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Product Manager at Magpul Industries
This is a personal account linked to a personal e-mail. Company affiliation and titles are provided purely for transparency requirements of the host site. Although factual company information may be shared through this account, any opinions expressed are solely those of the account holder, and not necessarily those of Magpul Industries or subsidiaries.
"Intelligence is not the ability to regurgitate information. It is the ability to make sound decisions on a consistent basis "--me
"Just remember, when you are talking to the average person, you are talking to a television set"--RDJB
One Big Ass Mistake America
The "stuck in his ways" aspect is systemic, not limited to one person, but the person in this case, de jure and de facto, acts as a mouthpiece for the entire USMC. On the whole, I think the Corps is somewhat better than Big Army when it comes to doctrinal shifts to match the changing times....
HOWEVER the stuff the acolytes want to dogmatically stick to from nothing more than a faith-based foundation, flying in the face of data and hard evidence for no better reason than an unwillingness to listen...hoo, boy, you'd have an easier time convincing some NAMBLA sicko that pederasty is wrong. I.e., not gonna happen, because they don't WANT it to be wrong. It's enough to make one want to kick a puppy through a fan from sheer frustration. Even when they're wrong, they're Right (note the capital, that's how it comes rolling off their tongues).
I can swing a dead cat over my head and hit 6 Sgts-and-below that have more real-world experience with what an M4 can and cannot do that Gen Conway, all of his immediate advisors and most of their staffs could hope to learn from primary sources if they took a year to do so (presuming you could convince any of them they had anything to learn). The upper-end brass love to tout how they want to find out about the wishes, gripes, experiences and lessons learned from the individual warfighter, but the reality is ONLY after it's been washed through 6 levels of Silverbacks (Gunners) and Tribal Councils (SNCO symposiums), which wash away the Eau de Junior Enlisted Swine smell so that it doesn't taint the rarified air.
If it were legal and possible, I'd solicit for a collection, so we could pay a group of the guys from EAG, Magpul, GG, crap just a metric assload of top-end SMEs who run and work for private tactical entities (you know, the ones that fade away if they can't produce RESULTS), and have them gang-stomp the entire Joint Chiefs.
Why the entire Joint Chiefs? Because if Conway, Grand Pooh-Bah of what is, pound-for-pound, STILL the premiere overall warrior society on the face of the planet, thinks THAT...what sort of hideous abortive nonsense is the Air Force leadership guilty of?
EDIT: I feel much better, now. Note to self: decaf.
The above comment regarding a collapsing buttstock for the A4 is a valid one. It's doable, and it works, but it somehow offends somebody, or the president of the company makes them has a nose that reminds a decision-maker of an uncle he doesn't like. Who's to say?
A main causal factor behind the thought process (specifically, that the M4 isn't capable of bringing enough ass to a fight in the engagement distances found in Afghanistan) is a training issue, not a material one. The gun is capable, and this quantifiable. The shooter is, according to the "every Marine a rifleman" institutional ethos, capable. That is NOT quantifiable. It's not an M4 vs. A4 argument, it's a leadership failure. WHY isn't the M4 achieving the desired endstate of stacking corpses like cordwood, Sir? Can't justifiably say it's the gun, therefore what is it? Untrained Marines; too many Alcohol Awareness/Your Feelings and You classes, not enough range time. The 800lb gorilla in the room that nobody wants to talk about.
Last edited by JSantoro; 03-30-10 at 13:34.
Contractor scum, AAV
Hey! The Air Force issues M4's.what sort of hideous abortive nonsense is the Air Force leadership guilty of?
And the Air Force was the first service to purchase M-16s back in 1962! How's that for forward-thinking?
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"Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions." - ILN, 4/19/30
"He is a very shallow critic who cannot see an eternal rebel in the heart of a conservative." - Varied Types
G.K. Chesterton
Product Manager at Magpul Industries
This is a personal account linked to a personal e-mail. Company affiliation and titles are provided purely for transparency requirements of the host site. Although factual company information may be shared through this account, any opinions expressed are solely those of the account holder, and not necessarily those of Magpul Industries or subsidiaries.
According to the Army's testing as of last year, MOST things are better than the M-16/M-4 at EVERYthing.
5 Rifles, including the M-4/M-16 (4 plus what is currently issued) were tested. What's currently issued came out Dead Last in EVERY category.
That is a problem.
Edit: The Commandant can cling to whichever he wants. He's still clinging to a POS.
Last edited by Taran; 03-30-10 at 16:07.
What's quantifiable is that at the 500-700 meter ranges in which these firefights are occurring are bad enough for Either of the 5.56 rifles that the Army has significantly stepped up issuance of M-14s and M-14 upgrades to handle them. The plan is that within the next 6 months every infantry Squad will have no less than 2 of these heavier rifles to handle that range.
The Army. Big Army. Which makes changes about as fast as the tectonic plates do, is making this change already. That's enough to tell me that what we have now isn't cutting it.
But therein lies the problem: even though there are many things better than the M4/16 in each category, few in any can do ALL of the roles at the same time AND do them better. That's why we have the M4/16 - versatility. Not that I agree with it, but logistically, it does make sense.
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