Because the handle of AR- 15 can only pull the bolt, but it can't boost it, and the bolt is light in weight and small in inertia. Once the bolt cannot be put back in its original position for some reason, the bolt cannot be locked. Concerned about this problem, an auxiliary locking device (bolt-in-place booster, or "auxiliary push handle") was added to M 16.
Therefore, the difference between XM 16E 1 and M 16 lies in whether there is a piston-shaped auxiliary push rod handle on the right side of its housing, and the surface of the frame of M 16 is smooth, while the right side surface of the frame of XM 16E 1 has multiple concave teeth that interact with the auxiliary push rod handle.
In fact, Colt, Air Force, Marine Corps and Eugene? Stoner doesn't think it is necessary to add this complicated device to the rifle, which will increase the purchase unit price of $4.50. He also thinks that this device has no practical benefits. Mr. Ding is familiar with both QBQER and C2KER, but he has never used this equipment for his Bushmaster. Of course, the environment of the shooting range is much cleaner than that of the army, and ordinary people may be much more diligent in maintaining guns than soldiers in maintaining government property, but I have never been able to find the relevant investigation data on the actual use frequency of this device. )
Regardless of whether this controversial "auxiliary pusher" device was effective or not, three years later, the Army ordered 840,000 XM 16E 1 with this device on February 28th, 967 (other data show that Colt obtained this replica on June 28th, 966, with a value of about 966. Officially named as "American rifle (caliber 5.56mm, M 16A 1)" (other information says M 16A 1 yes1February 23, 967). However, during the period from 1965 to 1967, XM 16E 1 exposed many problems in the Vietnam war.
There were many early problems in Vietnam when AR- 15 became M 16, and M 14 was "indispensable". Things have to start from the 1950 s, when NATO carried out "ammunition generalization", that is, unified bullet caliber within NATO. The United States believed that T65 7.62 * 5 1mm bullet had a long range and strong penetration, and resolutely opposed any small-caliber ammunition with reduced power. The United States exerted strong influence by virtue of its allied status, which led NATO to formally decide T65 bullet as NATO standard bullet in 1953, and American standard rifle also chose Springfield T44.
M 14 was put into use on the battlefield in Vietnam as soon as it was equipped. In the jungles and mountainous areas of Vietnam, the shortcomings of M 14 are exposed completely. The total length of M 1 120mm, and the total weight of M 120mm real magazine is 4.54kg Due to the powerful bullet of 7.62mm, the recoil is great when shooting automatically, which is difficult for the shooter to control and the shooting accuracy is poor. The most unbearable thing is that the M 14 distributed on the battlefield in Vietnam is equipped with a fast machine lock, and soldiers can only shoot semi-automatically. Under the suppression of AK47' s powerful firepower, American soldiers who used M 14 were miserable. In addition, because rifles and ammunition are too heavy, the amount of ammunition carried by individual soldiers in patrol missions usually does not exceed 100 rounds.
In fact, M 14 is not a useless gun, it is just a gun that was misused at the wrong time and place. If1American troops in the 1960s and 1970s were fighting in the open desert of the Middle East, not in the wet and dark jungle of Vietnam, it is estimated that the weapons in the hands of American soldiers are still M 14, and the medium-range power and accuracy are good. But it happened that the United States wanted to interfere in Vietnam affairs, not the Middle East. Therefore, the American army in Vietnam urgently needs a rifle that is more suitable for the jungle environment than M 14.
XM 16E 1 fully distributed the army, which first appeared in the Battle of Ia Drang in Vietnam at19651/and performed quite well. Harold? Lieutenant Colonel Harold G Moore (later promoted to Lieutenant General) wrote in his report: This victory was brought by "brave soldiers and M 16".
However, when the number of XM 16E 1 increases gradually, its reputation is getting worse and worse. Since the autumn of 1966, the news of the failure of M 16 has been frequently reported on the battlefield in Vietnam, and many reports about the defeat of the battle have mentioned the problem of this kind of gun. 1967 in may, a marine wrote a letter from home, which read as follows:
"I didn't receive your letter until I got on board today. From 2 1 last month to today, we are doing an operation. At present, the enemy has suffered heavy casualties, while the marine corps has suffered relatively light casualties. I can go back to the base and read the newspaper. Let me give you some statistics to see why there are so few casualties. Our battalion lost nearly 1400 people, and half of them can come back. Our company lost 250 people and came back 107 people. Our platoon lost 72 men and came back 19 men. I think my luck is over, and they (death) will eventually find me. However, I was only hit by a small shrapnel. I hope all my friends can say so.
Believe it or not, do you know what killed most of us? This is our own rifle. Before we left Okinawa, we all issued this new rifle M 16. In fact, we found that almost everyone was repairing his rifle when he died, because his rifle was out of order. A female reporter with us took these photos, and the Pentagon refused to let her make them public after she found them. They said they didn't want to influence the mood of the American public. Isn't this ridiculous? "
Colt immediately sent several expert groups to the scene, and the US Senate Armed Services Committee and the American Rifleman magazine also sent people to investigate and interview. At that time, the main problems of M 16 were: serious dirt in the bore, jam, broken shell, damaged magazine, rust in the bore and the bore, and lack of wiping tools, especially under bad conditions. At this point, Kathleen? These photos taken by Catherine Leroy were published in the Paris magazine Competition, and the news spread to China, causing an uproar. The wave of criticism on M 16 is constantly rising, especially those who oppose the use of small caliber add fuel to the fire.
There are many reasons for these failures. Vietnam has a humid climate and high temperature. If you don't pay attention to wiping and maintenance, it is easy to rust the gun, but the main reason is to use rifle propellant. The M 193 atomic bomb used in M 16 and the original imported DuPont IMR4475 single-base tubular explosive have the advantages of fast burning rate, rapid pressure curve rise and less residue.
Soon, DuPont informed the army that they could not mass-produce IMR4475. 1964 65438+ 10, the army decided to adopt WC846 double-base spherical propellant from Olin company. They believe that this propellant is easy to produce, low in cost and slow in burning rate, which reduces the peak pressure and is beneficial to improve the life of the barrel. Moreover, the original T65 bullet also used this propellant. However, contrary to expectations, there are many problems after using WC846 in M 193 bomb: after the spherical propellant burns, some sticky residues are left in the barrel and airway of M 16. Because the barrel is not chrome plated and the airway system has no corresponding maintenance equipment and suitable lubricant, it is difficult to make the rifle quickly return to normal use. Due to the ballistic characteristics of spherical propellant, the pressure of air guide hole and the light weight of buffer device, the automatic firing rate of M 16 is greatly increased from 750-850 rounds/min in normal state to 850- 1000 rounds/min. In addition, due to the high residual bore pressure when the bolt is unlocked, the residue also increases the friction between the bore wall and the shell casing, so the phenomenon of shell jamming and shell breakage often occurs; In addition, the quality problem caused by the lack of effective management system in the whole production process of M 16 is also an important reason.
In addition to the above reasons, the troops equipped with M 16 lacked the necessary training guidance and maintenance equipment, which also led to many dramatic failures in the battle. The advantage of Stoner system is that the "piston" formed by the bolt and the gun frame moves on the axis of the gun bore, which makes the center of mass of the gun group change little during the movement and will not adversely affect the accuracy. Moreover, there is no independent piston, the structure is simple, and the number of moving parts is reduced.
However, the disadvantage of this system is that gunpowder gas directly enters the gun group, which is easy to accumulate carbon in the gun group. Therefore, M 16 needs to be cleaned and lubricated frequently to ensure its reliable operation. To make matters worse, the army was told that this space-age weapon did not need cleaning, so it was not equipped with corresponding maintenance equipment. This may be true if we still use the original IMR propellant, but now we use a relatively "dirty" spherical propellant. As a result, M 16 is often stuck in the battlefield.
But whatever the reason, the debate about M 16 is surging again. The latest design of stoner's stoner 63 weapon family was sent to Viet Nam for testing, and SPIW's steel spear test weapon program was restarted. Fortunately, the problem of M 16 was handled more calmly than that of M 14. In view of the problems existing in the M 16 campaign, a committee composed of the National Assembly began to investigate on May 1967, with party member Richard? Richard Ikd.
He conducted tests in Fort Benning and pendleton Battalion, observed the fault of M 16, and made a special trip to Vietnam to evaluate the problem. The investigation committee submitted a report in late June of 1967, saying that "it seems that the so-called problematic M 16 is actually an excellent rifle, and all the problems found in its application are caused by poor internal management of the army."
However, the difficulty of shell pulling and the problem of firing rate are all caused by design defects. In order to solve some problems in design, the content of calcium-containing carbonate in M 193 bomb, which is easy to produce residue, was reduced from 1% to 0.25%, thus reducing the blockage of M 16 airway by half and solving the difficulty of shell extraction. Colt also improved M 16 itself, such as redesigning the buffer (i.e. reentrant spring guide tube) to reduce the firing rate to the normal state; Design a maintenance tool and a new stock, so that cleaning tools can be stored in the rifle; The rifling distance is changed from 14 inch to 12 inch; Strictly control the production process and improve product quality. Finally, a huge training plan "How to Maintain M 16 Correctly" was made, and a comic book "Rifle Maintenance Manual" was printed and distributed to soldiers. This measure is the ultimate solution to the operation problem.
Perhaps the most important change to M 16A 1 is that the gun bore is chrome plated, and then the gun bore is completely chrome plated. This improvement was actually put forward as early as the original "volley" plan, but it was abandoned because it was not cost-effective. At that time, there was no reliable method to chrome-plate the small caliber .224 barrel. The real value of chromium plating is to prevent cavity corrosion. When the friction coefficient increases due to rust, sand, dirt or machining marks in the bore, the rough bore combined with Johnson/Stoner gun machine's pre-extraction action is insufficient, and the shell taper of 5.56 mm bullet is too small, so many soldiers find that it often sticks to the bore after the first shot. After chrome plating, the gun bore is not easy to rust, which also reduces the friction force, and the residual dirt in the gun bore is easy to be thrown out with the extrusion of the shell.
The efforts made in operation performance and production problems have quickly reduced the reliability of M 16/M 16A 1, although its reputation is still very poor. However, M 16 began to prove that its reliability can meet the requirements of actual use. 1967 During August and September, the investigators checked the soldiers' opinions on M 16 on the battlefield in Vietnam again. The investigation team met more than 2 1000 soldiers, of whom only 38 said they wanted to replace their M 16 rifles, but 35 said they only wanted XM 177.
After solving the problem of frequent failures, the next most urgent problem is how to hand over more rifles to the infantry regiment in need. Until 1966, colt company was the only manufacturer of M 16/M 16A 1, with a monthly output of 25,000 pieces. 1967 On June 30th, the U.S. government purchased the patents, franchise rights and TDP (technical data package, including production drawings and process documents) of M 16 gun family, so that they could appoint other contractors to produce more rifles, so that the troops could acquire a large number of new weapons more quickly.
Worried about being robbed of their jobs, Colt employees immediately went on strike for two months to oppose the decision, but the US Army finally added two contractors to produce M 16. 1April, 968, hydraulic departments of General Motors and Harrington? Richardson Company (Harrington &; Richardson) began to produce M 16/M 16A 1, with a monthly output of 25,000 pieces respectively. With the expansion of Colt Company in 1969, the monthly output of M 16 reached 50,000 pieces.
1970 in may, the highest monthly output of the three companies reached 89,000 pieces. By 197 1, GM and Harrington stopped producing M 16/M 16A 1, while Colt was still supplying m16/m1to the US military until 65438.
The first battle between M 16 and AK47 was in Vietnam. In many reports comparing the performance of the two guns, it is mentioned that many American soldiers would rather throw away the M 16 and use it after capturing the AK47. In previous years, domestic media had the habit of belittling the United States and praising the Soviet Union when commenting on foreign weapons, so this situation was often exaggerated, which made people feel that the M 16 series was very unreliable. However, in fact, American soldiers still lost their M 16 rifles. Although it is true, it is far from being as common as people think.
At Harrods? Moore's We Are Young Soldiers mentioned many times that when M 16 breaks down in battle, the solution is often that some people continue to fight with the rifles of the wounded or the dead, while others squat at the bottom of foxholes to troubleshoot. Because in a battle, unless one's own weapon is really unusable and there is no spare weapon, ordinary people will not take the risk of picking up the enemy's weapon and using it under the line of fire. This is usually done at leisure when cleaning the battlefield after the battle. In addition, the use of different types of weapons also involves the effective play of training level and the supply of ammunition.
The improved M 16A 1 not only improves the reliability, but also strictly controls the production quality. For example, M 16A 1 Before each batch of troops is distributed, a reliability sampling test will be conducted. The sampling test results show that the average failure rate of M 16A 1 is 0.033%, which is lower than the index requirement of 0. 15%, and the average trouble-free working time is 3000 rounds. By strictly controlling the production process, M 16A 1 still has good reliability. Although M 16 showed frequent failures in Vietnam at first, the problem was solved within 6 months. M 16/M 16A 1 Prove Eugene? Stoner designed an excellent rifle. The use of captured weapons does exist, but in turn, many Vietnamese also use the captured M 16 series. On the one hand, they are all afraid of the lethality of M 16. They often say, "small black guns and bullets can make big holes." On the other hand, they use any weapons they can find, including M 16.
Although the American army lost in Vietnam, M 16 started from Vietnam. Colt alone produced 3.5 million sets of M 16 during this period. 1974 fiscal year, the US Army purchased 2.7 million pieces. M 16 began to go to the world, and there was an upsurge of small caliber rifles in the armies of all countries in the world. Interestingly, after the North Vietnamese army completely defeated the South Vietnamese army, it captured about 1 million M 16A 1 from the South Vietnamese army. Vietnam sold these captured M 16A 1 to other places in the 1970s and 1980s, and most of them were in the hands of the leftist guerrilla Martí National Liberation Front Party (FMLN) in Central America, especially in El Salvador.
The U.S. troops fighting in Vietnam generally report that M 16 and M 16A 1 have strong firepower and light weight, and are easier to carry than M 14. According to a commander of the first cavalry division of the U.S. Army fighting in Vietnam, P? Captain Kendra introduced that a class of the division was surrounded by three sides on the mountain and fired flares to call for helicopter fire support. North Vietnamese soldiers thought they were going to retreat, so they accelerated their attack. As a result, M 16A 1 was heavily shot, causing heavy casualties.
In Demi? The story of a seal putting a condom on the muzzle of M 16 in the movie G.I.Jane starring Moore is not fictional. It is said that the instruction manual of M 16 says that the barrel cannot be fired immediately after it is flooded, but I didn't find this one in the field manual and technical manual of the US Army or Marine Corps (maybe my English is poor, and I haven't read these four books with thousands of pages carefully.
In fact, it is an ancient tradition for the US military to put condoms on the muzzle. As early as decades ago, in the old movie "Red One", American soldiers put condoms on M 1 Garland rifles before landing in West Africa. In fact, the main function of condoms is not waterproof, but to prevent foreign objects from entering the gun chamber. Even a reliable and famous device like AK may explode if sand is blocked in the gun bore. Some weapons manufacturers produce plastic muzzle caps for firearms, which are so thin and soft that nothing will happen if they forget to take them off before shooting, such as AUG in Austria. China also provided muzzle caps for Type 56 assault rifles in its self-defense counterattack against Viet Nam. These simple plastic muzzle caps are often removed, but no one will feel sad and it is easy to find substitutes.
Russian soldiers put used flares on the muzzle of AK-74. Although the reliability of M 16 is not good, it is not bad enough to be accepted. Although it was predicted that there would be many problems when M/KOOC-0/6 was used in desert environment, the performance of M/KOOC-0/6 artillery family in/KOOC-0/99/KOOC-0/Gulf War was quite reliable and trusted by soldiers.
When the United States was mired in the Vietnam War, several derivatives of M 16 appeared. Besides CAR- 15 series and XM 177 series, there were two short-lived light sniper rifles. One is Colt 655, or M 16A 1 Special match, that is, the base of sight is added to the standard A 1 handle, and a heavier barrel is adopted.
The other is Colt 656, also known as M 16A 1 extra low allocation. This model has no handle, but is replaced by a mechanical sight and a sight base with adjustable wind deflection, which is the pioneer of the current M 16/M4 flat-top case. Both rifles use three to nine times the artistic perspective of Piwood/Realist. Some of these models are equipped with silencers, but these rifles are not standardized.
Mk.4 Mod0 is another little-known variant of M 16A 1 produced for navy seals during the Vietnam War, which was adopted in April, 1970. The main difference between it and the standard M 16A 1 is that the anti-corrosion treatment used at sea is improved and the muffler is pre-installed.
Most parts are coated with a layer of Kal-Guard lubricating oil, and the water is drained through the gun butt and buffer tube with a small hole with a diameter of 1/4 inches, and the fixing method of buffer assembly is strengthened by O-rings. It is said that this model can be carried in water depth of 200 feet (about 60 meters) without damage. The Mk.2 Mod 0 "explosion suppressor" originally used is based on the M4 muffler of the US Army Human Engineering Laboratory (HEL).
If Hull M4 muffler is used, the gas energy in the air duct will be reduced, so it is necessary to improve the design of the frame, and at the same time, add a gas deflection device on the handle to prevent the gunpowder gas overflowing from the handle from hitting the shooter when shooting (AR/M 16 rifle has this disadvantage, so if muffler is installed, it is better to replace it with an enlarged handle with gas blocking function).
Results After installing the Helm M4 muffler, the improved firearms can normally shoot semi-automatically or fully automatically, but if the Helm M4 muffler is removed, it must be manually loaded after each single shot.
Although Mk.2 Mod 0 muffler is an indispensable part of Mk.4 Mod 0 rifle, it has been improved. Even if the silencer rifle is disassembled, it can still work normally, and the Mk.2 Mod 0 silencer can drain water quickly without special improvement of the frame or pulling the handle.
In the late 1970s, Mk.2 Mod 0 muffler was replaced by Mk.2 muffler produced by Knight' s armour Company (KAC for short). KAC muffler can be completely immersed in water, and the water will be drained within 8 seconds. Repeated shooting of M 16A 1 will not reduce the sound attenuation effect. On the other hand, the US Army replaced HEL M4 with a simpler structure, which is called Sessions MAW-A 1.
1970, the United States asked other NATO countries to use M 16/M 16A 1 as NATO standard equipment. The British are very angry about this. Almost 20 years ago, when the US Ordnance Administration forced NATO to use the 7.62mm T65 as NATO's standard ammunition, they said that Britain's .280 ammunition was insufficient, but now they are told that they still need it.
But in any case, everyone saw the performance of M 16 in Vietnam, so after testing, NATO chose Belgian SS 109 as the new NATO standard bomb in 1980.
Therefore, the US military must design a new rifle to adapt to this heavy new warhead. At the same time, the US Marine Corps is also improving and testing M/KOOC-0/6A/KOOC-0/6 according to the opinions that have been used in the army for more than ten years, and finally finalized the new M/KOOC-0/6A2,/KOOC-0/982.
However, the US Air Force, which was the first to equip M 16, was very stingy this time. M 16A2 has not been replaced, but the old M 16 has been used. Even if the barrels of these rifles have reached the end of their service life, the US Air Force is only considering turning in the old and new rifles instead of buying new ones.
1995, the air force began to send all their 88,000 M 16 and GAU-5 to a Colorado company called CAPCO to replace new parts. The main form of modification is to replace the barrel of M 16A2 with that of 1/7 to launch M885 bomb. The case design of M 16 is stress-free, so it has a long service life. It can still be used normally as long as the damaged parts such as barrel and bolt of bolt machine are replaced.
Stoner himself has always had a soft spot for M 16A 1, so he has always been worried about the promotion of M 16A2.
He once said that he was never consulted before and during the improvement, and he was only allowed to see it after the improvement; He also described that M 16A2 has no value except protecting wood. He has forgotten that M 16A 1 started with the sound of fighting.