Not picking on MACVSOG per se but I read your good post about chromed bolts and carriers, good info. Thanks. One comment bothers me however, as it is an insult to every Infantryman who served in Vietnam in the early years and I see it repeated frequently on this board. I would like to see this dispelled:
"and requiring that soldiers learn how to clean their weapons".
This is a myth perpetrated to lay blame for the early development problems with the M-16 on the soldiers, essentialy use them as a scapegoat, and steer blame from the real problems.
It was convenient and easy for Colt, the military brass, the DoD, and Congressmen and Senators, and made good CYA material. Afterall, none of the above wanted to stand up and let out a hint to Mothers and Fathers of dead soldiers that they the DoD had pushed a rifle upon the U.S. Army without accepting Army change recommendations, reorganized the Dept. of Army to do away with the Ordinance Corp responsible for such R&D, that the Generals and Officers in the Army had failed their country and not spoken up about problems with the rifle in the field, that Congress had failed in it's oversight role, including the Armed Services Committees.
The problems were several, we have all heard them many times; the powder issue, high cycle rate, non-chromed bore, etc. Some truth to all and when combined with certain rifles they all had an influence for sure. However, the one overriding problem was the non-chromed bore.
The primary problem was failure to extract. The extractor would shear the edge off the brass leaving it stuck in the chamber. Although all the aforementioned issues had SOME influence, the problem was essentially the non-chromed bore. This allowed for corrosion and pitting, but more than anything else it allowed for the chamber to just wear out. Combat in Vietnam in the jungle and mountain rain forests required heavy automatic firepower. The wear coupled with the corrosion and pitting gave the soldier in the field a weapon that would not fire. NO amount of cleaning would help, there was now a physical problem that could not be solved short of re-barrelling the rifle. In reality, possibly the guys that cleaned and cleaned the worn out and pitted chamber were just aggravating the loose clearance and cleaning the carbon out of the pits allowing them to hold gasses and create more of a suction on the walls of the brass case.
As always happens with a Democratic administration, the GI's in the field had a shortage of everything. XM-16E1's especially. If there were bad weapons there were NO replacements. It was just a challenge to arm the men in the field. I saw men held up in the rear because there were no rifles to give them so they could go join their company in the field.
The Ichord Commission was just a political show to the public and was diverted into a coverup to sweep it under the rug and pacify the people. Sort of reminds me of the Congressional investigations into the massacre of American citizens at Waco and the murder of members of the Randall Weaver family. I was a member of the 1st Air Cav in Vietnam at the time of the investigation and was interviewed by staffers of the Ichord Commission. I was selected from the field because I was from the state of Missouri. Ichord was a MO Congressman so this was pure politics.
To say that men went through Basic Training, then through Advanced Infantry Training, then through another two weeks of in-country training at the Division base camp at An Khe, and didn't know how to clean a rifle is just plain bullshit. Doesn't even make common sense to a thinking individual!
Remember, the NCO's in 1966-67 era were heavily Korean War veterans, many of the senior guys had been in WWII and Korea both! This wasn't the pussified Army of the Clinton era. We were up at 4:00am, ran a few miles, spit-shined our boots, went through the overhead bars on our way into the messhall for breakfast and fell out for inspection by the time the sun had come up.
We trained at "Tiger Land" at Ft. Polk with XM-16E1's in AIT. We had classroom training on the rifle, many hours on the range, and a ton of hours disassembling and cleaning the weapon, laying out the parts for inspection by some mean sob with a bunch of stripes on his sleeve, (veteran of places like Anzio, Omaha Beach and Korea). TO SAY THAT AN 11B DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO CLEAN A WEAPON IS JUST AN ABSOLUTE INSULT!!
I served with an airmobile infantry company in the field and I NEVER saw a man that didn't clean the living shit out of his weapon!
The people that believe that probably think "poverty and dispair" caused Mohammad dirtbag to kill all those people in the DC area or would believe anything they read rather than think and use common sense and logic.
Yes, we had cleaning rods, chamber brushes, bore brushes, and quart cans of good ole GI bore cleaner. The rod and brush problem was from the ~ 1963 time when DoD was sending trial rifles to the mostly advisor guys in VN and the problem had been rectified for years before the SHTF with the rifles in mid '67.
For those who want to blame the GI's, why did the problem suddenly go away with the issue of the M-16A1's in Oct-67? Did we suddenly learn how to clean a rifle? Bullshit. The new M-16A1's had a chrome bore and they were not some POS that had had a zillion rounds through it and had the chamber worn out and pitted. With the chrome chamber the chamber did not wear nor did it pit. It also left a nice smooth surface and even if somewhat worn would still function fine.
I saw the M-16 segment on the History of the Gun series on TV. One guy who was I believe was a Colt engineer said essentially what I said above, that although there were development problems with the rifle, the one overwheming problem in Vietnam was the failure to chrome the chamber as the Army had requested.
He didn't elaborate but the political repercussions of this are very obvious. It was easy and politically expedient to blaim the infantryman in the field.
Again, nothing personal meant to MACVSOG, this myth is bigger than he and I both. It just pisses me off to no end every time I see it in all the books and public discussion.
Yours Truly,
C Co, 5/7 Cav
1st Cav Div (AM)
Vietnam 1967-68