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Subject: M4 in the harsh spotlight, again
Something Meatier    4/20/2008 11:01:21 PM
Colt's grip on military rifle criticized Associated Press, 4/20/08 HARTFORD, Conn. - No weapon is more important to tens of thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan than the carbine rifle. And for well over a decade, the military has relied on one company, Colt Defense of Hartford, Conn., to make the M4s they trust with their lives. Now, as Congress considers spending millions more on the guns, this exclusive arrangement is being criticized as a bad deal for American forces as well as taxpayers, according to interviews and research conducted by The Associated Press. "What we have is a fat contractor in Colt who's gotten very rich off our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," says Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. The M4, which can fire at a rate of 700 to 950 bullets a minute, is a shorter and lighter version of the company's M16 rifle first used 40 years ago during the Vietnam War. It normally carries a 30-round magazine. At about $1,500 apiece, the M4 is overpriced, according to Coburn. It jams too often in sandy environments like Iraq, he adds, and requires far more maintenance than more durable carbines. "And if you tend to have the problem at the wrong time, you're putting your life on the line," says Coburn, who began examining the M4's performance last year after receiving complaints from soldiers. "The fact is, the American GI today doesn't have the best weapon. And they ought to." U.S. military officials don't agree. They call the M4 an excellent carbine. When the time comes to replace the M4, they want a combat rifle that is leaps and bounds beyond what's currently available. "There's not a weapon out there that's significantly better than the M4," says Col. Robert Radcliffe, director of combat developments at the Army Infantry Center in Fort Benning, Ga. "To replace it with something that has essentially the same capabilities as we have today doesn't make good sense." Colt's exclusive production agreement ends in June 2009. At that point, the Army, in its role as the military's principal buyer of firearms, may have other gunmakers compete along with Colt for continued M4 production. Or, it might begin looking for a totally new weapon. "We haven't made up our mind yet," Radcliffe says. William Keys, Colt's chief executive officer, says the M4 gets impressive reviews from the battlefield. And he worries that bashing the carbine will undermine the confidence the troops have in it. "The guy killing the enemy with this gun loves it," says Keys, a former Marine Corps general who was awarded the Navy Cross for battlefield valor in Vietnam. "I'm not going to stand here and disparage the senator, but I think he's wrong." In 2006, a non-profit research group surveyed 2,600 soldiers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan and found 89 percent were satisfied with the M4. While Colt and the Army have trumpeted that finding, detractors say the survey also revealed that 19 percent of these soldiers had their weapon jam during a firefight. And the relationship between the Army and Colt has been frosty at times. Concerned over the steadily rising cost of the M4, the Army forced Colt to lower its prices two years ago by threatening to buy rifles from another supplier. Prior to the warning, Colt "had not demonstrated any incentive to consider a price reduction," then-Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, an Army acquisition official, wrote in a November 2006 report. Coburn is the M4's harshest and most vocal critic. But his concern is shared by others, who point to the "SCAR," made by Belgian armorer FN Herstal, and the HK416, produced by Germany's Heckler & Koch, as possible contenders. Both weapons cost about the same as the M4, their manufacturers say. The SCAR is being purchased by U.S. special operations forces, who have their own acquisition budget and the latitude to buy gear the other military branches can't. Or won't. "All I know is, we're not having the competition, and the technology that is out there is not in the hands of our troops," says Jack Keane, a former Army general who pushed unsuccessfully for an M4 replacement before retiring four years ago. The dispute over the M4 has been overshadowed by larger but not necessarily more important concerns. When the public's attention is focused on the annual defense budget, it tends to be captured by bigger-ticket items, like the Air Force's F-22 Raptors that cost $160 million each. The Raptor, a radar-evading jet fighter, has never been used in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the troops who patrol Baghdad's still-dangerous neighborhoods or track insurgents along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, there's no piece of gear more critical than the rifles on their shoulders. They go everywhere with them, even to the bathroom and the chow hall. Yet the military has a poor track record for getting high-quality firearms to warfighters. Since the Revolutionary War, mountains of red tape, oversize egos and never-ending arguments o
 
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maruben    A picture of the brass deflector   4/28/2008 5:51:08 PM
 
 
New rear sight, brass deflector and forward assist of M16A2 on
 
 
 
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YelliChink       4/28/2008 6:46:04 PM

I suppose that if you want to be super-picky, the c ocking handle on the Armalite is not in an ideal place as you have to move your head away to use it. Plus the separate forward assist, not all the controls are ambidextrous and the stock has a minimum length. I hardly see any of those being a huge problem unless you are so left-handed that you can't shoot right at all (which is hardly anyone) or you think that you are playing counterstrike and a split second longer on the reload is a problem.

I never said AR-15's ergonomics is great. Yimmy said that, and I don't really agree with that. What I did say is that I got used to it and it is somewhat OK. You're right about the fact that I am very picky. The stock of AR is both pro and con. If you ever clean a rifle, you'll know the advantage of it. Original AR-15 is a very well-balanced rifle, and part of the reason is because of the layout spread weight so that cg is near trigger. M16A2 used heavier barrel and cg shifted to magazine well. Don't get me start on top heavy SA80 with SUSAT.

I didn't invent speed reload techniques. Check your local YouTube server for what is taught by expert firearms instructors about speed reload.

And I don't play Counterstrike.
 
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Yimmy       4/28/2008 6:58:18 PM

 Don't get me start on top heavy SA80 with SUSAT.


Oh please, do elaborate.
 
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YelliChink       4/28/2008 7:10:20 PM



 Don't get me start on top heavy SA80 with SUSAT.



Oh please, do elaborate.

You want the cg of a rifle between two hands and be as low as possible. If cg is lean towards one hand, either left or right, it increases fatigue in handling and make handling uncomfortable in certain circumstances. High cg just increase handling problem due to physics says that the higher the cg, the larger the torque generated when the rifle is tilted to one side, which again increase fatigue. It is not very pleasant experience on a 30km marching exercise  with a rifle, not to mention one that increase fatigue.

 
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flamingknives       4/29/2008 1:54:21 PM
Speed reloading, AFAICT, is either party-piece or a marketing ploy. In the extremes I can imagine that a really awkward reload might be a problem, but the difference between SA80 and Armalite in a military reloading condition is going to be marginal. That means that you retain the magazine and put it in a dump pouch or some such, open a pouch and retrieve a fresh magazine, insert that and release the bolt.

"Ideal c.g."? For who? I know people who think that ideal weight distribution is forward of the front hand. I personally get on with nearly any c.g. Although I haven't shot one, I find that bullpups tend to be much more pointable as they have less inertia forward.
 
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YelliChink       4/29/2008 4:34:33 PM

Speed reloading, AFAICT, is either party-piece or a marketing ploy. In the extremes I can imagine that a really awkward reload might be a problem, but the difference between SA80 and Armalite in a military reloading condition is going to be marginal. That means that you retain the magazine and put it in a dump pouch or some such, open a pouch and retrieve a fresh magazine, insert that and release the bolt.

"Ideal c.g."? For who? I know people who think that ideal weight distribution is forward of the front hand. I personally get on with nearly any c.g. Although I haven't shot one, I find that bullpups tend to be much more pointable as they have less inertia forward.
Then why SAS practice reload again and again and again using real mags and real bullets if that's not important to them?

To truth is, this is important, and they use C7/C8 instead of SA80 as general purpose/forced entry weapons.

I do agree with you that FAMAS does have a better weight distribution than T65K2.

However, proving superiority of bullpup design won't disprove that SA80 is a bad design. After all, bullpup is not an overall superior design. It is a design focused on length saving with long barrel. I don't really prefer bullpup because I don't get used to it, and I don't like the gun exploding EVEN CLOSER to my face.

 
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flamingknives       4/29/2008 6:22:33 PM
Because the SAS work in atypical situations compared to normal soldiers?
The SAS practice reloading with real guns and real bullets because a trained soldier reloading is almost infinitely faster and more consistent than an untrained one, regardless of what small arm they use. Speed of reloading may be important, but it is not tenths of a second important in general use. If it was, belt fed section weapons would not cut it.

The C7/8 choice dates back to the SA80A1 era, and the Armalite has heaps of other advantages for the SAS role. It's lighter, the safety catch doesn't make a noise when released (or at least as much) and it isn't as instantly recognizable as the SA80. Furthermore, the SAS have a longer history with Armalites as they were using the AR15 since Borneo. However, the SAS role (or the Para Pathfinders, for that matter) is not necessarily the same as line infantry.

Better weight distribution for what?

The SA80 isn't the best rifle out there, but it is far from the worst. 
 
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YelliChink       4/29/2008 7:03:54 PM

The C7/8 choice dates back to the SA80A1 era, and the Armalite has heaps of other advantages for the SAS role. It's lighter, the safety catch doesn't make a noise when released (or at least as much) and it isn't as instantly recognizable as the SA80. Furthermore, the SAS have a longer history with Armalites as they were using the AR15 since Borneo. However, the SAS role (or the Para Pathfinders, for that matter) is not necessarily the same as line infantry.

Better weight distribution for what?

The SA80 isn't the best rifle out there, but it is far from the worst. 

What is good for SAS is definitely good for infantry in regular regiments. Too bad there is no way to train everyone of them up to SAS standard. So why not get the gun that is better and easier to use? The whole US/Canadian/Dutch armies are using the same rifle.

Also, I don't know where you got this line infantry idea from. It has been a long time since a Brown Bess was fired in anger. SAS got trained to do some specific jobs that normal infantry wouldn't do, but that's nothing about guns. Infantry's primary jobs is to 1. get enemy out of that piece of land  2. hold that piece of land. The nature of the mission is simpler, but all require shooting people to death.

SA80 may not be the worst rifle today, but it was, literally, the worst rifle of Cold War and Gulf War. For the price that paid to acquire this weapon, I can only say the citizens of UK got badly priced rifles and pride.
 
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Yimmy       4/30/2008 9:29:42 AM
 I don't really prefer bullpup because I don't get used to it, and I don't like the gun exploding EVEN CLOSER to my face.

Sounds to me like this sums up your argument quite well.  Your used to shooting conventional rifles, and you aren't very confident around firearms in general. 
I can sympathise with being used to different rifles.  I recently have been target shooting with a Ausralian International Arms Enfield, and the centre of gravity is much further towards the muzzle of the rifle, with the long heavy teak stock.  This is while with an SA-80 you almost wrap your body around it, with its long length of pull, central pistol grip and your left hand able to hold the front of the handguard.  All it takes to get used to a different rifle is practice however.
 
As for rifles exploding - they don't.  The only way an SA-80 is going to misfire to the extent of risking injury to the shooter, is if the barrel becomes loose (which I think has happened something like twice in the last 25 years).  And even then the backblast is channeled out the ejection port, barrel, and magazine well.  There is no reason to be scared of the rifle.

 
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YelliChink       4/30/2008 1:12:16 PM


As for rifles exploding - they don't.  The only way an SA-80 is going to misfire to the extent of risking injury to the shooter, is if the barrel becomes loose (which I think has happened something like twice in the last 25 years).  And even then the backblast is channeled out the ejection port, barrel, and magazine well.  There is no reason to be scared of the rifle.



They do. It is often caused by either obstruction or a failed cartridge that cause the barrel to break along the fault.
 
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