The early days of the M16 rifle in Vietnam
I happened to view a couple of documentary programmes last night concerning the history of the Vietnam war and America's involvement with it. The programme interviewed a number of people including U.S. veterans and in the course of the interviews it was stated that the M16 rifle was found to have reliability issues when put into combat in Vietnam. The number one complaint seemed to be that it had a nasty habit of jamming during a firefight which may necessitate a strip down. It went onto say that the rifle didn't take kindly to the presence of dirt or to not being cleaned properly.
I have heard it suggested before that there were issues with the M16 rifle in the early days but I have not heard the problems mentioned quite so specifically before. Obviously America decided to stick with the rifle and sort out the problems. The general impression that I get is that by the 1970's the problems had been sorted and the rifle had started to gain a reputation for reliability. What sort of modifications were done to the design to make it reliable?
The programme also pointed out that the AK rifle and variants used by the NVA and VC were found to be very reliable, even if poorly maintained.
I wondered what others thoughts are on this? Thanks for any information.
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early modifications/changes to the M16
You can still find photos of troops with a cleaning rod taped to the hand guards of their XM16E1 rifle, very useful to remove a fired cartridge case from the chamber.
The Edgewater buffer never worked out well with full automatic fire and had to be replaced by 1967. Also the early steel gas tube was replaced too.
The waffle magazines were replaced and the troops were instructed to throw them away (that is why they sell for $300 to $400 ea nowdays)
A butt plate with a trap to hold cleaning gear was also added
These are just a fewAttachment 87795Attachment 87796 points of interest to add to the above posts.,,photo shows Edgewater buffer in early Colt SP1