Heres the complete paragraph.

" Taylor says the Springfield `03 was rugged, accurate and powerful but it could not produce a sufficient volume of fire to be effective, At the other end we now have the 5.56mm M16 which is fragile, lacks power and range, is moderately accurate. It is designed for the soldier to substitute a high volume of fire with an inadequately powered cartridge for marsmanship. Neither is the ideal."

The article is written by Bill Clede. The article mainly talkes about how great the M1 was/is. I am not knocking the M1 for as I own one and is a great rifle. I just was a little pissed about the comments concerning the M16/Ar15/M4/CAR15. I can't sit here and tell anybody a great deal about the M16. What I can say is I have been carying this rifle for 17 years and can effectively hit a 300 meter E size target around 85% of the time or better. As for "fragile" I dont remember seeing a M16 that was destroyed do to being fired or used in the field on a normal bases. Hell, they get used and abused by combat troops and still function and work fine. If the user/onwer want to use it in a manner that it was not designed for then its called abuse and not "fragile" I don't know anything about balistic, I dont read about them so I dont know. So the bit about power is beyond me. I just know that when they get hit they are going to know it. The question that comes to mind about range is "What is a effective range to engage targets?" There are hundrads of diffrent answeres to this question. Some say 25 meters, some say 500/600 meters. (25 meters was a joke) I do beleive that the Army determined that 300 meters was the range to shoot at with a M16. If you can hit a target further, great. In most if not all the training battles that I have been in as a dismounted infantryman (11M all the way) I cant remember seeing a enemy further that I could effectivly engage due to terrain. If the enemy was further then we have weapons that are designed to engage and destroy the enemy beyond that range of 300 meters. M249 (SAW), M240B, M60 and so on.

I guess I have said enough and you should get the point. I am just sick and tired of people that knock the M16 as a piece of sh@t. I trust it with my LIFE and thats enough for me. My rant is over.

And by the way you can find the complete artical in May 20 SGN page 28. MR. Bill Clede does have an E-Mail address at the end of the article if you want to "send feedback". I wont post it. Everybody have a great day a go out and shoot you "fragile, unaccurate, underpowered AR's."
Steve

Ignorance, opinion, and a English degree adequately describes this guy and article.
[rolleyes]

P.S. The earth is flat.


eidt spelling





 

Well, without starting a war of words, I would have to agree with the fellow in some respects.  The 5.56mm is a varmit round that is indeed underpowered beyond 200 meters, unless your enemy is a ground hog.  The M1 has it beat hands-down in this department.

As for accuracy and durability, I'd have to rate them about equal.

My only complaint about the M1 is the lack of a detachable magazine.  And it takes a pretty strong hand to hold the clip in place while letting the bolt go, and getting the thumb out of the way takes some dexterity.

Both are great guns, and both have their places.  And I enjoy shooting both.

The usefulness is all in the eye of the beholder. While I agree that the M1 is a great rifle, I highly disagree that the M-16/AR-15 is fragile or inaccurate. These guns will take a fair amount of abuse and if the user is so rough with them that he/she damages the weapon, then they need a good open handed smack across their faces anyway! As far as range goes, the military determined after WWII and Korea that the troops weren't engaging targets as far out as the rifles were capable of anyway for various reasons. Most shots were taken inside of 200 yards. With that said, they determined that the full power cartridge was not as necessary as previously thought. And we have snipers today if a long range shot presents itself, as well as machine guns. The 5.56 is no slouch of a stopper either. I remember hearing lots of stories of bad guys absorbing 30-06 rounds and not stopping also. It's all dependent on where the bullet strikes. A non-lethal hit is a non-lethal hit, period. Regardless of what round it is......223, 7.62X39, .308 or 30.06.

I have complete confidence in my AR's. I've gotten mine pretty dirty and they've functioned fine.

I also like the 5.56 NATO round. Take a look in the ammo forum at the pics by brouhaha and tatjana (thanks gals!). I don't thank I'd want to have all those chunks of metal spewing through my body.

And as far as M-16's. I've seen one dump enough beta-c mags that it started to melt the handguards. This thing was DRY, and still kept going.

So I also get a little tired of the AR15/M16 bashing.

And what the hell was he talking about AR's being "moderately accurate"?

What's this "we NOW have...?" Where's this idiot been for the last 30 years? Fragile?? I guess 30+ years of infantry service ain't good enough. Lacks power?? Ok, who wants to volunteer to be shot by an M16....then tell us how much of a wimp it is. Is "moderately" accurate?? I guess all the guys shooting .30 caliber rifles at the 1000yd matches must be letting the guys with the ARs win, huh?

"Moderately accurrate?" Most shooters can't get the full use out of their M16s or ARs becasue the rifle shoots better than they do. The M16/AR15 is fragile compared to the M1. The M1 made a dandy club, and the quickest way to wreck your modern rifle in combat is to go Samson with it. We were cautioned against employing our weapons in this manner in basic.  

Effective range, as defined by NATO, is the range at which a projectile can deliver 65 joules on target (someone here said it, I don't know who, I'll take their word for it though).

Same here, I love both of them.

Relative to an M1, the M16 it IS fragile, DOES lack power, & MIGHT have a lower "effective" range.
"The greatest weapon ever devised by man" was in service from 1936 to 1956. But the M16/M4/AR series has been the US & many other nations service rifle since  1964, longer than any other military rifle in this or any nations history.
I wonder why........

The AR is meant to be a replacement to the main battle rifle and the SMG, it wasnt meant to assume all their roles but to be a comprimise. In any case, wasnt it proven that MG's are the ones that do about 80% of the killing on the battle feild when it comes to hand held weapons in a armed conflict? No rifle is perfect and no rifle can do EVERYTHING.

In any case I don't beleive in comparing MBR's and bolt actions with assault rifles like I dont beleive in comparing 9mm handguns against sniper rifles.

The U.S. military specifies that a projectile must deliver a minimum of 106 ft lbs. to produce a casualty. I don't remember if a range was specified.

Effective range is determined by accuracy, not energy. Somewhere back in some TM I read that it was the range at which a 50% hit probability can be expected. If it was energy related the M16 would not have a longer effective range than the M14, which according to my 23-8 has a MER of 460 meters. I believe the A2 is listed at 550m for a point target,and the M4 is 500.
I do believe the M14s figure is a lot more realistic, with the short sight radius a M4 can be a real bitch to hit with at 300 m let alone longer distances.

Point taken about the difference between the M193 and the M855.

But if you look at both the M193 and the M855 they both tend to fragment. Albeit at different ranges and with different barrel lengths. That is (among other things) what makes the 5.56 and the 5.56 NATO so deadly.

So sorry I mentioned 5.56 NATO in conjecture with your post. But I was trying to make a larger point about the M16 and the 5.56 round in general. It won't happen again.

Hahah funny, except it should be "gal", singular, as they are the same person.

according to the history channel ,the high caliber weapons that killed at 300-600  were for when there was trench warefare .now most fire fights are at close range ,and the weapons need to produce a lotta rounds per minute.i guess thats why the 16 is zeroed at 25 meters . its supposed to hit at 25 and 300.but i guess everyone that owns an ar already knows this .

when we opened up no matter at what range if we had a real problem the guys with the 60 got their attention.

I gotta wonder how it would have performed in Korea.  We may yet find out.

Actually 7, the Mauser 98 was the longest lived service rifle.  It is still used in some parts of the world.

Guess we can't take the History Channel too seriously at times. The large caliber weapons were designed [i]before[/i] the trench warfare of the War to End All Wars. World War 1 resulted in the first assault rifle concept on the part of the Germans, the first submachine guns (the Italians, Germans and Americans) and other 'short range' weapons such as the Russian psuedo-assault rifle and the American 'trench guns' and the reintroduction of the hand granade. Trench warfare resulted in short range engagments on the part of most infantry. Exceptions include specialized sniping efforts and use of machine guns at maximum range.

The M16 is probably the most accurate service rifle we ever had. Certainly, it is the most accurate of the semi/selective fire service rifles that the US has used.

For all practical purposes I suspect that the effective range of the average soldier has been increased by the M16.

In terms of ruggedness, I guess it depends on how you measure it. The M-1 has more problems with slam fires and op-rod problems. The en-bloc clip system is the source of a number of problems. On the other hand, clearly the '16 isn't much of a club or a spear.

The .30 calibers made their name around the time of the Boer war, where troops often egaged in volley fire at very long ranges (1000 yds or even more.) You can see some rifles of the time with sights out to 2500 yds. The problem was that you needed a bunch of people shooting to make it effective at that range. Then someone came up with the bright idea of machineguns, which could put down more fire with fewer people, and also stop assaulting infantry. During WWI machineguns became very widespread.

The problem was that not many people noticed machineguns had taken over the long range area fire mission. Everyone assumed that you _needed_ a rifle that could shoot to 1000 yds because that was the way it always was.

Tactics evolved to fire and maneuver, troops went to ground and stopped waring bright scarlet tunics, and someone finally noticed that it would be really useful to have a rifle optimized for suppressing the other guy while some of your guys snuck around back of him. It turns out that the rifle optimized for that mission required a lot of ammo and not all that much oomph per round, but more than a pistol round (the first response to the problem.)

And hence the assault rifle.

Good, concise analysis.  I agree with you: tactics have changed.  Even knowing that, I sometimes have to pull myself back from thinking about longer range use of my SR15M4, getting a longer barrel upper, etc.  In reality, I have it for SHTF, not competition. I ask myself about the field of fire available to me where I would use it, and realize even 300m is more than enough.  So 16" with an ELCAN does it.

I suspect that even in current military thinking, that's about it; longer ranges handled by more technologically advanced weapons.