Yep, it's a WHOLE lot different when the shit is flying past you. That's why heavy guns should be deployed at every outpost, I could only imagine what a couple of Bradley's could have done.
Printable View
Beyond the article's speculation of what occurred at Wanat, further down the page, I found this bit particularly interesting concerning the carbine trials that occurred and the numbers reported:
"collectively, M4s experienced 863 low-impact and 19 high-impact stoppages over a firing schedule of 60,000 rounds—the other weapons experienced significantly fewer stoppages"
I'm sure most of us remember this test and the numbers reported from this link:
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/1...sttest_071217/
A very concerning test, and the results were certainly very peculiar to all of us. Everything else in the test performed phenomenally, yet our beloved M4 shit the bed. However, looking into this Wanat article, I've found it stated that:
"M4 performance . . . was significantly different than in the previous extreme dust test in which it participated,"
Odd, right? Well, not so odd when you look into the article more.
"In the test, where ten sample M4s drawn from Army inventory competed against ten samples each of Heckler & Koch's HK416 and XM8 and Fabrique National's Mk16 SCAR,"
"six of the ten M4s drawn for the test did not meet the minimum rate of fire of 700 rounds-per-minute mandated under Mil-Spec IAW Mil-C-70599A(AR) [...] ATEC's testers were unfamiliar with the M4s' 3-round burst configuration which, depending on the position of the cam, will sometimes fire 1 round or a 2-round burst before firing a 3-round burst. This unfamiliarity, said Colt, led to single rounds and 2-round bursts being counted as stoppages."
I'm getting highly suspicious here. The numbers didn't make sense in the first place, but now we start to see why. Not only was the Army putting old guns up against brand new factory models, but they were using ones that were more or less broken and improperly working. Uneven, fixed, and outright fraudulent testing, anyone?
Well, it just gets better:
"Colt contracted a DOD-certified testing agency, Stork East-West Technology Corporation in Jupiter, Florida, to conduct its own dust test according to mil-spec guidelines. In this test of ten M4 carbines, which was conducted under a protocol identical to that used in Extreme Dust Test 3, only 111 stoppages were reported."
So now, under fair and equivalent conditions, subjected to the same testing the other rifles originally were, conducted by an unbiased agency outside of Colt, we see a number that ultimately comes out even LOWER than the others. And yet, we never even hear of this happening?
What this says to me is that no replacement, be it an AK, a SCAR, or a pixie wand that shoots magic gum drops, is going to make a difference in reliability. What it's coming down to is beat up weapons that are long past the service life of ANY weapon and are out of spec, using improperly matched parts, and are improperly maintained by armorers and the individual. That will kill ANY gun's reliability. If we were to switch to ANY gun right now, it would work for a few years, yes, but within a decade or two, we'll be in the exact same position experiencing problems. Why? Because the apparent problem is that we're using weapons past their service life, and more than that they're being improperly maintained.
This whole thing sounds like a smear campaign to me, conducted by corrupt brass and by a couple of fat cats rolling in government contracts and backroom lobbying so they can more comfortably line their pockets.
Thanks for the replies, particularly those that stayed more or less on the subject of whether the numbers and concepts noted in the article were potentially useful data or just poorly informed noise. Any story that includes the words "What Really Happened..." always raises some red flags to me, so I thought m4c was the right place to get feedback. Meplat, thanks for the insight into the dust study results. It's pretty obvious once it's reworded that way.
Sorry if the subject got some folks a little spooled up. Maybe the forum rules should include "no caffeine for one hour before posting." ;)
Larry Vickers once said in an interview that many major parts of the M4/M4A1 including the barrel need to be replaced every ~5000 rounds in his experience. He was a consultant for the 416 and said in real world testing that delta did that the 416 could go 10-15k with less maintaining.
That is the dust test #3 bro!
I would love to read the first dust test... Explain that one.Quote:
The Army has now done 3 dust tests. In the late 2006/Jan 2007 report “Baseline Reliability and Dust Assessment for the M4, M16, and M249,” the M4 jammed 9,836 times – 1 jam every 6 rounds. In a May 2007 “Extreme Dust Test II”, with no competitors, the M4 had 1 jam every 88 rounds, using heavy lubrication.
Apparently the 416 in dust test 3 used the same mags as the M4 did too afik, but the G36 did not. I guess someone could have informed me incorrectly on that one though:rolleyes:
Did you read what the weapons were given for lubrication in that final dust test that you claim was rigged? It was crazy.
Go tell US Army Ranger Capt. Nate Self that the M4 is reliable enough and you feel that your years of experience playing call of duty enables you to make that decision. Or how about Patrick Miller? Go ask him!
Nate Self for lazy people:
Poor bastard even had a cleaning rod...Quote:
Once behind cover, Self tried to fire again,
but his weapon jammed.”“I pulled my
charging handle back, and there was a
round stuck in the chamber.”Like the rest
of his men, Self always carried a cleaning rod zip tied to the side
of his weapon in case it failed to extract a round from the
Chamber.”“I started to knock the round out by pushing the rod
down the barrel, and it broke off. There was nothing I could with
it after that.”
This is what the armytimes said for those lazy people on Patrick Miller:
Apparently he killed up to 9 people this way too!Quote:
What’s not so well known is how then-Pfc. Patrick Miller earned a Silver Star for keeping his M16 from jamming long enough to take out an enemy mortar position.
“We were taking fire from everywhere,” Sgt. Miller recalled in a recent Army Times interview.
Enemy fire had knocked out his five-ton truck, forcing him to fight on foot.
He dove for cover behind a dirt berm and spotted an Iraqi soldier manning a mortar position across the road.
“It looked like he was trying to drop the shell in the tube. That is when I fired the first shot and the guy went down.”
When he pulled the trigger again, nothing happened.
“After the first shot, the round ejected. When the next round went to go in, it froze up,” he said. “It didn’t feed all the way into the chamber.”
Miller pounded on the forward assist, a tiny plunger on the M16’s receiver designed to manually push the weapon’s bolt into the chamber.
He fired his rifle once more, and it jammed again. Miller tried the immediate action drill he learned in Basic Combat Training — he slapped the bottom of the magazine to reseat it, pulled the charging handle back to look into the chamber. When he released, the bolt wouldn’t chamber the next round.
Changing magazines didn’t work either.
“After the third magazine I decided it took longer to change mags than to beat on the forward assist,” he said.
That worked, but his weapon would only fire a single shot and jam again.
“I was beating that thing with the palm of my hand four or five times for each round,” he recalled.
Miller managed to fire about eight times using this frantic sequence under enemy fire.
It was a valiant, but futile, effort. His fellow soldiers were trying to fight, but their weapons failed them as well.
Miller turned around and shot at a target behind him.
“When I turned there were about 40 Iraqis that had moved up on the road” approaching his position, he said. “At that time there was not much else I could have done.”
Miller put down his rifle and surrendered.
Why don't we stop bickering here and wait a few years for the new M4 carbine competition to finish! Then all of these opinions about how the tests were handled and the quality of our service carbine will be over and we can have a real discussion.
I'm not your bro.
Not a Call of Duty player, just someone who has drug both M4 and AK-style weapons around battlefields for a few years.Quote:
I would love to read the first dust test... Explain that one.
Apparently the 416 in dust test 3 used the same mags as the M4 did too afik, but the G36 did not. I guess someone could have informed me incorrectly on that one though:rolleyes:
Did you read what the weapons were given for lubrication in that final dust test that you claim was rigged? It was crazy.
Go tell US Army Ranger Capt. Nate Self that the M4 is reliable enough and you feel that your years of experience playing call of duty enables you to make that decision. Or how about Patrick Miller? Go ask him!
Nate Self for lazy people:
Poor bastard even had a cleaning rod...
This is what the armytimes said for those lazy people on Patrick Miller:
Apparently he killed up to 9 people this way too!
Why don't we stop bickering here and wait a few years for the new M4 carbine competition to finish! Then all of these opinions about how the tests were handled and the quality of our service carbine will be over and we can have a real discussion.
Borrowing someone else's heroism, combined with broke dick weapon, whether user or maintenance failure doesn't reinforce your point.
On dry lubes: If your "dry lube" includes graphite, you need to be shot in the head; graphite is corrosive to aluminum, and you are major league ****ing your buddy by using it.
Funny thing; I've had weapons failures with both AKs and ARs under "extreme" conditions, but I truly cannot determine which is most reliable. But I'd damned sure rather have an AR for the ergos, 10 out of 10 times.
I have had an AK kaboom on me and it was not a fun experience, but the error was due to a builder who was retarded and not the design. I think it is safe to say that any weapon that is built by retards or with sub standard parts can and will have real big issues.
My eye protection saved my eyes. :eek:
Oh and it has to be a user error or maintenance error. Funny.
This has spiraled out of control, so before infractions have to be handed out, I'm shutting it down.
The points have been addressed and discussed.
If anyone has anything new to add, let me or another mod know and we might reopen it.