I thank you for your service!
Mine was very modest and though I was often in theater I was never a combat soldier.
Your opinion is more valuable than mine.
At the same time I can see that you are and expert on this rifle; I shirk to think of the thousands of men who, despite their training, could never quite wrap their heads around the many idiosyncrasies.
I trained on a variant of this Armalite rifle as well as on other, I maintain superior rifles, and often wondered whether, instead of teaching so many Vietnam soldiers how to incessantly clean, field strip, etc. their M-16s, we had simply given them bolt action rifles and taught them how to shoot.
It is my opinion that the rifle itself is unnecessarily complicated and, in fact, silly.
You are one who seems to master things. You mastered this rifle. Many didn’t!
“we had simply given them bolt action rifles and taught them how to shoot.”
Ask Custer how that type of slow fire went for him.
Even though your reply is reasoned, I cannot agree with bolt action rifles as being superior for most Vietnam era soldiers. The Germans had the finest bolt action rifle in the world with the Mauser 98k, but even they realized the validity of the assault rifle concept when faced with hordes of PPSH 41 sub machine gun wielding Soviets. So they gave the world the STG 43/44 Sturmgewehr.
If you actually examine the mechanism of the AR type rifles, it is simplicity itself. The direct impingement gas system actually has few parts, because the bolt carrier also serves as a gas piston to lock and unlock the bolt, in conjunction with the cam pin. Gas is conveyed to the bolt carrier via a simple aluminium tube.
The fire control group too has very few parts, because the trigger also serves a sear purpose, and the only other major parts are the disconnector, the hammer and selector lever, and with the exception of the automatic sear and it’s spring, are fairly common to all military type rifles. The upper and lower receiver only serve to align all of the parts in proper orientation because all of the pressures and stresses of firing are contained by the bolt, barrel and barrel extension, which is why the rifle can be made so light using mainly simple aluminum forgings.
Add to that the ease of control with the straight line buffered recoil design, (particularly in full auto) and the inherent accuracy of the high velocity flat trajectory bullet, and you have a superior design. That is why it has remained in service essentially unchanged mechanically for over 55 years.
I will concede one thing, that the superb AK series works better without any maintenance at all. But if you add up the pluses and minuses of both rifles, give me Mr. Stoner’s design every day over Mr. Kalashnikov’s.