Diana Washington Valdez
El Paso Times
July 10, 2003

Several soldiers of the 507th Maintenance Company could not defend themselves or their comrades March 23 because their weapons malfunctioned while they sustained a lengthy fire attack by Iraqis near Nasiriyah, Iraq, according to a U.S. Army report on the ambush.

The weapons that jammed or otherwise failed included a M-249 machine gun called a SAW (squad automatic weapon), a .50 caliber machine gun, as well as several M-16 rifles. The M-16 is the Army's standard issue weapon.

The report is not conclusive about why up to three different kinds of weapons failed and suggests that the "malfunctions may have resulted from inadequate individual maintenance in a desert environment."

http://www.borderlandnews.com/stories/borderland/20030710-134653.shtml
Follow the above link for the complete story plus the complete Army report is included.(link below)

http://www.borderlandnews.com/507report/report1.html

"The soldiers carried M-16 assault rifles and ammunition clips, with instructions to clean the weapons daily to prevent jamming."

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/1057751995203001.xml

Oh dear God not again.

Sell me your AR, mine work FINE, even when they're dirty, because Ive discovered this stuff call CLP.

Hasnt everyone seen this yet? Old news dude.

Blasphemy,  The Ma Duce does not fail!!  Now drop and give me 25, maggot...!!

yeah, a ma deuce, jamming.... I find that a bit hard to swallow.

I agree with Lumpy, this is old news.

Maintenance company, hmmmm not to take anything away from those guys, they had to deal with hell, but to blame the M16 system for failure instead of how the second line troops were taking care of their equipment.  of course the new reporter love to make a cse out like JAMMED GUNS....  OH MY GOD, is just someone want to sell more paper.

You figure if the M16 system is such a lousy gun, the Spec Ops team would be running around with a bunch AKs. but no, all the spec ops whom can have anything within their arsenal carriers the M4 in numbers. not G36, not M14, not FAL not G3, and not L85, but the tried and true M4.  Anyone that says the M16 system is crap is obviously a old timer that can't change with the times or somebody running around wanting to be rambo " we need bigger guns, we need bigger rounds, we need bigger....." you get the point.

I apologize for my Rant Mode.....

Other reports of this incident (posted elsewhere on this site) blame the use of CLP for the malfunctions.  

Personally, I think it sounds like a combination of damaged weapons/mags (from vehicle crashes, RPG impacts, etc..) and improper weapon maintenance (too much/little lubrication).

A frigging rear area maintenance unit that probably NEVER cleaned their rifles the entire time they were deployed has some serious malfs and its BIG NEWS.  Front line US units, as well as the British and Aussie SAS (by CHOICE)use M4s and M16s with NO reported problems and that doesnt mean anything to anyone.

Ya, but what was the rifle Al Pachino used in the movie Heat?

Edited to add: I think I just found my new sig line.

I dont like you right now.

Once upon a time with a particular version of an M16 in a jungle environment, we would have gladly taken anything that worked cause the XM16E1 did not (my squad's gunner left and I got the M60. I also cared for the Maw Deuce in my squad. Felt like a touch of home as it was built in Rock Island). Since corrections were made, it is one sweet rifle. Like all rifles, there is none best suited for everything (the 7.62 rifles have better stopping power and lolng range accuracy,  but the M16 is the cat's meow for weight carried and quite able to do the job at 300 meters or less).

Oh great! I can just imagine a certain O-6(P)at the Directorate of Combat Developments (DCD) at Benning, who will champion this article as prima facie evidence as to why we need to scrap the M16 family (he's already effectively killed the product improvements) and just adopt his pet XM-08 project! Yeah, I can see this guy directing some young naiive Captain to incorporate this article in the next Power Point decision brief for Picatinny.

Yeah, the operator/maintainer probably had it headspaced improperly.

Pacino used a Daisy Red Rider! Enough said!

LS

Sorry for the old news guys.  It was "news" to me.  I don't get out here often enough to read all the post, and the Army report was only released yesterday.

Day late and a dollar short, as usual!

After active duty, I was assigned to a reserve unit. It so happened that the week I arrived, they were heading out for weaps qual. I remember watching 6 enlisted and a butter bar standing around a Ma Deuce all scratching their heads. I reached into my web gear and tossed the butter bar a field gauge (I figured that since they had just assembled the weapon, that must be what they were looking for) and he just stood there looking at it as if he had never seen such a contraption before. All 7 'trained' soldiers where heard asking 'What the hell are we supposed to do with that???'

REMFs

Just a guess but, I'd bet fatigue had more than a little to do with it as well. The people Who were ambushed had been recovering vehicles (Their job) and convoying all day in a high stress environment.

Being tired can make You do stupid things You wouldn't do normally (Like screwin' up the headspace and timing on a Ma deuce). My unit was in the middle of Our Tsirt at 'Lewis 6 weeks ago and at 3am at the end of a VERY long range (12 M-240's/140,000 rnds. Almost 12,000 rnds per gun!) a young Ranger NCO (They were the range safeties) had one of His shooters open the cover on an extremely hot gun (Bolt forward, round in the chamber, barrel smoking) when immediate action failed to fix the problem (That bolt wasn't going anywhere, He even tried to kick it back). I was at the other end of the berm when it happened but there was a boom and a big cloud of smoke over the gun position and then everyone started screaming for the Medics. Dumb. The kid on the gun got lucky and only took gas and powder to his eyes (He looked like a racoon when they brought Him out) and no brass thank goodness. Blinded Him for a couple of days.

I know for a fact that that Ranger knew better than that 'cause He and I had been running up and down the berm all day and into the wee hours screaming at people who were getting set to do the same thing but he was tired and made a mistake. Given that the people of the 507th all stood up and went in harms way when asked I'm willing to cut them a little slack for not reacting to an ambush better than they did after roadmarching and executing their mission (Recovery) for days.

BTW, as far as Ma goes, given that headpacing her is as close to a no-brainer as it gets, I'd bet some industrious little guy or gal pulled the back plate off and started spinnin' that timing nut. I don't know why people think they need to screw with that sucker as much as they do. I've been playin' with that gun on M1's since the early '80's and I think the only times I've ever had to readjust the timing is after someone got ambitious and started whirling away ;)

I had read previous posts on this topic but it was the 1st time that I had heard about the other weapons jamming along with the m-16s. Thanks for posting.

I have seen M2s jamb from dust. Unless you have run all day in a convoy on dirt roads you have no idea what dust is! Try 2” thick on the floor boards. It gets into everything and causes trouble.

If you are expecting a fight, you plan stops along the way for weapons cleaning.

[img]http://photos.ar15.com/WS_Content/ImageGallery/Attachments/DispThumb.asp?sAccountUnq=2597&iGalleryUnq=924&sThumbnail=rackit.jpeg[/img]

We had nothing but trouble out of the ones we had. I hate an M2.

I didnt know that Hesse/Vulcan had military contracts!

And don't forget that their M249 (SAW) also jammed. Damn! Three totally different operating systems on guns, and all three failed. Something was SERIOUSLY screwed up with weapons maintenance on that unit. I'm sure they tried their best, I don't mean to put them down, but they still dropped the ball with this particular issue.

Markm, what is the purpose of showing the gal about to pull on the chargin handle? Unless I'm missing something, there's nothing out of the ordinary there.

It was a mechanical unit, so Im guessing that they possibly knew how to keep their weapons working better than other units. On that note, it's probable that they screwed-up in other ways and just blamed everything on (supposed) weapon jams.