Oh I do love Experts!
"The typical Kalashnikov functions reliably because it’s manufactured with very loose tolerances. Results in poor accuracy. Various tinkerers and machinists in the US have improved the accuracy, but the “improved” models always suffer loss of reliability. Which do you want - accuracy or reliability? Can’t have both."
Horsehocky. The AK family is built on a turnbolt design, similar to the Garand but inverted. The tolerances of the critical locking surfaces are excellent as they have to be for the cartridge's chamber pressures. In 1978 I built the world's first semiauto AK - and I have a Master's in Mechanical Engineering, so no smoke-blowing, please. The AK's "accuracy" issues relate to the limitations of the Type PS ball ammunition and the short sight radius and that it's first selector position is full auto.
"The 5.56mm cartridge for the M16 was a result of infatuation in certain US Army circles with the SCHV (small caliber, high velocity) concept, which envisioned adequate lethality from low-weight bullets at elevated velocities. It promised to bring forth a rifle cartridge with greater effective range and lethality, compared to any full-caliber reduced-power round (such as 7.92x33 of the Third Reich, or 7.62x39 Soviet 043g)."
It was the army civilian engineer's infatuation with the concept of throwing huge masses of lead out of the weapons in the theory that they might hit something that way. There is a museum at Ft. Benning that showcases all of the failed attempts to come up with weapons that threw hails of projectiles as supposed offsets for poor training by soldiers. Such as the miserable SPIW - and now the current XM-25. Those civilian engineers never served in uniform and never served in positions where they faced enemy fire and continue to make their excellent money with little practical experience. The 5.56 55-grain projectile fired through a 1 in 12 twist barrel in Vietnam wasn't accurate and it wasn't a reliable killer and the sights were idiotic.
"Also dovetailed neatly with the US Army’s doctrine that firepower equaled shots per minute (USMC defines it as hits per minute). Since the 5.56mm round weighed half what a 7.62mm NATO did, each soldier could carry twice as much ammunition."
Which just meant that soldiers and Marines rabbited off more rounds in the general direction of the enemy. It didn't mean that we killed more of them - which is the whole purpose of a combat weapon. The M-16 was a noisemaker, a fragile, ill-functioning noisemaker and Eugene Stoner was an idiot.
"The SCHV theory wasn’t just smoke & mirrors: USSR started research into their own small-caliber round in the late 1950s, just as US 5.56mm development was ending. Resulted in the 5.45x39mm, adopted as Red Army standard in 1974 and still in use.
All that means is that we tricked the Soviets into following our dumb lead.
"Initial M16 reliability problems came about from a combination of factors: sketchy operational testing (possibly compromised by US Army Ordnance officials who preferred the M14), refusal to chrome plate bore & chamber (USSR standard predating WWII, disliked by US Army Ordnance), claims that the rifle was self cleaning (always a poor idea when troops are involved), uncoordinated changes to propellant (unverified changes from chopped-tube to ball powder, use of calcium chloride as a drying/neutralizing agent in ball powder)."
And all of that mess was funneled into the M-16 chambers by that stupid gas tube system and coupled with the high heat and humidity and filth of the environment in Vietnam, caused us to have a nonfunctioning weapon in our hands when our lives depended on it. Then the dimwits at Aberdeen and Picatinny tried to blame those needless deaths on us.
"The United States Army had been the DoD executive agent for small arms, dating well back before WWI. Pretty much left any requirements out of the mix, for US Marines or the other armed service depts. Interservice competition and contention are never-ending."
It wasn't "interservice rivalry" that killed a lot of very good young men; it was laziness, incompetence, false assumptions, and shoddy operational R&D. I have worked for a Battle Lab for a long time and I know what went on and still goes on. When our sons (and now daughter's) lives depend on what we produce, we need to do better.
“...The AK family is built on a turnbolt design, similar to the Garand but inverted. The tolerances of the critical locking surfaces are excellent as they have to be for the cartridge’s chamber pressures. In 1978 I built the world’s first semiauto AK - and I have a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering, so no smoke-blowing, please. The AK’s “accuracy” issues relate to the limitations of the Type PS ball ammunition ...”
Chainmail fails to convince that he’s seen the insides of a Kalashnikov or an M16-pattern arm. Both are based on a rotating bolt.
“It was the army civilian engineer’s infatuation with the concept of throwing huge masses of lead out of the weapons in the theory that they might hit something...”
Engineers had nothing to do with it.
Based on WWII after-action reports (the most convincing of which were composed by SLA Marshall and his staff from the Army History Office) and studies conducted by the US Army Operations Research Office, senior Army leaders concluded that aimed fire from small arms - rifles - contributed next to nothing to hits on enemy troops. Thus it became the conscious choice of these “experts” that Chainmail deems so unworthy to formalize into Army doctrine the definition of “firepower” as shots per minute.
Whether those leaders decided wisely isn’t the point. The fact that they did so cannot be controverted, and it has affected the course of small arms design ever since. Chainmail free to dislike that course - can’t say I like it much myself - but it happened that way. The oddball concepts evaluated in pursuit of doctrine described so colorfully barely hint at what went on.
“All that means is that we tricked the Soviets into following our dumb lead.”
A common conceit among Americans, but mistaken. Russians - before, during, and after the Soviet period - have a better record of not being misled by trendiness. They are also more patient, more mature, more inclined to take a longer view: their record of hoodwinking and misleading puerile, impatient Americans shows more success.
“...shoddy operational R&D. I have worked for a Battle Lab for a long time ...”
Which Battle Lab?
Gotta say, I hadn’t heard of “operational R&D.” I spent 29 years in uniform, 13 of them in operational testing, and didn’t stumble over it.
There is only R&D, sometimes accompanied by developmental testing, and operational testing. By law. System program offices always yearn to shorten the process, and often attempt to force-fit operational testing onto earlier phases, but it never turns out well. Some constraints cannot be evaded: akin, one gathers, to laws of physics.