Why a replacement for M16 family is doubtfull

[Michael]

Granted, it's the Times, but still FYI. Makes you wonder who is really driving the search for a replacement...

Washington Times
September 27, 2013
Pg. 1

Army Gun Shopping Spree Came Up Empty

$14 million spent on lawmaker whim
By Phillip Swarts, The Washington Times

Move over, shopping addicts, you've got nothing on Uncle Sam.

In the latest example of wasted tax dollars, the Pentagon spent a whopping $14 million to go shopping for semi-automatic rifles that the Army now acknowledges it doesn't need or want.

The tale of the replacement search for the M4 carbine rifle — the preferred weapon of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan since first issued in 2010 — illustrates how military leaders and taxpayers can get squeezed by the whims of congressional players.

Under pressure from a powerful senator, the Army reluctantly launched the Individual Carbine program to find a replacement for the M4, even though top Army officials seemed pleased with the weapon's performance despite a few cases of jamming in the field. Then, after a lengthy effort to test new alternatives, the Pentagon decided to stay with its current gun, leaving behind a hefty bill for browsing, not buying.

"The Army wasted about $14 million on a competition to identify a source to supply new carbines it does not need," the Pentagon's chief watchdog, the inspector general, warned in a report this month.

For conducting a shopping spree that was unnecessary and unproductive, the Army Individual Carbine program wins this week's Golden Hammer, an award highlighting fiscal waste and abuse.

The tortured path of the M4 controversy began in 2007, when Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican, placed a hold on the nomination of Pete Geren to be secretary of the Army until the service agreed to evaluate replacements for the rifle.

That led the Army to pursue a "dual-path strategy": It would look for ways to improve the M4 and continue purchasing the weapon while starting the Individual Carbine program to research an eventual replacement.

After his confirmation, Mr. Geren in October 2008 issued a memo ordering officers to look into replacements for the M4, "given the department's significant interest in providing our soldiers with the best small arms weapons available."

But the inspector general said the Army didn't need new weapons and "did not justify the requirement for a new carbine." An internal analysis by the Army showed that the M4 could be used for another 10 years with no impact on troop capabilities.

Investigators were worried about the cost of weapons that they considered to be unnecessary, as the Army was planning to spend $2.52 billion over 20 years purchasing and maintaining the guns.

Internal pushback

The program also faced internal resistance. The commanding general of the U.S. Army Maneuver Center of Excellence, now at Fort Benning, Ga., said most of the things soldiers needed to do could be achieved by improvements to the M4 and "that the Army should focus its limited funding on its highest-priority capability needs."

The inspector general said that although "gaps existed in soldier and small-unit capabilities that needed to be addressed, none of the solutions for resolving the gaps required replacing the M4."

Several sources on Capitol Hill familiar with the program told The Washington Times that they believed the Army maintained the effort to consider new weapons only because of pressure from Mr. Coburn, who also placed a hold on the nomination of Heidi Shyu to be the assistant secretary of the Army in charge of acquisitions.

But Mr. Coburn has long been one of Congress' chief advocates for reducing federal waste, often publishing reports that highlight examples of fiscal abuse, redundant programs and monetary mismanagement in the federal government. For a long time, he published "The Pork Report" on his congressional website to shine light on the ways taxpayer funds were being wasted.

Nor did the demand that the Army look at new weapons come attached with any economic perks for Mr. Coburn's home state of Oklahoma, a telltale sign for fiscal watchdogs looking for earmarks.

Instead, the senator has been a critic of the M4 rifle.

In 2007, tests conducted by the Army showed that heavy dust — a common occurrence in theaters such as Iraq and Afghanistan — could clog the gun and prevent it from firing.

In 2008, a series of high-profile incidents in Afghanistan drew attention to the fact that guns often were jamming during firefights, leaving U.S. troops defenseless as they faced insurgents. After hundreds of insurgents attacked a U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan in July 2008, killing 13 people, some soldiers reported that their guns had overheated and stopped working.

"The M4 has served us well," Mr. Coburn told The Associated Press. "But it's not as good as it needs to be."

John Hart, spokesman for Mr. Coburn, said the senator "was concerned the Army was providing its soldiers with subpar weapons while providing Special Forces with superior weapons."

"The charge that the Army was going to waste money with this purchase is questionable," Mr. Hart said. "For instance, how do you calculate the cost of giving a soldier a weapon that doesn't work in a firefight? That's not a justification for a blank check, of course, but that's the central question."

Mr. Hart said the senator would be sending a letter to the inspector general, addressing issues and questions raised in its report about whether the Individual Carbine program is needed.

Improved alternative

Army officials maintain that improvements to the M4 have been made and many soldiers are being equipped with an upgraded variant — the M4A1. No major incidences of the guns jamming during combat have been reported recently.

Some of Mr. Coburn's counterparts in the House didn't share his view that the rifle needs to be replaced. In its recommendations for the defense budget next year, the House Armed Services Committee cut the amount of funding that would go toward purchasing rifles, while keeping the full amount requested for improving the M4.

"The committee is concerned that the amount of procurement funding requested for new carbines is too high," said a report from the committee, citing that members' belief that the Pentagon had conducted a proper business case assessment. The committee chairman is Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, California Republican.

The Army, meanwhile, said it stopped the Individual Carbine program because it was unsatisfied with its choices.

"None of the carbines evaluated during the testing phase of the competition met the minimum scoring requirement needed to continue to the next phase of the evaluation," the Army said in a statement. "In lieu of a new competition for an IC, the Army will continue fielding and equipping soldiers with the M4A1 carbine, which consistently performs well and has received high marks from soldiers."

A House staffer familiar with the issue said it is unlikely the Individual Carbine program will continue.

"Given the Army's budget situation, I don't see it being resurrected at all," the staffer told The Washington Times.

The program to replace the M4 rifle illustrates a harsh truth about Washington: Sometimes lawmakers and military leaders do what they believe is best, but taxpayers still wind up being out $14 million.

[hm2 clark]

Wern't the same arguments used to keep from replacing the M14?

[Michael]

Maybe. Seem to remember replacing the M14 was driven from inside the DOD as opposed from the Congressional influence. Again, this is one article and one reporters story...also, the M14 had only been in production for a few years.

[KentuckyBuddha]

The M-14 was a tarted up M1 Garand with a magazine and a slightly smaller round trying to replace three weapons. It was and is a fine weapon for what it is for but it isn't all things to all Soldiers, and no weapon can be. We need a range of rounds.

We are getting no new rifle because of sequester.

[LRRPF52]

Wern't the same arguments used to keep from replacing the M14?

No. The M14 was just barely entering initial production when it was tested against the ArmaLite AR15 in 1958. Soldiers and Marines were still using M1 Garands and M1 Carbines at the time.

When the prototype AR15's blew away the M14, even specially selected M14's by the Army Ordnance Corps (who developed it), the report was buried and the AR15 and Springfield .224 Infantry Rifles were deemed unfit for military service.

The AR15 proved more accurate, 3 times as reliable, obviously lighter, easier for recruits to use and learn, easier to field-strip, with way more firepower for weight than the M14. There was an entrenched camp in the CONARC board that was determined to see the AR15 fail, but there was also a very real need for new rifles to be fielded to the services, so production of the M14 still made sense since the AR15 wasn't ready for production by any means in 1958.

After the Office Chief of Ordnance tried to kill the AR15 with their games, Fairchild (parent co. of ArmaLite) saw no more reason to pursue the design because they felt it was dead as a military weapon, despite its actual performance success. The Powell Board and General Maxwell Taylor, Army Chief of Staff, officially declared the M14 "the only rifle suitable for Army use" after it was out-performed by the AR15. General Taylor forbade the Army from anymore purchasing of .224" caliber weapons for testing.

There was a Balitmore-based firm called Cooper-Macdonald who brokered the deal between Colt and Fairchild for the sale of the AR15 and AR10 designs, with a lump sum of $75,000 and 4.5% royalty. Colt paid Cooper-Macdonald $250,000 + 1% royalty for brokering the deal, because Cooper-Macdonald already had orders in Southeast Asia, and they were already handling the Dutch AR10 licensing.

Colt actually started tooling up to produce the Colt AR10A, and spent $100,000 on said tooling, thinking they could sell the AR10A as a 7.62 NATO standard service rifle.

In his testimony before the Ichord subcommittee, Bobby Macdonald later related the events surrounding his introduction to the AR-15 as follows:

"But it was the finest, most foolproof weapon I have ever seen in my life.. .Well, when I got back to Singapore I cabled Colt who
had already spent $100,000 tooling up for the AR-10. I cabled
them to stop it and go to full out on the AR-15, because it was obvious that what everybody else had always thought about this [7.62mm] NATO round."

From The Black Rifle R. Blake Stevens * Edward C. Ezell



Colt Started producing their first model 01, the Colt Model 601 AR15, and sending them to Malaysia in 1959. Orders to Australia, Burma, Malaya, Philippines, and Thailand followed shortly thereafter.

The US Air Force, who still procured their small arms through/with the Army, turned down the M14 "light rifle" due to its ungainly bulk/weight, and were still using M2 carbines, which the Army stopped carrying spare parts for. This is the historical backdrop to the famous watermelon shoot on July 4th, 1960, with USAF General Curtis LeMay, at Richard Boutelle's birthday party, where LeMay blasted 2 watermelons at 50yds and 150yds, both of which reacted explosively to the AR15.

3 Colt Model 601 AR15's were sent to Lackland AFB for evaluation in replacing the M2 carbines. Before the 1960 July 4th watermelon event, Colt sent a request to the Army Ordnance Board for re-evaluation of the AR15, but were immediately turned down by Dr. Carten, stating there was no military application for such a weapon, only to be blindsided by the USAF request through the Pentagon for exactly the same evaluations, to be run concurrently with several AR10's for the Dutch.

The AR15's recorded performance in those tests was exceptional, with unusually tight 10rd groups, high reliability, ease of use, etc. The scoped rifle records experienced mean averages of 1.1" groups at 100yds across several rifles, firing 10rd groups, which is difficult to believe without the test results to back them up.

The Air Force requested to purchase the AR15 at least 3 times, to include directly involving President Kennedy himself in the matter, and the SEALs jumped on-board for requesting AR15's through normal channels as well (while buying as many as they could with other funds outside the normal procurement channels).



The British SAS were using the AR15 early on, most likely through the Malaya contract rifles, but who knows how they actually obtained them. They were Colt Model 601's based on photos of SAS in Borneo in 1963.



As Vietnam heated up, more Congressional authorization for defense funding turned on, and the AR15 was eventually given the green light, as Special Forces, Airborne, and Airmobile units hungrily sought after the lightweight system.

[Trooper]

Think about it. Since we moved towards assault rifles, there have been two generations. In most cases it was the introduction of a new round that pushed the rifle.

The M14, the FN-FAL and the SKS are Gen I. For the US and NATO it was the introduction of the 7.62x51 that pushed the acceptance of the M14 and the FAL. It replaced the .30-06 and the .303 rounds. The 7.62x39 replaced the 7.62x54R.

Gen II was the M16/M4 in the US. And similar rifles in NATO. The push was the 5.56x45mm round. The Soviets updated their rifle to the AK-47 then to the AK-74 in 5.54x39mm.

If we get Gen III it will be due to a new round such as the 6.5 Grendel.

[LRRPF52]

The seemingly endless 7.62x51 fiasco created a class of rifles that should never have been born:

* Self-loading battle rifles

It ignored basically everything we already knew from even the Great War of 1914-1918, and instead of accepting the German trends with the Sturmgewehr, Army Ordnance Corps gave us the abortion known as the M14, which was nothing but a detachable magazine fed Garand with a less reliable operating system, chambered in an old-era, slightly-shortened battle rifle cartridge (in performance, recoil, weight). They called it a "light rifle" to make it sound new and innovative.

The only practical role for a 7.62x51mm NATO service rifle is in the Designated Marksmen/Squad Sharpshooter and Sniper duty positions.

As far as calibers go, it's interesting how NATO and Warsaw Pact took two different routes initially-

Route # 1: 7.62x51 full power battle rifle cartridge
The US drove the British and Belgians to ignore the superior work the Brits had done with the .270 & .280 Enfield's, forcing the over-powered and heavy 7.62 NATO onto our allies.

Route # 2: Warsaw Pact Intermediate Cartridge M43
The Russians had already looked at the short, German bottle-necked cartridges, and adopted the M43 7.62x39 Russian Short, to be used in the SKS Carbine, RPD Belt-fed Squad Support Weapon, and Avtomat Kalashnikov true assault rifle.

As soon as the ARPA combat trials with the AR15 were conducted, and the .223 Remington wound ballistics were witnessed first-hand, it was a game-changer. Everybody wanted AR15's, and the units that could get what they want started buying them by the thousands. The M14 was still barely in initial-rate production, and eventually began to be fielded with conventional units. Its service in Vietnam as a standard infantry rifle was abysmal, because of limited soldier's load and ammunition carrying capacity, its extreme length/bulk/weight, and uncontrollability for smaller soldiers.

Drastic Change of Course
The US got off its own track quickly because of the M14's failures, and jerked to the opposite side of the spectrum to the SCHV concept.

After evaluating the extensive experiences of small arms in Vietnam, the Russians ditched the 7.62x39 AK and AKM in favor of their own SCHV cartridge, the 5.45x39mm chambered in a further lightened AK variant known as the AK74, pushing the AK's and AKM's into reserve units as AK74's filtered into the system. The AK74 would first see major service in Afghanistan starting in 1979. The 5.45x39 Russian SCHV cartridge remains the primary Russian service rifle chambering to this day.

All Roads Led to SCHV
So in the end, both West and East ended up with SCHV rifles as primary service rifle systems. The US got their earlier because of the utter disaster that the 7.62 NATO was as a standard rifle chambering. The biggest losers in a sense were our European NATO allies, and the various nations around the world who would absorb these crazy 7.62 NATO self-loaders, which are still a mainstay of armies from South America to Africa, with soldiers who are so small in stature, that US teens average taller and heavier than them.

The European NATO allies couldn't go back to their parliaments and get funding for new rifles after begging and obtaining the go-ahead for the ill-advised 7.62 NATO FAL's, L1A1's, and G3's. It wouldn't be until the 1970's that NATO would start developing their own 5.56 NATO assault rifles, with the British SA-80, French FAMAS, Austrian Steyr AUG, Belgian FNC, Italian AR-70, German HK33, & Swiss SIG 550 series.

All the NATO nations except Germany adopted their home-grown SCHV (5.56 NATO) rifles, with Germany keeping the G3 until adopting the Stoner rotating bolt AR18 system-based G36 in 5.56 NATO in the 1990's. Norway also kept their G3 licensed production until adopting 5.56 AR15 variants later.

Some of the post-war oddballs were the Czechs with the VZ52 chambered in 7.62x45mm, and the Swiss with the SIG510 in 7.5x55: