Why doesn't the Military get rid of the M16?

Question

I thought I was the only one having problems with it. Its a piece of junk. Now a lot of soldiers are finally complaining about it. Vietnam vets are saying they almost died because of it jamming so easily. I bet some people have. No country in the world uses them except the one's that can't afford to buy them so we give them out for free. The AK-47 is the rifle of choice. Is it because we are too ashamed to use a Russian designed weapon?

I would find it hard to believe that a lot of people haven't died because of it.

I dont thinks its a good idea to breakdown your weapon to clean it in the middle of a firefight.

Answer 1

My M16 rarely jams, in fact I can't remember a time recently when it has. All you have to do is keep it clean, just make sure the bolt is lubed up and it's all good.

And when it does jam there is one quick fix for that...

TAP RACK BANG

You're weapon shoud be clean before the firefight even happens, thus you don't run ito the problem of it jamming.

Answer 2

There are two fields of though on what an assult rifle should be. One is accurate and the other is that it's only needed for surpressive fire. It's the difference of 10 guys shooting at a car to stop it (hiting the tires, the engine, the driver...) or one guy to take out the driver, engine block or tires on purpose. The AK-47 is good for surpressive fire but at 100 yards the best you are going to do is 3/4" groups and at 800 meter, you can just through out trying to purposely hit a target. The M-16 can still be used to hit a target 800 meters out.

The M-16 is also lighter than the AK-47 and of course the same amount of ammo for the AK-47 is also heavier than the M-16. Heavy rifles have been one of the factors of why other rifles have failed including the fancy ones with laser targeting explosive shells. Accuracy is another problem with the M-16 either beating or nearly equaling other assault rifles in accuracy.

Answer 3

Well they are slowly phasing it out. More soldiers carry M-4s today than they did 5 yrs ago and even the M16 has been modded to the M16 A4 which jams alot less but it still jams. The reason we dont use an AK is because we are members of NATO and AK 7.62 rounds are "inhumane" and there for one of the requirements of the NATO treaty is that all members use 5.56 or another caliber larger than that but smaller than the 7.62 (i forget which). its a load of crap if you ask me but at the same time it makes some sense, sticking to it as a matter of principal. But thats no excuse not to switch to a better rifle. The issue is that ... we want to be SURE about a new rifle before we put all our eggs into that new basket. So while the M16 still gets the job done we are taking our time finding a replacement that will prove to be a worthy predecessor. I think they just recently tossed out the XM-8 idea which is a shame because it was a good weapon. But the next item for review seems to be the scar series. Eventually we'll phase the 16 out with either one of these new inventions or simply with well modified M4s.
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CHANCE 20....why are you making things up? This guy didnt ask for conspiracy theories. Had you actually done any research you'd know that congress had nothing to do with the XM-8. Why? because it had'nt even been ok'ed by the military yet. The US ARMY policy makers and division commanders analyze, test and determine the worthiness of a proposed rifle. Not the Congress. Any idiot can GUESS that even if they didnt know it. AFTER its gone through the endless red tape verification process at the division levels and at the pentagon, the Military PROPOSES it to Congress. The XM-8 didnt even get anywhere near that far. And the "evil congressmen" that your talking about arent exactly making any money on the stalled M16 production in this country so your "fairy tale" makes no sense.
Once again...why do you make things up like that? why?
Also, seeing as the US military already uses ALOT of weapons from Germany, namely the H&K series, the thought that anyone caring the XM-8 was german made is retarded. Get a life. And yes one of the reasons NATO agreed to shun the AK was because the europeans thought that large shells that fragment inside people bodies were not only inhumane but it also make life harder for a culture of people who take time to give medical attention to wounded enemies on the battle field. Again, nothing you said was researched. You made it all up...why?

Answer 4

Well, back in Vietnam, the M-16 was still in it's infancy. Of course it won't be reliable it's a first generation. But the reason is money and research. We are still trying to find a cheap and reliable weapon. First we were playing with the XM-8, but that got scraped b/c of it was too expensive to put into mass production (which BTW, I think would be the most badass weapon on earth if the government would use it). So instead we are goin to the FN SCAR. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_SCAR. They wanna go with this one b/c it's cheap, but I don't like it. Now there reason we aren't going with AK-47's is b/c it's more of a machine gun instead of a rifle. The bullet is big and cause serious damage, but at long ranges from 200 yards plus, you're better off with a catapult b/c Ak's are inaccurate at long ranges and travel slower than the M-16's .223 rem. That's the reason we don't go with the AK's, don't let the video game world fool you to thinking it's that great cause it isn't when the enemy is 300 yards away and the AK round is fly around the enemy instead of hitting them.

Answer 5

The US military has been trialing potential replacements for the battle rifle of choice, but none have succeeded in providing a better alternative to the new variants of the M16. Newer designs don't always beat older designs with over 40 years of improvement.

For instance, the Australian Army uses a locally made variant of the Steyr rifle, but only because defence contractors couldn't get a contract to produce the M16. To be fair, the Steyr is a decent rifle but requires a heck of a lot of cleaning in the field. Countries such as Singapore, Japan and the UK simply wish to give their troops something home-grown, even if it isn't the most effective choice.

The AK-47 fires a larger, shorter round - in comparison with the standard NATO round, that would be far less explosive powder trying to drive a much larger projectile - not the most effective solution in terms of range, accuracy, velocity and energy.

Answer 6

The M-16 is a very good weapon, and it's actually used by a lot of countries.

It's far more accurate than the AK-47, has a higher rate of fire, longer range and weighs less.

The AK-47 was designed as a short range weapon to be used by poorly trained soldiers.

They're different weapons, designed for different purposes.

But the replacement(s) for the M-16 are already in the pipeline, some nearing deployment.

Answer 7

Mmmmhh for me, the M16 is a rather good rifle. It require maintenance, of course but it why it's accurate : accuracy require precision, precision need maintenance.

Vietnam vets got the first rifles...the system was not fully debugged and there was also the problem of the maintenance kit unprovided, the WWII-era powder used to load 5.56mm cartridges,...

You are wrong, lot of countries use the M16 system or a spinn-off. Holland just adopted the C7 (Canadian version) to replace their FN FAL.

I respect the AK as a good assault rifle but I would still elect the M16 to make the day...For me, once clean (and, of course, in sound mechanical condition...may be you have a lemon or a very well-used one), it is an accurate and reliable rifle.

Of course, it cannot be thrown from the 3rd roof to the ground...but I can't be thrown neither. I always used this motto "if I don't like it, my rifle hate it !".

Answer 8

The Ak-47 wasn't the only weapon of choice in Vietnam. The Thompson(If you can find one), M14, M60(only for AR's), ect. The US government thought the m16 was a better jungle weapon than the m14 and replaced it. An Ak or m14 can be thrown into the mud and be expected to shoot while the m16 is another story. If we get rid of the Ar-15 now, we have to replace millions of them around the world in bases and with what? They have to decide what to replace it with.

Answer 9

We don't use the 5.56 because it is more "humane", we use it because it standardized our logistics with our nato allies, and at the time of adoption it was believed that a hypervelocity round would be as effective as slower but larger rounds.

But to answer your question, we will stop using the M16 and its variants when Enough factories of another company are in enough congressional districts. The XM-8 is a perfect example. Maybe it was a great rifle, maybe it wasn't (I don't know crap about firearms), but since it was German made it probably never really got a fair shake. Congress wasn't interested in buying a rifle from a country that didn't join the coalition of the willing.

==Edit==
Well James, I am afraid it is you who are mistaken. Pork barrel politics is a part of everything the military does. If you don't believe congress was involved you are either misinformed or willfully ignorant. Want proof?

From Global Security.org:
"In 2004 Congress denied $26 million dollars funding for 7,000 rifles for a test fielding of the XM8 in 2005." "During 2004 the Army came under pressure from other arms makers to open up the XM8 to competition. Their main arguments was that the weapon being adopted was substantially different from the original XM29 competition that ATK and H&K had actually won. In addition, the the Army has a legislative obligation to give preference to US-based manufacturers, and also had an agreement with Colt Defense that required the Army to involve Colt in certain small-arms programs. "

From Defense Tech.org:
"by late 2005, the XM8 was scrapped partially because of politics; Congress was reluctant to spend billions to outfit soldiers with new rifles while the Iraq war was draining the treasury."

From David Hackworth:
"But the best way to take care of our grunts is by making sure they can outgun their opponents. And no way is that happening when we allow greedy or uncaring pork contractors, no-time-in-the-trenches engineers and folks in Congress and at the highest level of our armed forces to stick them with a worthless, Mattel-like excuse for a rifle. "

And the coup de grace, from Chris Dodd's website:
"Connecticut’s Congressional delegation today sent a letter to Les Brownlee, Active Secretary of the Army, calling on the Bush Administration to open the bidding process for the Army’s small weapons program. Senators Chris Dodd and Joe Lieberman, and Representatives Nancy Johnson, Christopher Shays, Rosa DeLauro, John Larson, and Rob Simmons wrote to Brownlee asking him to explain why Colt Defense LLC of West Hartford was excluded from the Army’s XM8 weapons program. "

I may be a lot of things James, but being stupid, a liar, or a stupid liar without sources ain't one of them. And look again, I never said congress was evil. Quite the opposite, they always work for the best for their constituants, but what's best for one district isn't always best for the country. Hardly a "conspiracy theory"

my sources are below.

===Edit 2===
And as for the second thing you accuse me of making up, I was a logistics soldier for several years. Logistics is everything in the military planning process. If you can't supply a campaign, you can't wage a campaign. There is no treaty, agreement, or documentation I can find anywhere that says the 5.56 is more "humane" than a larger round. A smaller round can fit more rounds per magazine, and therefore entails a smaller logistics train. The US had insisted on NATO using the 7.62 after WWII, but those countries had been interested in a smaller round very early on.

Answer 10

Any weapon causes problems if you don't take care of it properly! Cleaning and properly inspecting them is very crucial!

The U.S. military is phasing out the M16 and is now replacing them with the M4.

They really are nice rifles. Very light and effective with the ability to upgrade them. I added a laser sight to mine while others added a scope.