Posted on 10/11/2009 6:14:33 AM PDT by decimon
WASHINGTON – In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either.
When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S. soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a "critical moment" during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents.
Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, do U.S. armed forces have the best guns money can buy?
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Look on gunbroker...they go for @ $350-400 NIB.
In a dusty environment petroleum based lubricants are the worst thin you can put on an M16 based rifle. There are good quality dry lubricants like Militec-1 that have glowing reports from our troops.
I know the men in our military take great care of their weapons. That keeps them alive. A neighbor just returned from that hell hole and he said the dust and grit is terrible and permeates everything.
You can take an AK-47, drop it in mud and it continues to shoot. Why the hell can’t we have a gun that is as dependable as the AK. The horror of losing a child in the war is inexplicable, but to lose one because a gun stopped shooting to totally unacceptible.
The article mentions that SpecOps buys their own weapons - any idea what they use?
And: Sometime back there was a to-do about changing from lead to Chinese tungstun for the bullet - are supposed to be signifigant trajectory characteristics - any effect - if army uses them - on reilability?
two things: one - the way i read it, the problems were all heat related expansion seizures due to automatic fire
two - the goathumpers coming out in mass like that "~200" they should have pounded them and the surrounding hillside to dust by everything available!!!
WTF is up with that??? with a force(TARGET) of that size, we should of pounded the hills to dust for a mile around...
they never come out to play and when they finally do, this is the result???
something wrong here...
You are a moron for blaming the warrior. And you can tell from 6000 miles away ??
(off to surf gunbroker)
Not with your tongue you can't.
Or is this AP commie propaganda to remind everyone of Nam. !Bump Miltec-1
In ‘67 when I first was issued an m16, I went to the wire with it and fired off 14 magazines in full auto mode and then the thing jammed b4 the 14th was empty.
Then I cleaned it and had no further trouble.
My jam was failure to extract.
Air had problems with poor visibiliy and some dumba$$ put the base at the bottom of a canyon. Bad guys were well dug in above.
The battle at Wanat occurred in July 2008. From the link below they seem to have received substantial air support.
12 mags in half an hour. That’s about one round every five seconds. If it’s overheating to the point of failure, there is a problem with the design. Bet the Afghan insurgents didn’t have a problem, even though they were firing just as much with their AKs.
Call Springfield Armory and get more M-14s
If 60 years ago a Russian tank mechanic could design a rifle that is cheap to produce and keeps firing in the very worst of conditions with little or no maintenance why can’t our US whiz kids find a similar if not better solution?
thx... some dumba$$ put the base at the bottom of a canyon.
i guess that qualifies as my something wrong here part.
Here’s the problem guys, and I speak on this from the manufacturing industry side...
The M16 is a 50+ year old design. It’s a good design, it works within a certain set of parameters just as all firearms do. With this being said, here’s what we are facing...
The mission role of the rifle has changed. It is being used in theatres that it was not intended on being used in.
Due to the 1968 Gun Control Act and the 1986 Hughes Amendment, it is really not realistically profitable for the industry to put time into developing a really well thought out new and more robust design. Other nations have taken the lead in small arms technology leaving us lacking severely in this race. Repeal these poorly thought out laws and you will find that small arms technology will advance by leaps and bounds in America.
Lastly, harrassment by BATFE and other busy body agencies more interested in political BS than our nations security have hampered technological development even further.
What our Government has forgotten is that every great small arms design out there was created by individuals with an idea, not committees with a set of rules and a check book. There are minds that rival those of John Moses Browning and Eugene Stoner that could do so much for our nation yet they won’t get into the firearms field because of the BATFE and existing laws. I know this because I know some of these people. Until things change, we’ll keep rehashing the same old problems with the same old weapons over and over and over and over and over again. And more and more of our troops will die because of politics and political stupidity. The blood of every troop that has died due to a weapons malfunction is on the hands of these short sighted and self serving politicians.
Give the industry an outlet for design ideas that is profitable, ie, the civilian population and you’ll see small arms technology advance by leaps and bounds making our nation and our soldiers safer. Stop the us vs. them attitude against the citizens of the United States. Until you do, you mr. and mrs elected official are going to be responsible for the downfall of our nation as will agencies like the BATFE.
Mike
Big BTTT!
http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.asp?Item=142365458
More to the point, why didn’t they have mortars and 40mm grenade launchers in that environment?
the thing that is wrong are the ROEs - no arty or air (fighter bombers) to be used near civilians - in this case someone from the now destroyed nearby village just might have been hit. US Troops dying is just an acceptable McChrystal ROE risk. The Taliban and AQ guys just love it. McChrystal is out of his depth - great when under someone else’s command but on his own - not so much.
But the real problem is the Mil no loger produces strategic planners of thinkers - just tacticians.
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