Archive for December, 2007

A Run for the Guns

This scene of the Battle of Trenton on the morning of December 26, 1776 depicts Continental soldiers overrunning the Hessian artillery position following a short duel with American artillery. Lieutenant James Monroe, a future president of the United States, was badly wounded during this part of the battle. Firing from behind fences and the insides of buildings the Continentals quickly forced the Hessian garrison to surrender. (From: Soldiers of the American Revolution).

A little US Army holiday cheer.

M4 may get tougher barrel, better mags

Matthew Cox in Army Times:

Army weapons officials say there is no movement toward replacing the M4 but say they will continue to improve upon the design.

–We want to increase reliability,” said Col. Robert Radcliffe, the head of the Directorate of Combat Developments for the Infantry Center at Fort Benning, Ga.

One of the upgrades that may be coming in the future is a more reliable magazine. The test revealed that 239 of the 882 stoppages M4 suffered were magazine-related.

The hope is that upgrades, such as stronger springs, will increase the magazine’s ability to feed rounds more effectively, Radcliffe said. If all goes well in testing, the improved magazines could be ready by next spring.

It shocks no one to learn that the magazine is a significant part of the problem with the M4. Considering that it appears no problem on earth will convince the army decision makers that any other weapon should be given a serious look, I guess we should be thankful that they’re perhaps going to revisit the magazine issue once again.

The green plastic follower was supposed to solve most of the problems, but, while it’s helped, aftermarket replacements such as those offered by Magpul remain popular items with the troops.

27% of the M4′s stoppages in the recent tests were magazine-related, and this announcement by the Army is certainly intended to cut down on the level of disgust many are feeling after learning just how badly the M4 lost against three piston-driven challengers.

The 239 magazine-related stoppages are more than any of the other three weapons suffered total, magazine-related or otherwise. And even if 100% of the M4′s magazine-related stoppages were eliminated, that would still leave 649 non-magazine failures, or more than 2.5 times the next-worse result in the test.

That next-worst weapon, the HK416, is often mentioned as a great candidate because of the ease of dropping an HK416 upper receiver onto an existing M4 lower receiver. Interestingly, this would mean that existing magazines could and would be used with piston-ized M4s. I wonder what sort of magazines were used with the HK416 in the tests and, if standard mags were used, how much they contributed to the weapon’s 233 stoppages.

The mention of upgrading the M4′s barrel refers to switching to a hammer-forged barrel in order to lengthen its service life.

For what it’s worth, if the Mk16 SCAR-L and the HK416 work out for the Special Forces and Delta operators that are making the switch, I suspect that we’ll begin hearing a lot more about the rifle issue from the troops.

Caption to the photo:

SGT Timothy Frie from the 1st Squadron, 33rd Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, and 101st Airborne Division, FT Campbell Ky., armed with M4 Carbine w/grenade launchers takes cover behind a M1043 Humvee during a gun battle. The nine-day Operation Starlit mission was conducted to rid the area of Anti Iraqi Forces. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Russell Lee Klika) (Released) Location: COB SPEICHER, SALAH AL DIN IRAQ (IRQ)
Camera Operator: SSGT RUSSELL LEE KLIKA, USA Date Shot: 6 Jul 2006

Bzzzt on the “grenade launchers,” Mr. Caption Writer.

Also, he’s shooting left-handed. Is he even allowed to do that?

Two million site visits since launching Murdoc Online on its own domain just over four years ago on December 7, 2003. I had run the site from various other locations since March of ’03. Passed the milestone number last night and I totally missed it.

Remember: If you’ve had only half as much fun reading MO as I’ve had running it, I’ve had twice as much fun as you.

Thanks, folks. You’re ‘all that’ and a bag of chips.

As a few of you may know, I am a contributing writer and a columnist for Shooting Sports Retailer magazine. SSR, “The Voice of the Independent Retailer“, is the leading trade mag for gun shop owners and others in the retail side of the shooting sports industry. I write a couple of feature stories a year and pen a regular column called “Battleground” which covers military and tactical guns and issues.

I recently received permission from my editor to re-post my writing for the magazine on my sites, and I really appreciate this as the archives are not available online. Since the trade magazine is not for sale on the newsstands, it makes my articles and columns hard to come by for those that don’t subscribe.

In light of the recent poor showing by the direct-gas M4 carbine in Army dust chamber tests against piston-powered challengers, I thought I’d begin clearing the backlog by posting The Next Wave of ARs from the May/June 2007 issue over at my new GunPundit site. Go check it out if interested.

Also, if you’re in the shooting industry, consider picking up a free subscription to Shooting Sports Retailer. It’s a top-notch publication with a fine group of dedicated writers (virtually all of whom have decades more experience than ol’ Murdoc) and each issue is filled with great info on developments in the industry and how to make your shop the best that it can be.

As technology advances, more and more military training is being conducted using computer simulations. And the line between many training programs and shooter games is blurring. But there is still a line.

From XKCD.

A couple of pics just released showing Iraqi troops with M16/M4 rifles instead of the traditional AK47:

U.S. Army Spc. Michael Parris, from 3rd Platoon, Alpha Company, 1st Brigade, 87th Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, trains Iraqi army soldiers in basic marksmanship with the M-4 assault rifle at Forward Operating Base McHenry, Hawijah, Iraq, Dec. 4, 2007. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Samuel Bendet)

Iraqi army soldiers from 2nd Battalion, 2nd Brigade, 9th Iraqi Army (Mechanized) Divison, climb a set of stairs in a residence during a cordon and knock mission in Sab al Bor, Iraq, Dec. 8, 2007. (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. William Greer)

I wonder what the Iraqi military thinks of the recent poor showing by the M4 in dust chamber tests.

EagleSpeak writes about the “Little Giants”.

Combustible. Vulnerable. Expendable.

First the results (click for better view):

Then the story: Newer carbines outperform M4 in dust test

Matthew Cox in Army Times:

Weapons officials at the Army Test and Evaluation Command at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., exposed Colt Defense LLC’s M4, along with the Heckler & Koch XM8, FNH USA’s Special Operations Forces Combat Assault Rifle and the H&K 416 to sandstorm conditions from late September to late November, firing 6,000 rounds through each test weapon.

When the test was completed, ATEC officials found that the M4 performed –significantly worse” than the other three weapons, sources told Army Times.

Officials tested 10 each of the four carbine models, firing a total of 60,000 rounds per model. Here’s how they ranked, according to the total number of times each model stopped firing:

• XM8: 127 stoppages.
• MK16 SCAR Light: 226 stoppages.
• 416: 233 stoppages.
• M4: 882 stoppages.

The results of the test were –a wake-up call,” but Army officials continue to stand by the current carbine, said Brig. Gen. Mark Brown, commander of Program Executive Office Soldier, the command that is responsible for equipping soldiers.

I don’t know that anyone is really surprised to learn that the M4, the only direct-gas weapon in the bunch, finished last. But so far back might surprise many, even those who have long criticized the M16/M4′s reliability. The three challengers suffered stoppages a combined total of 586 times, or 296 times LESS than the M4 alone.

The three challengers failed an average of 195 times each, or 22% as often as the M4.

Discuss.

UPDATE: Meant to mention that the M4 fared far worse in this test than in a similar test conducted on the M4s alone earlier this year. 60,000 rounds this summer yielded only 307 stoppages (still more than any of the challengers this time around) in what is described in the article as an identical dust chamber test.

Don’t think that won’t have some conspiracy theorists, um, theorizing.

UPDATE 2: Defense Tech is on this already.

UPDATE 3: Probably worth mentioning the big XM8 post again. Time was when MO was “XM8 Central”. Ah, the glory days…

Today is the anniversary of the first sustained controlled flight of a manned powered aircraft.

In 2003, on the 100th anniversary of the day that Orville and Wilbur Wright first flew their Flyer, I noted that it kicked of a century off Death and Destruction.

Face it. Airplanes kill people.

Also, how long did the Wrights work on their aircraft? They went from a bicycle shop to the first ever flight in a lot less time than it took to design and build the F-22 Raptor.

More than 3,000 guests attended the commissioning ceremony for USS Mesa Verde (LPD 19). Mesa Verde is the third amphibious transport dock of the San Antonio class and will support the Marine Corps mobility triad, which consists of the landing craft air cushion, advanced amphibious assault vehicles and the MV-22A Osprey tilt rotor aircraft. The ship also provides improved war fighting capabilities including an advanced command-and-control suite, increased lift-capacity in vehicle and cargo-carrying capability and advanced ship-survivability features. The ship is named after Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, a significant archaeological and anthropological site that in 1906 Congress established as the first cultural park in the National Park Systems. U.S. Navy photo by Heather Vann

The Mesa Verde’s two predecessors, San Antonio and New Orleans, both suffered from major construction issues and neither is yet really ready for action. Thankfully, those problems seem to have been avoided with the Mesa Verde. In September, Defense News reported: Third Time Could Be the Charm for LPD Program

The San Antonio-class LPD 17 program has been in trouble since late 1998, when the initial construction contract was awarded to Avondale Industries in New Orleans. Avondale beat out Litton Ingalls primarily because it planned to use a new computer program to design the ships — the first time a Navy ship was designed in its entirety using computer tools. But the program didn’t work, the Navy kept making design changes, costs escalated and major delays ensued.
Litton Ingalls bought Avondale in 1999 thinking it could fix the program — which it couldn’t — and in late 2000 the shipyards were acquired by Northrop Grumman.

On the customer side, a succession of Navy program managers and acquisition executives struggled — unsuccessfully in most cases — to hold down the design churn and manage costs, which have more than doubled from the $750 million per ship the Navy forecast in the late 1990s. The Navy now estimates the acquisition cost for the ninth ship, LPD 25, will be $1.8 billion.

All those problems and more affected the first two ships of the class. The USS San Antonio (LPD 17) was delivered in mid-2005 in an incomplete state. The Navy accepted the ship knowing it had numerous construction defects, many of which would need to be fixed for extra cost after the shipyard’s obligation period ended. The USS New Orleans (LPD 18) was delivered last December, also with incomplete spaces, and neither ship has yet [deployed].

Mesa Verde was built at Ingalls. The first two were built at Avondale, and the next two will be, as well.