Why are US mil issued M16’s and M4’s select fire? Why? We, and by “we” I mean 11B’s like myself and 03’s, and the other doorkicker type guys never used burst in combat. I can count on both hands the times that myself and my unit were allowed to flick the selector all the way over, and it was always on a square range for the purpose of burning up ammo that needed burned up.

I don’t think they ever covered burst/auto in OSUT, other than to tell us not to do it, and I don’t recall any sustainment training that covered burst or auto in 5 years on active duty or 4 in the NG. I’m confident it never happened.

For both of my Iraq, and single Afghanistan deployment, they could’ve given us 6920’s, or pick a generic commercial M4gery, and overstamp ‘M4 Carbine’ after Colt, Stag, Bushmaster or whatever, and half of us probably wouldn’t have noticed a difference. Except for 240 and 249 dudes, nobody ever burst fired anything.

Now, I’m not talking about SOF. I have no idea what those guys’ needs are today, I’m just talking about the average Joe Swingindick.

I duno, we never did either and I was a 13D but we ended up with a infantry msn on one of my deployments. Probably something to do with doctrine. (P.S. hey neat, we both went to Iraq twice and Afghanistan once)

Iraq 2006-07 and 2008-09, and Afghanistan 2011-12. Does this mean we’re buds now?

Also, when I said they could’ve given us 6920’s and stamped ‘M4 Carbine’ under Colt, that was a brain fart because I just remembered 5 minutes ago that both of my 6920’s say ‘M4 Carbine.’ Lol

But regardless, you could go to Afghanistan and replace an Infantry company’s complement of M4’s with PSA’s or Stags and no one would notice a difference in regards to functionality.

In a combat or door kicking role, you're carrying a limited amount of ammo. So, maybe it's to conserve ammo in a critical moment should things go south on you and you need those extra few rounds?

Isn't full auto used in more of a cover/fire suppression role to keep the bad guys heads down while your crew moves in for the kill?

I don't know just thinking out loud.

The M14 was the same way and only the first two rounds stayed on range, the other eight were trying to shoot down airplanes. Absolutely uncontrollable.

hm.  it was opposite for me in IDF - we were trained to cut 3 rnd bursts with our trigger fingers on full auto mode.  but we did not have light MGs like 249s at that time in the IDF infantry squad...only MAGs (M240s) in 2 fire teams in a platoon as far as I remember

The only training we received on firing bursts was on 249s and 240Bs, ie: Depress trigger for the amount of time it takes to say “Die motherfucker die.”

My question was, if we don’t train GI Joe to fire bursts or auto with his M4/M4A1, and tell him not to even do it, or in the case of my second Iraq deployment, sending guys out to nearby National Guard armories to try to get lock-out plates to physically prevent dudes from rotating the selector all the way, then why even have the capability on the general issue carbine?

Why not just get semiauto Colt 6920s or 6921s and call it a day?

@Sylvan
@LRRPF52
@joglee

Somebody help my brain understand, because this has been bugging me for almost 15 years.

Because full auto and burst are actually quite useful but both marines and army train for "only hits matter" on the range.

Our failure to train more regularly on burst from standing and kneeling against moving targets and break contact drills are a weakness.  At least the army retained the SAW.  The M27 fucktardedness out of the marines only makes the problem worse.

Even for our ambush, counter ambush, and break contact drills, it was just “mash the trigger on semi as fast as you can, and achieve fire superiority.”

I think we have two options when it comes to my question, which are either, A: Train soldiers on how to utilize burst and auto, when, where and why. Or B: Don’t, and just eliminate the functionality from the platform.

I don’t even know what to make of the M27.