Certainly wouldn’t be the first time troops were sent to fight with a faulty or the wrong weapon.
I’m sure many at the Little Bighorn wished the army had given them repeating rifles in their final moments.
BUT LOOK AT ALL THE AMMUNITION THEY WOULD HAVE WASTED! /s
Sorry, I couldn't resist making a 19th century point. Something about things being the way they are sometimes just because of people and institutions being set in their ways and not much else.
Meanwhile, back in Afghanistan... I my own self never served, so I don't speak from experience. All I can say is it seems like the first time I read something like this was in 1974 in American Rifleman magazine in the library at the place where I was going to school.
Sometimes history only rhymes, and sometimes it seems like it downright repeats itself.
Again, just observation on my part and not experience except a little time at the shooting range.
Or had BELIEVED the reports the scouts brought to Custer!