[HoustonCurmudgeon]

Possibly they took some 40mm Mk19 automatic grenade launcher ammo (which is hotter) and tried to shoot them through the M203 tube which is slung under the barrel of the M16.

I suspect,(this is a wild ass guess Fred), that a bunch of gung ho marines (God Bless them though He didn't make them smart enough to get in the ARMY) found some Russian (or the Iraqi knock off)made RPG and before destroying the lot wanted to test fire a couple of them. I do not believe anything new and low tech would be sent to combat troops involved in a short time war.

[cgk]

"that a bunch of gung ho marines (God Bless them though He didn't make them smart enough to get in the ARMY)"

I read from your profile you're an Army vet, so what you wrote makes sense to you. But please please don't criticize our dead soldiers, no matter what branch of the military they belong to. They are ALL there for US.

[Ford Fairlane]

We were testing some armor against various weapons once, when they fired an RPG one of the fins failed to deploy.

We all hit the deck, it flew around in circles & blew up right in front of a truck loaded with a large assortment of ammo. Pretty scary