brodie21 said:
Wadders said:
brodie21 said:
Wadders said:
brodie21 said:
the M-16. considered the worst assault rifle in the world. any sort of melee with it would shatter the spring-loaded stock and the overly complex firing mechanism was a ***** to clean and jammed alot. the only reason it became the standard american infantry rifle was politics, "buy my gun and you get my vote". it was originally designed for MPs at stateside military bases
It's since been fixed though. Several times. Pretty sure that the M16 A4 (the most recent version) has most of the creses ironed out.
i know, i was just referencing the original. but i dont see what was wrong with the m-14
Fair enough.
And I suppose the M14 is pretty big, heavy, fairly useless when fired on automatic. Plus the 7.62mm rounds take up a lot of room compared to 5.56mm so you can carry less ammo. Also I think that the wooden stocks tended to warp in the jungle which a bad effect on the gun's acuracy.
Far be it from me to say, being neither an expert or a soldier, but the M14 is probably better off in it's current role...
as i have stated before, ( not in this or the quoted post) the m- 14 was based off the m-1, which was designed for accurate shooting when that was the name of the game in ww2, if wooden stocks did not warp in the jungles of the south pacific then why would they in vietnam? and as for ammo-i guess you have a point, but 7.62 rounds are not all that much bigger than 5.56, and the difference might be made up with the increased stopping power. all i was saying was that why did they switch over to something completely new and not stick to what worked? especially in the middle of the war
7.62 NATO rounds are much larger than 5.56. Weight wise, the 7.62 weighs twice as much as the 5.56 (9.7 grams to 4 grams) and is almost 40% longer (71.1 mm to 57.4 mm). To have a 210 round load out (Standard on person round count), 7.62 would weigh 4.49 pounds (Magazineless), and a 5.56 load out would weigh 1.85 rounds.
When you start thinking about how much ammo you'd have to take on extended scouting, roaming foot patrols, wandering the jungle, etc, you start to wonder: Do I want bigger, heavier ammo, or a shit load of ammo?
7.62 looks even worse when you start talking about light machine guns, too.