Replacing the M14 with M16 during Vietnam. Your thoughts?

[johwinz]

Hey gents

Hoping to ignite a little bit of a discussion on a topic that has been an interest for many years.

During the Vietnam War the US Military (and McNamara's "Whiz Kids") decided to replace the M14 rifle (7.62mm NATO) with the M16 (5.56mm). Basically all Marine units in the Nam carried the M14 up to 1967. Some Army units (like the 1st and 25th Infantry) arrived with the M14, but soon phased them out for the M16. Airborne units arrived with the M16 as early as 65 (101st, 173rd and the 1st Cav). It did not take long for the M16 to develop a bad reputation, although in my opinion the M16A1 issued from late 67 was a remarkable improvement.

What are your guys thoughts of switching from the battle rifle to the assault rife during this profound era?

 

[Treerat-sniper]

Well this one should dissolve quickly... My dad was stationed at the Pentagon in the office of personnel operations from 71-72, one of his duties was to interview returning GIs on the performance of their equipment, the "Mattel toy" was one of those pieces in question. The career guys that had trained on the M-14 were not impressed by the "poodle-shooter, flash-Gordon jam-a-matic." By 70, the M-14s were mostly gone and the drafted guys didn't know the difference and didn't care.
By the time I went through in the 90's the Army had most of the problems ironed out and the M-16A2 was pretty maytag. However, the day I had to qualify in basic, my extractor disintegrated & the company armorer didn't have a replacement in his box at the range. I had to re-shoot a few days later with guys that didn't do so well. I told my old man about it & he just chuckled & said "goddamn Mattel-toy!"

I bought a M1A a few years back since I'm not a huge fan of the AR family, I'm also a big fan of the .30 cal, unless I'm bear/ elk/ moose hunting, then its .223 77 SMK all the way!

 

[WRM]

The AR was for Armalite Rifle, BTW, not Assault Rifle.

All about the defense industry, politics and the Benjamins.

And producing injury over kills, to my understanding. When it worked correctly, it may well have accomplished that. Give the M14 long enough in the often hellish conditions and it too may not have fared so well.

 

[Treerat-sniper]

^ Not sure where that was even mentioned as the "ARs" are not the M16 & its decedents or vise versa... but the OP was correct as the M16 family of rifles are technically classified as "assault-rifles" vs the M-14 that is classified as a "battle-rifle."

 

[WRM]

Do a bit of research and you'll find that the original rifle was developed by the Armalite company--thus AR.

OP stated
What are your guys thoughts of switching from the battle rifle to the assault rife during this profound era?

A common misconception is the AR stands for Assault rifle. Any anti gun nut will be happy to tell you that is the case.

 

[Treerat-sniper]

I'm well aware of Eugene Stoner & the history, I own an Armalite AR10 rifle, served in the Army & have had a FFL for over 20 years. The AR was not mentioned as as it has nothing to do with the M16 vs M14 topic. Side note, the AR10 in 7.62 was developed before the M16 .556s... Stoner had the right idea... Oh and the FAL you mentioned & then deleted as well as the HK91 7.62 family are technically battle rifles. You're right about the anti-gun nuts though.

 

[Chumsnagger]

“Where’s the cleaning kit for these things?” “These new m16s don’t need em!” -1966

 

[thinhorn_AK]

I don’t know anything about this topic but I watched born on the 4th of July a few months ago and the marines all had m14s.

 

[robtattoo]

As a guy that grew up as a cadet with FALs then progressed onto SA80s when I joined up I have to say; call it a battle rifle, assault rifle, MSR or whatever the hell you like. You guys..... you guys really, really just do not & cannot appreciate just how freaking great the M16/M4/AR15 rifle configuration is as a fighting gun. Unless you do, in which case respect from one to another.

Why the hell the UK didn't adopt it I will never know & forever lament. I do know that my unit stole as many of them as we could lay our hands on! At one point I think we rivaled the USMC in 'stolen, non issued shit in possession' record. (Long story short, the marines gained 6 fully armored Landrover 110s, we got left with 4 non operational HMMWVs. We 'appropriated' several creates of MREs, y'all got a bunch of our rat-paks ) It's light, compact, accurate, easy to strip, simple to clean & work on, requires NO tools to maintain & as far as killing vs wounding goes..... nobody in that particular situation could give a f***. I promise you. Dead or hurt, if they ain't shooting back, who gives a shit! Personally, I've been shot 3 times. None were direct hits with a centerfire round of any kind & the worst was with a .22 short. Every single one was debilitating & would've taken me out of a firefight. The only folks that care about killing vs wounding statistics in the eternal caliber debate, ain't getting f***ing shot at on the reg.

 

[minengr]

I own the civilian version of both and enjoy both for different reasons. The M14 was a "labor of love"? I spent 10 years collecting USGI parts. Several years back I was picking up a different rifle at the gunsmiths (who is known for his M14/M1A builds) and a conversation that started with checking the headspace on my Polytech turned to how big of a check to I need to write. I decided if I was going to do it, I wasn't going to half ass it so I had him build his "M-25 package". I love that rifle, but it is a heavy sob and at times I think the chase was more exciting than the final product.

 

[Conrad101st]

I was a rifle platoon leader (89-92) in the regular army and can say the AR worked just fine. The only thing I didn’t like was the burst. It threw my timing off when I tried it a few times early on where I tried it myself on close contact drills. Thereafter, I had the guys keep ours on semiautomatic only. I really only used mine to direct fire. I used 100% tracer. Put 5 rounds of tracer into an area and it would immediately draw more fire.

But here was my thought I kept having. If I had 1 Remington 7400 per squad in .30-06 with a leupold vx3 in 2.5-8, I thought it would have been a great thing for general usage. Reason being is to acccurately shoot a body part sticking out down range or people in windows that were partially obscured and that you would never hit with iron sights. And to more effectively hit vehicles and specific targets at medium to longer range. Plus black tipped 30 cal AP would easily burn through smaller trees. I had a few rounds thst I tried with my CMP M1 and recall being amazed at how they would blast right through an 8-inch oak tree. We did not have snipers at platoon level as those were battalion assets.

Loved the saw.
Loved the M60.

 

[Actual_Cryptid]

It's a tough topic to discuss because of the false histories and thirdhand anecdotes. When I was in Iraq it was not uncommon for a Pfc to insist the guy he was shooting at must be all hopped up on morphine soaking up all those wimpy 5.56 bullets. Then you get to the house and gosh darn it, by the bullet impacts behind the window, they must have all gone clean through! And what's more, the scoundrels were using sponges to mop up all the blood from the dozen rounds the boot swore they pumped into the Iraqi insurgent who on average is just over 5'5".

Then as a team leader in Afghanistan (and the Mojave Viper workups) when you're standing up watching the rookies do their first fire and move drills in the desert you see the tunnel vision. You see an automatic rifleman hit a rock 10' in front because they forgot the optic sits higher than the bore. You see someone miss a range estimation even with the fancy ACOGs and drop all their rounds 30 yards short or 100 yards long. This is why we have a 13 week boot camp, an 8 week infantry school, and then all the unit training and predeployment workups. There's a lot of knots to work out even after all that.

When I went to college, I had a professor who served as an infantry officer for 3 tours in Vietnam and went back as a reporter afterwards, had pictures from the last days of Saigon. Good guy. He also saw the same kinds of things, people shooting way high or dumping rounds into thick cover and being shocked they didn't get the guy, not cleaning rifles properly (the propellant debacle and lack of appropriate cleaning kits included!), being too burnt out to remember the week of training they had with the new rifle.

But, easier to blame new rifle. Smaller bullet, plastic parts, should have been a big honking bullet in a 14lb wooden rifle. Only, Vietnam had a fair share of house to house fighting, and if you think an M16 is long an M14 adds another half foot to your musket, not great for fighting in Southeast Asian cities like Hue or Hanoi. The recoil is stiffer, which means more shooter fatigue. Larger and heavier means it's harder for your green recruits to master, and they tire faster carrying the rifle. Plus the ammo, a 20rd M14 magazine weighs 1.5lb, a 30rd colt mag weighs about 1.1lb, and when you multiply that across the entire log train where you're helicoptering ammo, rations, and batteries in that adds up quick. Or consider that ayou can get 840rd of 5.56 (on clips, in bandoliers) into an ammo can vs 240 (30cal) or 320rdof 7.62 into an ammo can. It wasn't that subpar training lead to subpar performance, it was the newfangled rifle, which is why (once the aforementioned powder mixup was solved) that died out a bit and "poodle shooter always jams" became kind of a shibboleth for people who had not taken one to war. At least, that was my impression when i was issued one.
Don't get me wrong, if we'd gone with 6 or 6.5mm cartridge I'd have been just as happy, but at no time in my career did I ever want an M14.

As an aside, the designated marksman's rifles are a great benefit to everyone. Even just an accurized M16 goes a long way. ACOGs are a big help, but out Mk12s had a 3.5-10 Leupold that really helped when we needed good eyes in overwatch and only had one pair of binoculars.

I guess in summary, dropping a new weapon system in mid-war is guaranteed to have some kinks.

 

[Roofer1]

My old man was infantry (drafted). Barely said much in general, but only mentioned anything about Vietnam 3 times I can remember. One of those was that the M16's were "pieces of s**t". Would've loved to ask follow up questions but the look on mom's face said "leave it".

 

[eric1115]

Everyone knows the .223 can't kill effectively. Need a .30 for effective terminal performance.

Can you imagine how ineffective a 77 grain bullet would be on a moose? Or a deer or bear or elk? Would probably bounce right off. Or just pencil through. If only there was a thread detailing the effects of those bullets on game!

Sarcasm aside, I think that having more rounds in a lighter package (including more rounds in spare mags) was a good move overall. Seems like once the learning curve of the new platform got worked out there have not been a whole lot of downsides.

 

[Castle Rock]

It isn’t just the weight of the rifle that is important, ergonomics play a huge part, I started out with a SLR before transitioning to an M16A1
it is just plain easier to shoot the AR well

 

[BFR]

For the record, the M16 worked perfectly if taken care of. I say this from experience both in the jungle and the rice paddies of Viet Nam. As to effectiveness, I’ll just say I’ve got no complaints, not going into details because it’s not good for my PTSD.