Why M-16 rifles could not fire in the Vietnam War? (Part 2)
In the tests, it was found that the M-16 was more effective than the M-14 or the Soviet AK-47, but not a reliable weapon, the cause of contamination, jamming and deterioration in the M-16s was the transition to gunpowder powder.
The first part of the article analysed how the original design of the M-16 rifle was compatible with its intended purpose. However, it was stated that over time, due to the change in the original ammunition used by the M-16 and other modifications related to the rifle, there were unwanted deviations in the performance of the M-16, and this situation became more complicated with bureaucratic obstacles. After this brief summary, we continue with our article.
In the cover photo, a Marine disassembled his M-16 during the Battle of Hue (31 January 1968 - 2 March 1968) in the Vietnam War and is trying to clean his M-16.
The reason for Stoner's concern was that the gunpowder change destroyed many of the qualities he had built into his rifle. With ball powder, the M-16 looked better on the Army's new spec sheets but was worse in use. There were two problems. One was ‘fouling’; gunpowder residue on the inside of the gas tube chamber that eventually caused the rifle to jam. The AR-15 was designed so that the gas port remained closed during the burning of the gunpowder, but this was for a different gunpowder. The new gunpowder was inherently dirtier and burned longer; it was still burning when the gas port was opened, so it also burned into the gas tube. The other effect of the gunpowder was to increase the ‘cycle rate’ of the rifle. With all its interlocking mechanical cycles, the AR-15 was designed to fire 750 to 800 rounds per minute. When using gunpowder-filled cartridges, the rate increased to 1,000 or more. ‘When the Army said, ‘No, we're going to use our ammunition,’ the cyclic rate of the weapons increased by at least 200 rounds per minute,’ Stoner told the congressional committee. ‘This weapon would jump from 750 rounds per minute to about 1,000 rounds per minute with no change other than changing the ammunition.’
The consequences of a higher cycle rate were severe. An extremely reliable rifle was now subject to chronic jams and malfunctions. In November 1965, engineers from Colt fired a number of rifles, some with original IMR powder, some with cannon powder. They reported the following: ‘Like the guns used in this experiment, none are likely to fail with ammunition such as [IMR], while half are likely to fail with ammunition such as [gunpowder].’ In December, Frankford Arsenal conducted another test for malfunctions. When M-16s were loaded with IMR cartridges, there were 3.2 malfunctions and 75 stoppages per 1,000 rounds. When the same rifles were fired with gunpowder ammunition, the failure rates were about six times higher (18,5 and 5,2 respectively). Under the centralised procurement policy, the Army's decision also forced the Air Force to switch to Gunpowder. The Air Force objected, stating that the rifles were extremely reliable when loaded with IMR. An Air Force representative described a test in which twenty-seven rifles fired 6,000 rounds each. The failure rate was one in 3,000 rounds and the parts replacement rate was one in 6,200 rounds. The Air Force insisted that the rifle and its original cartridge worked well, even though they did not meet the specifications of 3,250 fps from the barrel.
In May 1966, there was another report, the result of an extensive and unusually realistic series of tests conducted by the Army's CDEC field test organisation at Fort Ord. (For example, soldiers were firing in squads, not as individuals; the targets resembled actual battlefield targets because they were difficult to see and covered by bushes and other cover; there was simulated fire from the targets themselves, conducted in a combat-like formation; soldiers were only taken through the course once, so as not to gain any familiarity). The conclusion was that the M-16 was more effective than the M-14 or the Soviet AK-47 (also tested), but not a reliable weapon. The testers said that the cause of fouling, jamming and distortions was the transition to gunpowder powder. By that time, the army was ordering ever larger quantities of gunpowder powder and sending them to Vietnam.
In the photo above, a US Army Advisor (Green Beret) armed with an AR-15 during the Vietnam War. He is with the Republic of Vietnam Army Soldiers who were with him on the patrol boat. Note that the Republic of Vietnam Army Soldiers are armed with M-1 Garand rifles. At the time of this photograph, large-scale US military aid had not reached South Vietnam.
In 1965, after years of advisers and Special Forces, American troops began full-fledged ground combat in Vietnam. Regular Army and Marine Corps units carried the old M-14s. When they arrived, they discovered a few things about their weapons. One was that in jungle warfare the inaccurate, uncontrollable M-14 was no match for the AK-47 used by their enemies. Both were 30-calibre rifles, but the AK-47's cartridges had a lighter bullet and were loaded with less gunpowder, which reduced the recoil to a bearable range. They also found that the old AR-15s used by Special Forces were a big hit in Vietnam. Soldiers were willing to sacrifice several months' salary to acquire one on the black market.
One of those who realised these facts was William Westmoreland, Commander of the American Forces in Vietnam. He saw that his men were doing very badly in their battles against the AK-47 and that the casualties were very high. He also saw how the AR-15 performed. Towards the end of December 1965, he sent an urgent, personal request for the M-16 as standard equipment for troops in Vietnam.
The OC reluctantly agreed to this request. The rifle was to be sent to Vietnam, but only as a special, limited purchase. It was not to be issued to American troops in Europe or the United States; it was not to replace the M-14 as the Army's standard weapon. In addition, since there would be no retreat from the requirement that its cartridges be filled with gunpowder, the M-16 with IMR, the original gunpowder with the possibility of demonstrating its merits, would not have gone to Vietnam under these conditions.
The climactic struggle over gunpowder took place in 1964, a year before Westmoreland's request. As tests showed that the gunpowder caused the rifle to fire too fast and jam, the manufacturing company finally gave up. Colt said it could no longer be responsible for the M-16s passing the Army's acceptance test. It could not guarantee performance with gunpowder. One of the test requirements was that the rifle's cycle rate should not exceed 850 shots per minute, and six out of ten rifles were well above this value when using gunpowder. The Army said, don't worry, you can use any ammunition you want for the tests. But we'll keep sending our gunpowder to Vietnam.
The Technical Coordination Committee, which represented all the services using the M-16 but was run by the Army, formally authorised Colt to use all ammunition in stock for acceptance tests in early 1964. Colt did not receive a new shipment of original IMR ammunition after May 1964, but by that time the company had several million rounds on hand. From 1964, Colt began using IMR gunpowder so that its rifles could pass acceptance tests. The army immediately equipped these rifles with cannon powder cartridges and sent them to soldiers who needed them for survival. The Army's official justification for this was that it did not recognise the theory that gunpowder was the cause of the problems, so why should Colt care what gunpowder it used. Colt delivered at least 330,000 rifles under this agreement. After uncovering the arrangement, the Ichord Committee concluded:
Thousands of these were undoubtedly shipped or transported to Vietnam, and the Army was informed that the rifles did not meet design and performance specifications and could experience extreme malfunctions when firing gunpowder propellant-loaded ammunition [emphases in original]. Others with high authority, such as the rifle project manager, the administrative contracting officer, members of the Technical Coordination Committee, and the Assistant Secretary of Defence for Installations and Logistics, knowingly accepted M-16 rifles that would not pass the approved acceptance test. Colt was allowed to conduct testing using only IMR propellant when the vast majority of ammunition in the field, including in Vietnam, was loaded with ball powder propellant. The failure of competent officials in the Army to ensure that action was taken to correct the shortcomings of 5.56 mm ammunition borders on criminal negligence.
The result was predictable and tragic in the field, the rifle was contaminated and jammed. More American soldiers survived the conflict with the M-14 than could have survived with the M-16, but the failures of the M-16 were spectacular and completely unnecessary. When they heard the complaints, the ammunition officials said that this only proved what they had always said, namely that the rifle was of poor quality. The official Army hierarchy took the view that improper maintenance was the fault. Officials from the Pentagon went on inspection tours to Vietnam and chastised soldiers for not keeping the rifles clean, but there were never enough cleaning supplies for the M-16. ‘This rifle can fire longer than any other known rifle without being cleaned or oiled’ and “an occasional cleaning will keep the weapon working indefinitely”, read instruction leaflets issued by the army. Many in the ammunition establishment said that the problem was that the rifle chamber was not chrome-plated, an expensive upgrade that was not required in the original version of the rifle.
Eventually the soldiers started writing letters; letters similar to the following arrived to their parents, girlfriends, and the company that manufactured the rifle lubricant, Dri-Slide:
24 December 1966
Dear Sir:
On the morning of 22 December, our company encountered... a reinforced detachment of hard-core Viet Cong. They were well entrenched and, my God! It was hell getting them out. I've lost some of my best mates in this and previous battles. I checked their guns myself. About 70 per cent of them were jammed in the chamber, and believe me, it wasn't their fault.
Sir, if you'll send me three hundred and sixty boxes with a receipt, I'll ‘gladly’ pay for it out of my own pocket. That will be enough for every man in my company to have a box.
Special Fourth Class
Parents in Idaho received the following letter from their son, a Marine:
"Our M-16s don't do much good. If there's dust in them, they jam. Half of us don't have cleaning rods to clear the jam. Of the 40 rounds I fired, my rifle jammed about 10 times. I carry as many grenades, bayonets and K sticks (jungle knives) as I can so I have something to fight with. If you can please send me a barrel rod and a paint brush 1 1/4 inches or longer. I need these because my rifles jam too easily causing the death of many men.
A man wrote a letter to a member of the Armed Services Committee staff relaying what his brother had told him about his experiences in Vietnam:
He told me that in the battles in Vietnam, the only thing the enemy left behind after robbing the dead on our side were the rifles they considered worthless. When the battles were over, there were rifles next to the dead that had been dismantled to be repaired because of a malfunction that had occurred when the enemy attacked. ... ‘I am forced to watch our soldiers being killed, and because my hands and arms are tied in this matter, a part of me dies with them.’
A letter received in the office of Ohio Representative Charles W. Whalen, Jr:
"A few weeks ago I was at the march point and that thing you know got jammed 3 times in a row. It is fortunate that I did nothing more than reconnoitre by fire or I would not be writing this letter. When I brought the matter to the Captain, he allowed me to test the gun. It double-fed at 50 rounds and jammed 14 times. I guess I'll have to wait until someone gets shot and take his rifle because my Captain wouldn't give me a new one.
Another was a message from a Navy officer to Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin:
"The gun has failed us at critical moments when we most needed firepower. In every case, it left the Marines vulnerable to their enemies. We usually do a count after every engagement, and up to 50 per cent of the rifles are out of action. I know of at least two Marines who died with their rifles jammed within 10 feet (about 3 metres) of the enemy.
My loyalty should be to these 18-year-old Marines. Too many times (most recently yesterday) I have been in TFs waiting for medical evacuation and listened to bandaged and bleeding soldiers cursing the M-16. Yesterday, we had a major incident. It was the day a Marine beat an NVA with his helmet and hunting knife because his rifle broke down.
When investigators from the congressional committee travelled to Vietnam, they confirmed another report: A Marine with the only cleaning rod in his company had been killed while running up and down the line to clear jams in his brothers‘ and mates’ rifles.
The technical data emerging from the congressional enquiry persuaded the committee members to issue an unusually incisive report claiming that the M-16 had been sabotaged by the OC. But the most striking aspect of the testimony was its dull and routine tone. When OC representatives were forced to explain their decisions, they resorted to quotations from rulebooks, like characters in a parody of bureaucratic life. They seemed to have difficulty remembering who was responsible for important decisions; they tended to explain by saying ‘the feeling was this’ or ‘the practice was...’. They could enumerate with careful, bureaucratic logic the reasonableness of each step they took: If you didn't have Arctic testing requirements, you might not have adaptive rifles. If you had not switched to gunpowder, you would have chamber pressures above the permissible limits, which could be dangerous for troops. They didn't seem to see a connection between these choices and soldiers dying with rifles stuck in their arms. They were certainly aware of the problems of the M-16 and were not bowing to anyone in their concerns. What this proved, they said, was that the rifle was always a risky experiment, especially when (as they pointed out several times) it was used by soldiers today who had been drafted into military service and did not understand the importance of keeping their weapons clean. Four years after the trials, in 1971, Colonel Rex Wing, an M-16 project manager, wrote a history of the rifle in Ordnance magazine. The title of the story read: ‘Although the Vietcong were terrified of the M-16 when our troops were first equipped with it in Vietnam, malfunctions due to improper maintenance led to its devaluation in the press.’ The story did not mention the change in ammunition.
In the picture above, during the Vietnam War, the US Armed Forces commissioned the well-known comic book artist Will Eisner to prepare a special comic book project to raise the maintenance awareness of infantry units about the M-16 rifle. The comic book was distributed to the soldiers. Two pages from this comic book are shown.
The committee found no real evidence of corruption. In its report, it criticised Nelson Lynde Jr., a general who headed the Army Arms Command between 1962 and 1964. He approved purchases of M-16s from Colt and accepted a job with Colt's parent company shortly after his retirement. The committee chastised General Lynde for having a conflict of interest; as Lynde pointed out, the Army's lawyer had not prohibited him from accepting the job. The committee also demanded an audit of Colt's profits from the rifle and its ‘sole source’ relationship with Olin Mathieson. In 1980 I asked Earl Morgan, the committee's investigator, if there was any real corruption (bribes, kickbacks). ‘Oh, knowing how this business is done, I would be surprised if there was no corruption,’ he said. ‘But we found nothing that we could prove.’
Perhaps the most accurate explanation for why things happen the way they do is the most mundane: People could not foresee how chance and circumstances could magnify the consequences of their actions. The military procurement organisation, like most other organisations, is always full of power games and bureaucratic games, which distract from the goals that in a rational world would always be pursued. Luck only occasionally turns the effects of these games into disasters. Undoubtedly, thousands of military intelligence officers have lost their attention to urgent tasks; the handful of officers who lost it on 6 December 1941 were more unlucky than others. The OC was equally unlucky. In late 1963 and early 1964, when critical decisions were made about the M-16, few could have known that the United States would soon have half a million ground troops in Asia, or that soldiers would be dependent for survival on a weapon that was the product of petty bureaucratic wrangling. Most other squabbles have come and gone and have not cost soldiers their lives. The sombre tone of one of the army's final presentations to the congressional committee illustrated the way the situation spiralled out of control:
In retrospect, it has sometimes been suggested that the strange behaviour of the gunpowder propellant in the M-16 system should have been anticipated. Had the Army anticipated these developments, it is unlikely that the route chosen in January 1964 would have been the same. The decision to reduce the speed requirement and to continue to load the improved IMR 4475 powder propellant propellant for M-16 rounds would probably have been taken instead.
The Committee recommended that the Army immediately conduct a thorough and honest test of the two types of ammunition and make a strong recommendation that it should switch to IMR 4475. This never happened. Instead of returning to the original gunpowder, the OC modified the gunpowder and changed the mechanical ‘buffer’ of the rifle, which slowed down the cyclic speed. This solved part of the jamming problem, but did not restore the original reliability or ‘lethality’ of the rifle. (The change in barrel ‘twist’ was also never corrected.) In every day's fighting in Vietnam, American troops fired bullets loaded with OC heritage gunpowder. If American troops were sent to war today, they would use the same type of ammunition.
This article is an adaptation of an article by James Fallows. The original title of the article has been changed in order to draw the attention of Turkish-speaking readers. During the translation process, every effort has been made to preserve the meaning of the original text. However, in some complex or culturally different points, additional explanations, drawings and photographs have been used to better understand the text.
Conclusion
Although this article, which I have translated, was written in 1981, it is an important example of the bureaucratic problems and controversies surrounding the design and use of military equipment. The widespread use of the M-16 rifle during the Vietnam War and the resulting casualties once again show that the risks and problems that may arise in the development and use of military equipment should not be ignored. The article states that investigations into this issue have been incomplete and those responsible have not been punished.
For those who have not read the first part of the article or for those who want to remember it, I leave the relevant link below.
My other article closely related to this subject; How the AR-15 Rifle Became America's Most Dangerous Weapon? I leave the relevant link below.
Bibliography
James Fallows. Why the rifles jammed, M-16: A Bureaucratic Horror Story. The Atlantic Magazine June 1981 Issue
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Army_Ordnance_Corps
https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-army-had-an-m-16-comic-book-12c6542cd850
