curt@ai.mit.edu (Curtis Fennell) (11/22/89)
From: curt@ai.mit.edu (Curtis Fennell) In article <10376@cbnews.ATT.COM> raymond@io.ame.arizona.edu (Raymond Man) writes: > >is the litmus test. It seems AK's had a far better reputation than the M16. > I have a little problem with this. Of the three vietnam veterans I spoke to personally about the M16, there were 2 who preferred the M16, both for it's ability to cause extensive damage to a human body and because the ammunition was lighter - they could carry more M16 ammo than .30 cal ammo (like the AK's). > > Of course there were other reasons besides reliability. The >velocity of the bullet is so high that it tumbles all the time, making >keyholes on targets instead of a perfect round hole. > Again, not strictly true. The M16 round doesn't actually tumble until it makes contact with something solid. In all the time I've spent on the rifle range, I've seen an occasional keyhole in a target - perhaps one in 500. But most of the holes I've seen were round. Also, a truly tumbling round couldn't hit anything - yet the M16 is fairly accurate. > >..... it was not a great combat implement. > The M16 had a number of flaws that made it's reliability suffer in Vietnam. The current upgrade program has corrected most of those, but the debate about whether or not it was as good as the AK series tends to focus just on reliability. If properly cared for, the M16 is a reliable weapon. No, you can't bury one in the ground for six months, come back and dig it up and expect to use it, like you can with the AK. But the M16 does have some signicant advantages over the AK series used in Vietnam (I'm only talking about the older AK's - the 7.62(?)mm version, not the newer 5.xx mm versions): 1. The M16 was more accurate in the open. It's max effective range was 460 meters vs. ~350 for the AK. The same low engineering tolerances that allowed the AK to be so reliable caused it to be inaccurate. (In the brush, the unstable round tended to be deflected easily - hence the current shift to a heavier round) 2. The M16 round caused far more damage to a body than the AK round. Even though it was smaller, its higher velocity and tumbling action caused a lot more damage to people than the heavier, slower AK round. As a vietnam vet once told me "Sir, I'd rather be shot 9 times with an AK-47 than once with an M16" 3. The M16 was lighter and so was the 5.56mm round. A soldier in the field could carry more 5.56 ammo with him than AK ammo and the rifle itself would not contribute as much to the soldiers fatigue. (of course, we then force our troops to carry so much other junk that this advantage becomes moot.). Even though the soldier's basic load is 200 rounds (is this still true, can someone tell me?), troops in vietnam would carry as much as they could stuff in their pockets. All in all, while the M16 was a good example of the US's classic preoccupation with fancy new technology, it was not a piece of ineffectual junk. Perhaps it just needed a more thorough (read: realistic) testing program before distributing -Curtis H. Fennell, Capt, USMCR =============================================================================== Curt Fennell (617) 253-9667 "I'd take a bromo, but I can't AI Lab, MIT stand the noise" Cambridge, MA 02139 "It is not enough to succeed, curt@ai.mit.edu others must fail" ===============================================================================