M-4 Unreliable Issues Hit The Sunday News

[ChadAmberg]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,563883,00.html

In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4 carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work either.
When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S. soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at a "critical moment" during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200 insurgents.
Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, do U.S. armed forces have the best guns money can buy?

Since it hit the news this morning, lets open up the age old debate.
Is the AR-15 platform inherently unreliable, only unreliable with no maintenance, or perfectly reliable? Or somewhere in between, pretty darn reliable just like everything else, but possibly not quite reliable enough for heavy usage in one of the worst environments possible on this planet?

[kidicarus13]

From what I've experienced over the years it wouldn't be my choice for an assault rifle if I could only have one.

[Colorado Osprey]

But the replacement, the FN SCAR has a reliability rating 1.3% better....isn't that why they are replacing the M4?

Sorry, but the weapon platform is as reliable as you maintain or use it as designed including rounds per minute.
Can you still get failures.... you bet.
Is it the M4 the most advanced reliable weapon platform issued to troops anywhere?
Well, as to reliability maybe not compared to an AK, but hey, at least we can actually hit where we are aiming. As far as advanced, there is no doubt.

[Bailey Guns]

In the chaos and confusion of a firefight as intense and long as that one, it doesn't surprise me there were some weapon failures.

We really won't ever know what went wrong and it's unfortunate so many Americans were killed and injured.

Frankly, I wouldn't rush to any conclusions about the unreliability of the M4 system. Now, I've never been in that kind of fight or subjected my guns to that kind of necessary abuse. But I've used my guns in some fairly intense training with a lot of rounds fired. Mine have always worked well.

My son is an AF JTAC and is on his 5th tour over there...twice to Afghan-land and 3 times to Iraq. He's seem some fairly heavy combat (he was awarded a Bronze Star with Valor for fighting in Fallujah in 11/04) and he's also attached to an Army unit. He, and from what he says the Army guys he's served with, have nothing but praise for the M4.

I'm not saying we, as a country, shouldn't look for, or consider, an updated battle rifle/carbine. I just don't think I'd trash the M4 without a well thought out and tested replacement.

[SA Friday]

Ya, JTAC see a butt load of action. I worked with SF pretty regular and they all had either an AF JTAC or TACP assigned to them. Who ever says AF guys don't see combat were smokin dope... Some of us do and did. That's a tough gig.

I never had issues with my M-4, M-16A2, GUU, or GAU over the years. My last tour, we did some pretty heavy training while in Iraq and shot a serious amount of rounds to stay sharp and test the equipment. We did have M-4's fail. Every time it was the operator's shitty mx. It didn't matter what M4 we gave them, it failed during training. "Some people you just can't reach."

One of the things we changed that helped (aside from babysitting the retards) was getting rid of the CLP and using Tetra gun oil and 30 wt motor oil as lube. Then we had to reprogram some of the brighter NCO's about leaving them dry. You have to use lube even in dusty conditions, you have to clean more too. Once we got that straight (and babysitting the retards) guns ran smooth. I put over 2000 rounds through my M4 in one training session in about an hour. It was crazy hot, but still ran like it was new. Ditch the CLP and go to something that works, clean it like your life depends on it, and the M4 will run like a raped ape.

You want something that runs as reliably as an AK, be prepared to sacrific the accuracy. Much of the reliability comes with much looser tolerances. That costs.

The question, "do our troops have the best gun money can buy" is a loaded question. Of course they don't... At face value, one gun, there are much better out there IMO. In the MASS quantities that we use in the military? That's a crap load of guns and ammo... M4's pretty cost effective. The difference between Direct impingment and say a 416 upper or 556 upper piston driven gun might show an improvement in reliability, but you do lose a bit of accuracy. You still have to clean and lube as much as an M4 or have issues. Not really the best solution.

I doubt you will see the military go away from the M4 for quite some time, and it will take a leap in technology to move to the change. Caseless ammo that's reliable would be the one that comes to mind, but we are far from that yet.

[BigMat]

I can't speak to this with the experience as most of you, but I wonder what "machine gun” the soldier switched to, as it failed too. That is some terrible luck, and it makes me wonder if the problem was more than just a crappy M4, instead it may be an issue the two guns share. Maybe lube, or ammo in the case of a M249. If it was an M249 I wonder if it was one of the models that can take M16 mags, in which case that could be an issue. Perhaps conditions of the area(fine sand), maintenance/cleaning schedule, or age condition of the firearms.

Thanks to all you guys who served.

[Irving]

instead it may be an issue the two guns share.

Perhaps the issue that both guns shared was the operator, like SA Friday talked about.

[SA Friday]

I can't speak to this with the experience as most of you, but I wonder what "machine gun” the soldier switched to, as it failed too. That is some terrible luck, and it makes me wonder if the problem was more than just a crappy M4, instead it may be an issue the two guns share. Maybe lube, or ammo in the case of a M249. If it was an M249 I wonder if it was one of the models that can take M16 mags, in which case that could be an issue. Perhaps conditions of the area(fine sand), maintenance/cleaning schedule, or age condition of the firearms.

Thanks to all you guys who served.

The M249 is most commonly called a SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon), and made by FN. It can take belt 5.56 or mag fed 5.56 from M4/M16 mags. It's very much like the FN made M240 7.62 belt fet machine gun, the replacement of the M60. But, the M249 has a locking bolt where the M240 is a slam fire weapon and the bolt doesn't lock into the chamber when fired. The most common terminal failure from an M249 is case head separation. This essentially leaves the case fused to the chamber wall and the back of the case has been ripped off. They make a case remover tool for this, but it takes at least 10 to 15 minutes to extract the case. The M249 comes with two barrels so it can be swapped if one becomes too hot. Based on the limited info in the article, the second barrel was either not available, not used and the gun severely overheated to failure, or the operator didn't know how to swap the barrel. The cyclic rate on an M249 is extremely fast for a belt fed. In the heat of an intense battle, I can easily see an operator failing to control bursts and not swapping a barrel to the point where the SAW was literally toast.

[SA Friday]

For your viewing pleasure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dipghcp929I

This is a 3 gun shooter that got tired of the whole unreliable thing. So, he videoed this test.

He uses CLP and Rem oil and runs it wet.

[Bailey Guns]

Fun video! LWRC has one on their website that shows a guy pouring dirt into the railed forearm while a second guy is firing the gun.

A wet AR is a happy AR.