Soldiers Report Gun Glitches

Shortly after the close of Operation Anaconda in March, the Army's small-arms experts saw a surge in e-mail traffic from soldiers critiquing the performance of their weapons.

According to troops returning from combat, key weapons such as the M4 carbine, M9 pistol and M246 Squad Automatic Weapon did not always perform up to spec. Soldiers reported jams and misfires, and complained that, in high-altitude mountain warfare, they wanted weapons with larger rounds that could "drop a man with one shot."

The Army is now evaluating the lessons learned in Afghanistan. In mid-March, U.S. Central Command dispatched a team of experts to Afghanistan to survey soldiers about the quality of their weapons and gear.

The team, led by Lt. Col. Charlie Dean of the Natick Soldier Center in Massachusetts, the Army's main laboratory for developing soldiers' equipment, found that U.S. soldiers were generally satisfied with their gear. But the Natick team found problems with important items: body armor, boots and some of the rifles and pistols.

According to Lt. Col. Robert Carpenter, Army product manager for small arms, that survey prompted Army specialists to take a closer look and see if it they could identify the cause of those problems.

"We took that as an opportunity to go back and talk to those same soldiers," he said. "When we looked at [Dean's] report, we said, `Hey, this is great, this is an opportunity to go and see if there's truly some problems out there.' "

Carpenter's group interviewed soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division and 101st Airborne Division who took part in Operation Anaconda. While his group found that soldiers were generally confident in their weapons, it found that key weapons—such as the M4 Carbine—did indeed suffer from jams and "misfeeds" in combat. Soldiers also complained that standard ammunition, designed during the Cold War for use against Soviet troops wearing body armor, was not always suited for use against an unconventional enemy.

Some of Carpenter's most interesting findings have to do with lethality of the ammunition issued to U.S. troops. According to some reports from the field, the M855 round—a 5.56 mm cartridge used interchangeably in the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW), the M16 and the M4—had a tendency to "overpenetrate." In other words, it could pass right through a person without causing lethal damage.

Carpenter said there were cases where "where you shot right through the guy—and it wasn't stopping him, and they kept coming."

However, Carpenter said most of the evidence of "overpenetration" was anecdotal and unsubstantiated.

"The 855 round is a great all-around round," he said. "What we heard in e-mail traffic and some comments was—very few substantiated, I'll tell you—I shot right through the guy. With any type of round at high velocities and certain ranges, unless you hit something on that person's body that's going to cause that bullet to begin to yaw or deform, you may get overpenetration. Basically, you're going to punch a hole right through the guy."

However, the Army is doing a lethality study on the issue. The 5.56 mm cartridge has evolved since Vietnam to create a NATO-standard round that is compatible with the SAW; its higher-velocity bullet has a slightly faster rate of twist and a steel penetrator.

"That's a great round for punching through body armor, based on that [Soviet] threat that we were facing during the 1970s and 1980s," said Carpenter, who noted that few al Qaeda or Taliban soldiers had body armor.

Asked about the main lesson for the Army, Carpenter added: "Overall, our stuff works, and our soldiers do very well with it, and they adapt our weapons to every environment. And they learn rapidly on how to take care of the weapon in every unique environment."

Part of the problem, Carpenter said, was that Afghanistan posed some "unique" environmental problems that made weapons maintenance a real headache. The country's fine dust, in particular, seems to seep into everything, he said.

"This is different sand than we saw during Desert Storm, and all those things have a unique effect on weapons," he said.

For instance, 54 percent of the soldiers polled by Natick on the performance of the SAW reported problems cleaning and maintaining the weapon. Roughly the same proportion of soldiers reported rust and corrosion problems in the M9 Pistol barrel.

"We tell guys, `Clean your weapons,'" Carpenter said, adding: "But sometimes, you don't have all the time it takes to do that."

However, soldiers didn't always have everything in their kits to make the task of cleaning easier. As the Natick report noted, soldiers had to supplement their cleaning kits by paying out of pocket for extra items such as barber brushes and dental picks that can serve as weapons-cleaning tools.

Some of the problems could be traced to the equipment itself, not just to the environment.

The M4 Carbine—a shorter-barreled version of the Army's 5.56 mm M16 assault rifle series—was widely used in Afghanistan. It has a light, modular design that allows for interchangeable weapons sights and other additions.

The Natick survey said 20 percent of soldiers reported double feeding; 15 percent reported feeding jams. Carpenter said that this was a subject of concern.

"Overall, the M4 is a great weapon, but we heard we had some stoppages with it, so we've got to drill down and find out ... what's causing those stoppages," he said. "Is it the performance of the weapon itself? Or is it something else?"

According to Carpenter's survey, the majority of the stoppages were caused by aging magazines. Some magazines had worn lips and feeders; sand would seep in, and as rounds stacked in the magazine start to get flattened out, they would begin to bind up.

"That's where we find the majority of the problems," said Carpenter. "The problem wasn't the weapon, the performance of the weapon itself, it was the magazine. So we're right now looking at ways that we can get the word out to the field to inspect the magazines. Sometimes, we just don't throw things out, and perhaps we've kept some of the magazines around too long."

A similar problem affected the M9 pistol. The Natick report said: "Soldiers had problems with the magazine springs becoming too slack."

Carpenter said the Army would look into ways to inspect magazines to make sure soldiers are not issued old or worn ones. And he said he was working closely with Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois to come up with a document or slip of paper to send out to the field so platoon leaders can instruct troops on what to do to make sure their magazines work.

The .223 is just too small. It's a varmint round, and humans are not 30lb animals. A proper deer round, like the .308 is a much better choice. After 40 years of adjusting the twist rates, various mumbo-jumbo bullet designs and powder differences we are at war and the bullets are still failing. The M-16 / .223 has had it's day in the sun, why can't we replace it with something that works?

The M-16, now the M-4, has been improved multiple times but still jams with impunity when asked to do it's job. The reasons are well known, a small bore (.22) makes for a more delicate mechanism. The direct gas system of the AR series blows hot gas (& crud) directly back into the chamber as opposed to operating against a piston as in more reliable weapons systems like the FN-FAL or AK-47 series.

Attempts to fix the twin problems (of the gun and round) have been ongoing since 1963. ENOUGH! There are excellent alternatives for both available, including our own M-14. (A modified Garand, much loved by WWII era G.I.s). Hell even the .308 version of the M-16 (the AR-10) is much more reliable than the .223 version, due to the larger tolerances inherent in the bigger gun.

Let's drop these dogs before one more American life is lost.

Wow, harpseal, you hit almost all the points I was going to make...

However, I've got a couple observations to share--I've considered this M4/M16/5.56/7.62 thing excessively. I started learning at the Foreign Weapons School at APG and have continued my study in handloading, competing and shooting and hiking with a rifle a helluva lot. Here are the observations I've come to and the reasons why.

o The M4 is a hybrid solution that does nothing well. The Natick rails vs. the 'carrying handle' is a great idea to put better optics on, but all that is negated by the loss in ballistics and reliability based on the shorter barrel and gas-tube. The shorter gas tube causes unreliability because the gas is still on the up-slope of it's rapid expansion curve by the time it hits the bolt carrier. I have an AR-15 and went with the 'border-patrol' barrel--a full length handguard and gas tube with the barrel truncated and flash-hider right in front of the front sight/gas block. It's easier to get in and out of a pickup with than a full M-16 and has full-length sight radius and gas-tube.

o The 'sliding stock' on the M4 carbine is a waste of time--you gain about 2" in overall length for a loss in cheek-to-stock ergonomics. The M4 would be more well suited for urban warfare but for the fact that the 5.56 doesn't punch through masonry, adobe and wood real well--'specially out of that short barrel. I think it has specialty uses for vehicle crewmembers, some spec-ops, and law enforcement, but it's simply not a battle rifle.

o The ol' 'tumbling bullet' quandary: the original round for the M-16 was a .55 grain spire point the barrel had a 1 in 12 twist. With such a short, light bullet pushed at high velocity (3500 fps IIRC) when it hit a body, it would go unstable and cavitate around the bullet nose which would frequently tear the jacket off and leave bad wounds. Of course it would go all unstable after about 500m too. In order to push the Max. Effective Range out, they brought the bullet up to 72 grains, gave it a boat tail and tightened the barrel twist to stabilize it. Unfortunately, that defeated it's main injury causing mechanism--the cavitation about the nose and instability. Add a steel penetrating core so's to be used in the M249 and you've got bullet that punches very small very neat holes through bad guys without doing a lot of temporary-wound-channel tissue damage. Yeah, they might eventually die, but you have to wait for them to bleed to death...

o Magazine failures--the biggest reason I've see for magazine failure is damaging the feed-lips on the 30-round magazines. If you throw yourself prone, the bottom of the 30-round mag bangs the ground and jams the feed lips up into the mag well. The stupidest thing is to tape two together into that 'jungle-clip Rambo' configuration. Now when the damned thing smacks the ground as you hit the prone, you wreck two magazines. I actually prefer the 20 round mag cause of this, and you can carry a bunch of those.

o The 7.62 quandary. For a variety of reasons, the FN FAL is my fave battle rifle of all time. It's in 7.62--I like to take it on long walks and it is an absolute boat-anchor to carry. It is heavy--add 3 or 4 magazines and soon you are carrying a lot of weight. The only reason the FN FAL is in 7.62 is 'cause the Army wanted to produce a 'Mini-Garand' as the battle rifle after WWII and liked the 30 cal. The FN FAL was originally in 8mm kurz (short) which the Nato countries were going to adopt until the US demanded they go with the 7.62x52mm round so's the US could build a mini-garand. In order to compete for the contract for the US battle rifle, FN went up to 7.62. The Army then disqualified it from consideration for it's weight and the fact that it wasn't enough like a Garand. The Army went with the M-14 and then got rid of it because of the weight.

o If the Army went with the FN FAL in 8mm kurz, we wouldn't be having this discussion because it is probably the perfect trade off of weight vs. stopping power, accuracy and reliability.

Sorry for the long post, but I've given this a lot of thought and practice :)

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