One of the most venerable rifles in the world, the M16 has served American forces faithfully
from the jungles of South America to the deserts of the Middle East.
In service for nearly half a century, the M16 was at its inception a departure from
traditional battle rifle thinking, and a markedly differed weapon than those being produced
by America's adversaries.
Hello and welcome to another episode of The Infographics Show, today we're taking a look
at the evolution of one of the most iconic rifles in history, the M16.
Following World War II the US Army had a serious problem.
Its infantry was being equipped with up to four different weapons, from the M1 Garand
to the Thompson submachine gun, and all were proving ineffective in modern combat.
What the army desired was a single weapon that could do the job of the various different
weapons infantry units may be equipped with, something that could be lethally accurate
at long ranges such as the M2 Carbine, while being able to deliver suppressing fire like
the Browning Automatic Rifle.
The Army decided that it would need a rifle chambered to fire the 7.62 mm round, which
would also be used by the new general-purpose machine gun under development.
Various designs were submitted by well known manufacturers, to include upgraded designs
of the M1 Garand, but entering the competition late, ArmaLite was forced to hurriedly submit
an AR-10 prototype rifle for testing.
Unlike other rifles which featured walnut and steel, the AR-10 was a surprisingly lightweight
design made of aluminum and plastic, weighing in at only 6.85 lbs while empty.
Though Springfield Armory test staff commented that the AR-10 was the best automatic rifle
they had ever tested, the Army ended up choosing what would become the M14 rifle, which was
basically just an updated M1 Garand with a 20-round magazine and automatic fire capability.
A few years later the M14 would come face to face with the AK-47 in the jungles of Vietnam.
Almost immediately battlefield reports claimed that the M14 was completely uncontrollable
when firing in full automatic mode and that soldiers couldn't carry enough ammunition
to maintain fire superiority over the AK.
In fact many soldiers had taken to ditching their M14s for AK-47s pulled off the corpses
of slain enemy combatants, which led to friendly fire incidents when American troops fired
on the sound of an AK-47 in their midst believing it to be an enemy.
The US was being out gunned daily in the dangerous jungles of Vietnam, and it was clear that
a replacement rifle had to be found and asap.
The Army was thus forced to reconsider a 1957 request by General Willard G Wyman, commander
of the US Continental Army Command, to develop a lighter .223 caliber, 5.56mm rifle which
could fire in both semi and fully automatic modes.
With most believing that the .223 caliber round lacked the killing power of a .30 caliber
round, the new rifle would have to prove that it could penetrate a US helmet at 500 yards
(460 meters) and retain a velocity in excess of the speed of sound, while still being able
to match or exceed the wounding ability of a .30 caliber round.
In response, ArmaLite scaled down their AR10 prototype and developed the AR-15.
Firing the smaller .22 caliber round, the bullets would destabilize when entering the
human body, and fragment or tumble, thus vastly increasing their lethality over a .30 caliber
round which might zip straight through.
The smaller caliber also meant that the rifle would be much more controllable in fully automatic
firing mode due to the vastly reduced kick, and with rounds being a third the weight of
.30 caliber rounds, soldiers could carry more ammunition and sustain fire for longer.
The AR-15 could also fire at rates of 600-700 rounds a minute with an impressively low jamming
rate, and the individual parts of the rifle were stamped out instead of being hand-machined,
allowing them to be mass produced and greatly reducing both their cost and increasing the
speed of manufacturing.
The lack of specialized equipment needed for its construction also meant that unlike the
AK-47, who's manufacture was limited to a few plants with the proper equipment, the
M16 could be produced nearly anywhere, which would make interruption of supplies in case
of war against a foe such as the Soviet Union nearly impossible.
Despite the obvious superiority of the AR-15 over the M-14, the Army was very reluctant
to adopt the rifle.
In fact it was the Air Force who was the first to adopt the weapon, ordering 8,500 rifles
and 8.5 million rounds of ammunition.
The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency then acquired 1,000 of the Air Force's
AR-15's and shipped them to be tested by the South Vietnamese Army, with the Vietnamese
soldiers quickly falling in love with the weapon.
Over the course of testing by the South Vietnamese, the AR-15 recorded zero broken parts while
firing 80,000 rounds in one stage of testing, and in total they needed only two replacement
parts for the 1,000 weapons over the entire course of testing.
The Vietnamese government would go on to request that the US provide the AR-15 as the standard
rifle for its forces, but the request would be denied by Admiral Harry Felt, commander
in chief of pacific forces, on recommendation of the US Army.
Historically a hard-headed service, the US Army continued to decline the AR-15 despite
it's growing and very obvious superiority.
During 1962 and 1963 the US military continued to test the weapon with positive evaluations
emphasizing its lightness, lethality, and reliability.
The Army Material Command however criticized the weapon's inaccuracy and penetration power
at very long ranges, however in 1963 American special forces asked for the AR-15 to be made
their standard weapon.
CIA operatives and select Army Airborne units were also being equipped exclusively with
the AR-15, and eventually Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance ordered an investigation
into why exactly the AR-15 was being rejected by the Army.
The investigation revealed that the personnel in charge of testing the AR-15 up against
the M14 had rigged the tests in favor of the M14.
Within the Army Material Command the bias remained, as it had historically been, with
larger caliber rifles capable of firing at longer ranges, believing that slow, deliberate
fire and a round that could remain accurate at extreme ranges was of utmost importance.
Yet in the jungles of Vietnam where firefights took place at ranges of thirty to fifty yards,
the ability to deliver automatic fire quickly was critical, and the M14 was poorly suited
for the job.
It would take an order directly from Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara to halt production
of the M14, and for US armed forces to formally adopt the AR-15 as their main battle rifle.
Yet the Army was allowed to ask for modifications for its AR-15s, which by now should have proven
to be a mistake because you should never let the Army ask for anything.
With delivery of the first shipments of AR15s, Army staff asked that the design be changed
to include a manual bolt closure, so that a soldier could ram a round in if it failed
to seat properly in the chamber.
The Air Force immediately objected over this request, stating that during three years of
testing and operation under all types of conditions, the Air Force had no record of malfunctions
that could have been corrected by a manual bolt closing device.
They further stated that the addition of a manual bolt closure feature would add weight
and complexity to the weapon, reducing its reliability.
The Marine Corps would come to the Air Force's defense, stating that there was absolutely
no need for the added feature.
In the end, Colonel Howard Yount, who managed Army procurement of the rifle, would defend
the request by stating, “the M-1, the M-14, and the carbine had always had something for
the soldier to push on; that maybe this would be a comforting feeling to him... or something.”
Needless to say, Air Force and Marine Corps personnel would roll their eyes at the good
Colonel, though unfortunately the Army's insistence would go on to force a redesign of the weapon
anyways, resulting in the M-16.
The first version of the M16 however would fare poorly in wet conditions such as those
of the Vietnam jungles.
It experienced a malfunction rate of two per 1,000 rounds fired, and soldiers began writing
letters home about the terrible quality of their new rifles.
Eventually enough letters from soldiers overseas were forwarded by concerned parents to congressmen
that a Congressional investigation was launched.
That investigation would discover that the M16 had been billed as self-cleaning, despite
the fact that no rifle is or has ever been.
Thus troops were issued the rifle without cleaning kits or instructions on how to properly
clean the weapon.
Because the M16 works by redirecting part of the high pressure gases caused by firing
back towards the bolt and thus chambering and seating a new round, the rifle was specially
vulnerable to misfiring or jamming if not cleaned regularly.
The investigation also found that the M16 and 5.56 round it fired had been approved
for use with DuPont IMR8208M extruded gunpowder, but in production the powder had been switched
to WC846 ball powder which produced much more fouling and thus jammed the M16 much more
frequently.
The lack of a forward assist also made it impossible for a soldier to successfully seat
a round when the rifle jammed, and lastly the firing chamber was not chrome-plated,
which created corrosion problems.
By 1968 though these issues had been addressed and corrected, in the form of the M16A1, and
a report by the Department of the Army found that the new and improved rifle had found
widespread acceptance by US troops.
By the end of the war in Vietnam, a Blue Ribbon Defense Panel concluded that the M16 had saved
the lives of 20,000 US servicemen during the war, who would have died had the M14 remained
in service.
The M16 would go on to continue serving US armed forces all the way up to the wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan, where it served alongside its slightly smaller and more maneuverable
cousin, the M4.
Combat troops would go on to continue praising the reliability of the M16, with one unit
in the Helmand province of Afghanistan reported that despite being covered in fine powdered
sand, being dusty, wet, and covered in mud, the weapons would not jam even during intense,
hours long firefights.
Only a single soldier reported his weapon jamming, and only after his M16 was covered
in mud after climbing out of a canal.
After clearing the weapon, the rifle continued firing and remained operational for the rest
of the engagement.
Still receiving high marks for reliability, accuracy, lethality, and range, the M16 is
slowly being phased out across the US military in favor of the M4, yet it still remains one
of the best battle rifles ever created.
Have you ever fired an M16- what do you think about its reliability?
Also, be sure to check out our other video called M-16 vs AK47!
Thanks for watching, and, as always, don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe.
See you next time!