True or not?
 

If so or if not, then why?

re: M16

"Reportedly, in one small Marine unit overrun by the Viet Cong near Khe Sanh in 1967, every man was found dead with a cleaning rod in his hand, trying to clear a stuck cartridge."

By: Tom Clancy

I'm always wary of stories beginning with "reportedly" and giving no actual unit or date information. I remember hearing that story in 1970. I filed it under BS (Barracks Sh--). For one thing, unless there were special circumstances, it would be very unlike Charles to completely wipe out a unit and then leave their weapons to be recovered.

On the other hand, the early model was crap and was almost sure to jam in heavy use unless it was meticulously maintained.

Just thinking though, along those lines Des... if the weapons were already "jammed" would Charles have wanted them? I dunno, it sounded odd to me too.

Urban Legend

Mike...
 

...the North Vietnamese, and ESPECIALLY the VC, would gather up ANYTHING that could be used, or made into booby traps.

Even empty C-rats cans.

An M16 with a cartridge stuck in the chamber or action is not a difficult fix.

That they would abandon even one such weapon is ludicrous.

I see, makes one wonder why such a thing would be written down...

As an object lesson: Keep your weapon clean!!!! That's what I got from it anyway.

I still think the number of guys killed or wounded because they didn't have a weapon when they needed it can be numbered in the thousands. I hope there's a special hell for whoever approved that piece of crap for field use.

Des...sometime, try to watch "History of the Gun - M16" on the History Channel. It talks of all the things that went wrong when the M16 was fielded. Not the least of which was using a round with more powder in it than was ever tested. It's worth an hour of your time if you like shooting and guns.

Trav

It sounds like . . . . . . . . .
 

It sounds like to me a story a Drill instructior would tell in Basic to emphasize the need to keep your rifle clean. Never knew what kind of stuff they would say to emphasize a point. It would make an impression wouldn't it.

Keith

Well, whatever the reason, somebody somewhere has some answering to do.

As for what I like shooting, my 1917 Enfield and my 1886 Mauser are my weapons of choice. The Mauser'll blow the brains out of a friggin' elephant and the Enfield makes a nice tree-chopper-downer.

Mauser is my weapon of choice also. have 6 different calibers from 6.5 through 8 mm. My rifle of choice is a 7.65mm Argentine Mauser. Can part a gnats ass hairs with that one!!

Trav

I've got two Russian Captured K-98s in 8mm, have'nt fired either one yet.
When I was in Vietnam I was very careful to keep my M-16 clean, most of the the Grunts kept a towel wrapped around the breech when we'd air assualt to set up a fire base so I did the same. Choppers threw up a lot of dust and sand on landing and taking off.

From what I have heard, one of the problems was that when DOD procured the M16, they started using ball ammo, which was left more carbon deposit in chamber than original 5.56 ammo than the original powder Armalite used in its AR15. One of the fixes was to chrome the chambers before the later model M16s were sent over to Nam (the new ones had a smooth-ended flash suppressor, instead of the old slot-ended ones that could be used to break the band on a case of C rations). I believe that the cyclic rate of fire was also slowed down somewhat in the later models. I carried a CAR-15 for a year and it worked fine (always kept it as clean as possible, and kept a piece of tape covering the muzzle to keep mud and twigs out, which would just get shot away with first round). Also always still carried a cleaning rod tape under the foregrip just in case I got a jam. Still quite a contrast to the AK47, AKM or SKS, which could be picked out of the mud and fired reliably without having to even clean it first. :)

Marines at Khe Sanh kept the M-14. The Col. would not allow them to turn them in for M-16. That small unit was a recon unit that dropped off. As the platoon encountered the VC, NVA, the commies made a run for it, but the recon squad was right in their path.