
Too many calibers and too many weapon systems were issued and in use during World War Two and the ammunition, small parts supply and maintenance requirements were a quartermasters worst nightmare.

After action reports determined that individual weapons capable of inflicting disabling wounds out to 400 meters were more than sufficent for the majority of actual small arms engagements.
Experiments with light 7mm and later .22 caliber weapons proved them to be effective in the scenarios envisioned for future engagements

Veteran combat qualified line officers, some going back to World War One were influential in insisting that an individual weapon with the same power level as previous service rifles remain as the armament of choice for individual soldiers even though actual field results showed that the need no longer exsisted because the tactics of air superiority and greatly improved field artillery made the long range gunfight a thing of the past in most cases.

Because a need for long range individual small arms would continue to exsist, but in a much smaller requirement, the Sniper Corps were to remain.
The requirement was so small that at one time post WW2 the Sniper Corps consisted of, at most, twenty individuals and these individuals actually spent most of their time shooting in International and regional competitions rather than honing their sniper skills.

I liked the M14 rifle but the wheels were turning and a one caliber army was already well into the works when the M14 hit the system.
The weapon system was doomed well before it ever made it to the troops.

 

[Bart Noir]

Those are good books to read on the US rifle history, including Misfire.

I don't have my library at my fingertips here, but I know that J. Garand's first M-1 design, during the long developmental period, was in a new and smaller caliber. I think it was a .270 or .265 or something (probably had identical ballistics to the 6.8mm Remington wundercartridge . And Douglas MacArthur ruled that we would stay with the .30-06.

 

[buzz_knox]

Yup. The caliber was the .276 Pederson. The M1 as orginally designed was lighter, held two more rounds, and would have been (for the time) an optimum blend of power and controllability. MacArthur believed that due to the massive stocks of .30-06 in storage, there wasn't a reason to switch.

 

[Tony Williams]

I liked the M14 rifle but the wheels were turning and a one caliber army was already well into the works when the M14 hit the system.

The odd thing about that is that introducing the 5.56mm did nothing to reduce the number of calibres in the US Army - after all, the 7.62mm is still there!

Now if they had really wanted a one-calibre army they should have adopted the British .280 when they had the chance...

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

[buzz_knox]

Nah, that would have made sense and the brass couldn't have that. Besides, it was British. What do they know about weapons?

 

[BigG]

Ammo switch for Garand

Not to mention it was the height of the Great Depression, or haven't any of you read a history book lately?

There was no way congress was going to approve funds for a new gun and new stocks of ammunition, and MacArthur knew it.