Dr. Peter Venkman
Member
SlamFire1 said:
Here's a proof for you:
Money is the root of all evil.
Time is money.
Women = time and money
Women = (Money)^2
Money = Square root of evil
Women = (The Square root of evil)^2
Women = Evil.
Why did the U.S. Military give up on the M-14 so quickly?
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Here's a proof for you:
Money is the root of all evil.
Time is money.
Women = time and money
Women = (Money)^2
Money = Square root of evil
Women = (The Square root of evil)^2
Women = Evil.
Tony Williams
Member
Possibly, but there were a lot of production quality problems with the M14 and McNamara was gunning for the Springfield Armory, and IIRC it closed down soon after M14 production stopped. Had the FAL been made in the USA and avoided the production problems, maybe it would have lasted longer.
And had the USA adopted the 7x43 cartridge like their army testers wanted, possibly the AR-15 would never had been made...
I agree. It would have been more difficult to claim the FAL was a "bad" design considering over 100 nations had adopted the rifle, and FAL had shown in the rifle tests of the 50's that they were persistent and would not give up. They would have been on the front lines Lobbying Congress and OSD with facts and figures which would have blunted the attack of the Colt Lobbyists.
As for production quality problems the transition from Full Scale Development to Production is one of the riskiest transitions in the lifecycle of a system. There are always issues, delays, wrong machines, wrong materials, improperly dimensioned parts, people not trained, subcontractors holding things up, you name it. Nothing gets out the door in time, and the first items always have problems. The fact that people don't know this is because it is not widely mentioned. The problems can be hyper ventilated by critics to the point the program gets shut down.
This is also why it is not a good idea to buy a first year production automobile. They always have more problems than following years.
And if you have ever noticed for any peacetime military procurement, competitors and critics always attack in that time period to get the weapon system terminated. There is a lot of dirty laundry that can be wavied about in the air. Makes for good scandals and copy. For example, in the 80's the lying liberal press was trying to kill off the M1 Abrams tank by exaggerating the problems with the first fielded units. Remember that? Anytime there is a new Major weapon system production, you will hear similar problems, and that included the M1 Garand. It almost did not survive the assault by Melvin Johnson. The War Department had to lobby Congress. Melvin Johnson did not have the financing of lets say a Colt, Lockheed, Grumman, etc. If he had, things might have gone differently.
Not strictly germaine to the question, but...
Within the last month or so, all M14's have been pulled from the fleet(s), except for the line throwing guns - 2 per vessel, usually. They were replaced by M16's. Wonder where those rifles went? (*duh).
Been a while since I've attended a fleet match, so my info may be out of date. The AR platform can be made to be quite accurate. At the 500 yard line, though, the cartridges were loaded one at a time, because the bullet they were using was too long to fit the loaded cartridge into the magazine. While modifications are made to both the M14/M1a and the AR to pump them up for competition, the AR does take more modification - free floating the handguards / sling attachment, for example.
Using off-the-rack rifles and issue ammo, I'd put my money on the M14/M1A.
Within the last month or so, all M14's have been pulled from the fleet(s), except for the line throwing guns - 2 per vessel, usually. They were replaced by M16's. Wonder where those rifles went? (*duh).
Been a while since I've attended a fleet match, so my info may be out of date. The AR platform can be made to be quite accurate. At the 500 yard line, though, the cartridges were loaded one at a time, because the bullet they were using was too long to fit the loaded cartridge into the magazine. While modifications are made to both the M14/M1a and the AR to pump them up for competition, the AR does take more modification - free floating the handguards / sling attachment, for example.
Using off-the-rack rifles and issue ammo, I'd put my money on the M14/M1A.
Jeremy2171
Member
Where do you think the M14s went? They were likely replaced by M16 to standardize throughout the fleet. With the exception of the rifles for line throwing of course..
c\The modifications made to the AR are easier to do and it is easier to keep the weapons accurate, due to the modualrity of the design (free float as opposed to bedding, etc). However, the M14 shoots 7.62 NATO, so it has some advantages over the M16 as well.
Mike
Jeremy2171
Member
With nearly 100,000 M14s still in storage it seems odd they would pull them from all the ships just to support the SPECWAR types.
I think MacArthur had more to do with us being "stuck" with the M-16 than McNamara did. MacArthurs decision to have the newly designed M1 Garand chambered in the then plentiful .30-06 caliber rather than in the .276 Pedersen ultimately resulted in the U.S. looking for a cartridge that would be more controllable when fired from a rifle in full-auto.
Had we stayed with the .276 (which was almost identical ballistically to the British .280 which they found efficient, effective and controllable in their EM-2), we may have not been forced to search for an alternative round. We would have probably designed a new rifle altogether, but it more than likely would have remained in the .276 Pedersen chambering, a chambering that would definitely not conjure up the controversy we have in our current 5.56mm chambering.
I could envision the .276 Garand being modified into what the M-14 became only chambered in .276 or .280 British with a full-auto selector switch and it being a fully controllable weapon in full-auto fire.
The Italian BM-59, imagine the money that would have been saved on R&D that we spent reinventing the wheel from Garand to M-14 than to have just modified machinery to mass produce the new .276 Pedersen cartridge.
But I guess some genius(es) thought it was more psychologically damaging to the enemy for them to witness us wasting billions of dollars on re-inventing a rifle that we already had in essence, while they scrounged, begged and borrowed just to have something to fight back with at all.
We should not know the M-14 as it is known today, the M-14 should have been known as what the BM-59 became, modified Garands, with selector switches and fully capable in full-auto in the .276 Pedersen caliber.
Eugene Stoner probably still would have invented his ground-breaking design, chambered it in .276 Pedersen and his M-16 would have became the beloved, reliable and effective American Assault Rifle that we all want it to be. Hence the Barrett M468 conversion units.
Had we stayed with the .276 (which was almost identical ballistically to the British .280 which they found efficient, effective and controllable in their EM-2), we may have not been forced to search for an alternative round. We would have probably designed a new rifle altogether, but it more than likely would have remained in the .276 Pedersen chambering, a chambering that would definitely not conjure up the controversy we have in our current 5.56mm chambering.
I could envision the .276 Garand being modified into what the M-14 became only chambered in .276 or .280 British with a full-auto selector switch and it being a fully controllable weapon in full-auto fire.
The Italian BM-59, imagine the money that would have been saved on R&D that we spent reinventing the wheel from Garand to M-14 than to have just modified machinery to mass produce the new .276 Pedersen cartridge.
But I guess some genius(es) thought it was more psychologically damaging to the enemy for them to witness us wasting billions of dollars on re-inventing a rifle that we already had in essence, while they scrounged, begged and borrowed just to have something to fight back with at all.
We should not know the M-14 as it is known today, the M-14 should have been known as what the BM-59 became, modified Garands, with selector switches and fully capable in full-auto in the .276 Pedersen caliber.
Eugene Stoner probably still would have invented his ground-breaking design, chambered it in .276 Pedersen and his M-16 would have became the beloved, reliable and effective American Assault Rifle that we all want it to be. Hence the Barrett M468 conversion units.
Vern Humphrey
Member
There is no such thing. While the 20 lb BAR fired from a bipod is an effective weapon, no hand-held rifle is effective in full auto fire.
Judging by the fact that most (all?) of the newer M16 variants have burst instead of full-auto, I'm thinking that someone, somewhere, thinks it was a mistake. Add in the fact that from what I've read and heard the usual uses of FA or burst are in establishing superiority of fire at the onset or to break contact at the end of an engagement, I'd say that auto fire in shoulder mounted arms seems to be of limited utility. Given that, conservation of ammunition would seem to be more important that having full-auto over a burst capability. Again, reread my disclaimer...I'm not an 11Bravo or anything exotic like that.
Perhaps it was a "we want some rifles NOW" type of thing, and it was quicker to round them up from the fleet floating right offshore than to put in a requisition from CONUS. Or, perhaps it was just a conicidence. Or, perhaps it was a case of finally standardizing on the M16.
I do find the coincidence odd, though.
Mike
USSR
Member
Clinton destroyed many of the army's supply of M14's, and gave away many more to the Baltic countries shortly after the end of the cold war. The Navy's small supply is the best source of M14's at this time.
Don
I wouldn't care to try and build either FALs or M14 to compete with the cost of building the M16, and the bean counter care about thing like this. It took TRW, and a $6 million (in 1960s dollars) factory to finally build good guns with few rejets. Many people were gunning for SA, not just MacNamara, and in some ways, for good reason. SA and the ordnance department wanted things their way, and the old ways have always been the best ways. Col Studler fought the light rifle tooth and nail, despite experience in WWII and several studies (like Hitchman's Operation requirements for an infantry hand weapon) that suggested a full power rifle was not the optimum solution for infantry combat. Recall that it was the US that killed any hope of adopting anything like the British 280 intermediate round, insisting that a new rifle must be at least equivalent to the 30-06..
Jeremy2171
Member
Like I said, with 100k of M14s ready to issue in storage how can it be it easier to pull rifles from ships that have not been properly inspected for servicability and use them? With a simple request I could have a brand new (rebuilt) M14 here in less than 30 days with a set of BII (Basic Issue Items).
HorseSoldier
Member
While I agree with your general statement, I do think it is fair to note that it is a whole lot easier to keep a 5.56mm M16/M4 or 5.45mm AK-74 more or less on target on fully automatic than it is to do the same with a 7.62x51 long gun or the like. Even on semi it is much easier to drive a intermediate cartridge weapon back onto target or transition rapidly between targets than something shooting a full power round.
Vern Humphrey
Member
"More or less on target" has little tactical utility.
If the first shot of a burst misses, succeeding shots are highly unlikely to hit.
When a burst does not hit, you must re-aim and re-fire -- the fewer rounds in the burst, the more quickly you can do that.
The fewer rounds per burst, the more bursts you can fire before reloading.
Therefore, the optimum burst is one round.
And in practice, firing full auto leads to wild, unaimed fire.
If the first shot of a burst misses, succeeding shots are highly unlikely to hit.
When a burst does not hit, you must re-aim and re-fire -- the fewer rounds in the burst, the more quickly you can do that.
The fewer rounds per burst, the more bursts you can fire before reloading.
Therefore, the optimum burst is one round.
And in practice, firing full auto leads to wild, unaimed fire.
Terrierman
Member
Dead horse alert.
However.
Carried both. Give me an M16 ten times out of ten for man killing.
However.
Carried both. Give me an M16 ten times out of ten for man killing.
USSR
Member
Jeremy2171,
Where are you getting that 100k figure? I seriously doubt that there are anywhere's near that many left in reserve. I know George Gardner at GAP was sent about 20 USGI receivers to be built into DMR-type rifles.
Don
Where are you getting that 100k figure? I seriously doubt that there are anywhere's near that many left in reserve. I know George Gardner at GAP was sent about 20 USGI receivers to be built into DMR-type rifles.
Don
Jeremy2171
Member
In my job I have acess to certain things....the 100k figure is accurate.
SoCalShooter
Member
Well I think it goes something like this atleast in the HIGH POWER rifle arena.
" you can either shoot an AR or loose to the guy shooting an AR" Both are great rifles both are extremely accurate when tuned. But in overall accuracy I think you will find that you can achieve tighter groups with an AR versus and m1a or m14.
" you can either shoot an AR or loose to the guy shooting an AR" Both are great rifles both are extremely accurate when tuned. But in overall accuracy I think you will find that you can achieve tighter groups with an AR versus and m1a or m14.
Tequila jake
Member
Why did the U.S. Military give up on the M-14 so
I've seen just two people firing an M-14 full-auto: one was a woman of about average or somewhat larger size (for a woman), and the other was a man over six feet tall of medium build. It shoved the woman back four or five feet and she gave up after just a few rounds. The man leaned into and set himself well before firing. It didn't push him back, but he had a real hard time keeping the muzzle from climbing up and pointing at the clouds! That is, I believe, the reason for not issuing full-auto M-14s--they are just too difficult to control.
Strangely, given that I am a retired military guy who at one time had access to just about every kind of U.S. or Soviet weapon, I've never fired an M-14. I've fired maybe a couple of hundred rounds from an M-16, but many
hundreds from the AK-47 and the AKM and a few from the Dragunov sniper rifle and a few from Tokarevs and Makarovs--even an RPG once!
Tequila Jake
I've seen just two people firing an M-14 full-auto: one was a woman of about average or somewhat larger size (for a woman), and the other was a man over six feet tall of medium build. It shoved the woman back four or five feet and she gave up after just a few rounds. The man leaned into and set himself well before firing. It didn't push him back, but he had a real hard time keeping the muzzle from climbing up and pointing at the clouds! That is, I believe, the reason for not issuing full-auto M-14s--they are just too difficult to control.
Strangely, given that I am a retired military guy who at one time had access to just about every kind of U.S. or Soviet weapon, I've never fired an M-14. I've fired maybe a couple of hundred rounds from an M-16, but many
hundreds from the AK-47 and the AKM and a few from the Dragunov sniper rifle and a few from Tokarevs and Makarovs--even an RPG once!
Tequila Jake
Highpower is a game, and nothing more. I've shot highpower matches and enjoy them a lot. I'm not criticizing highpower, but it doesn't necessarily reflect the real world.
Using the M14 or M16 for what they were actually intended for is a totally different world than punching paper. Both systems have advantages and disadvantages.
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