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 M16icon 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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