{"id":39923,"date":"2014-02-20T10:53:02","date_gmt":"2014-02-20T15:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=39923"},"modified":"2014-02-20T10:53:02","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T15:53:02","slug":"the-m4-discussion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=39923","title":{"rendered":"The M4 discussion"},"content":{"rendered":"

RM3(SS) sends us a link from the Washington Times entitled “Troops left to fend for themselves after Army was warned of flaws in rifle<\/a>” a rather long article about the controversy surrounding the Army’s standard battle rifle, the M4, particularly the Colt version;<\/p>\n

Mr. Traudt, of Green Mountain Defense, said the military paid his company a decade ago for ideas for fixing the M4. He produced his company\u2019s product, a 2001 technical report titled \u201cCarbine extended life barrel and selected reliability improvement components identification.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe M4s were substandard,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Army paid us to find a way to improve them, improve them cheaply with a little bit of extra engineering and metallurgical changes to make a gun that was markedly more reliable than the Colt weapon. The Army took our advice and did nothing with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert Scales, an artillery officer who earned the Silver Star in Vietnam, is a prominent M4 critic.<\/p>\n

He said its 5.56-caliber bullet is too small and the gas-piston firing system is prone to stoppage. He said better weapons \u2014 the German Heckler-Koch G36 and Russian AK-74 (a version of the venerable AK-47) \u2014 use superior firing systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly, this whole thing is scandalous,\u201d Gen. Scales said. \u201cWe send soldiers into close combat with lousy weapons and we\u2019ve done it since World War II and nobody complains. It\u2019s a national outrage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has no penetrating power,\u201d he said of the M4. \u201cIt\u2019s ineffective against vehicles, against bunkers. It\u2019s ineffective against virtually anything except a man in the open. Put a flak jacket on the enemy and it\u2019s virtually useless.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I was a fan of the M16A2. It was a perfect weapon, but I guess it was too long for the close-in fighting we’ve seen in recent years. I’m heartened that the Marines still use the M16. I have a civilian version of the M4 (not the Colt – I’m not made of money) and of course, I don’t use it under combat conditions or fire thousands of rounds through in a few minutes (again, I’m not made of money) and it gets cleaned in my living room before and after firing it. So, I guess I’m trying to say that I’m no expert on the M4 just because I own one. I also have an AR pistol that I built (from all non-Colt parts). But I’d like to hear what you guys have to say about it. <\/p>\n

Like I said, I left the Army when the M16A2 was the issued weapon and I liked that it was structurally more reliable than the M16A1 and more accurate at longer ranges. We spent a lot of time cleaning it, but, then that’s what good soldiers do, isn’t it? I’ll admit that I like the idea of a 7.62 version. My friend has one and it has a more satisfying recoil than the M4, meaning better penetration and improved target impact. But I want to hear what you think of it, you have more experience with it in combat than me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RM3(SS) sends us a link from the Washington Times entitled “Troops left to fend for themselves … The M4 discussion<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[198],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-army"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39923\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}