This is a MUST READ for anyone interested in the military or Iraq- Clayton Cramer's awesome blog has a post detailing the opinions of a Marine serving in Iraq on the weapons used in that fight.
Here's a sample-
The M-16 rifle : Thumbs down. Chronic jamming problems with the talcum powder like sand over there. The sand is everywhere. Jordan says you feel filthy 2 minutes after coming out of the shower. The M-4 carbine version is more popular because it's lighter and shorter, but it has jamming problems also. They like the ability to mount the various optical gunsights and weapons lights on the picattiny rails, but the weapon itself is not great in a desert environment. They all hate the 5.56mm (.223) round. Poor penetration on the cinderblock structure common over there and even torso hits can't be reliably counted on to put the enemy down. Fun fact: Random autopsies on dead insurgents shows a high level of opiate use.
I'll say it again, time for the M16 weapon system to be replaced with something more reliable.
UPDATE- It seems that this article may not be 100% accurate. Please read here for more information.
3 comments:
How's the modified/improved SA-80 holding up over there? Any idea?
I've not heard too much lately- after the improvements were made there were a few reliability problems reported in Afghanistan. A team was sent out to investigate and a new cleaning/oiling regime was introduced. That seemed to fix the problem.
So far the guys on Operation Telic seem to be pretty happy with the product-improved version.
A good write up here-
http://www.quarry.nildram.co.uk/SA80.htm
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