Weapons failed US troops during Afghan firefight

[Morel42]

Originally Posted by Tomcat088

Now if our guys were allowed to shoot, and given hollowpoints, ballistic tips or efmj's; we'd see guys dying a lot more from single round hits CM. A hollow point from a 5.56 puts a 7.62 FMJ to shame. IF they were allowed to use this type of ammunition we would see more casualties, maybe on both sides, I won't speculate about that. All I know is that expanding bullets get the job done, and it has nothing to do with "the caliber is too small to kill". .45 ACP FMJ's don't do as well of a job at killing as 9mm hollow points, and this is coming from someone that carries a .45 ACP. I don't have a problem with the 5.56 because it's light recoil, easy to carry lots of ammunition and have lots of ammunition in the rifle. I just hate the fact that we can't use expanding munitions, because it would get the job done.

Either way, that's just my opinion on the matter. They do need a system that performs reliably in the conditions they're in, and I do wish they had better ammunition.

I never did understand the logic of not allowing hollow points on the battle field, while they're perfectly fine with putting radioactive materials on the tips of the shells from our tanks.. /boggle.

Originally Posted by ALS

The gun is only as reliable as the amount of routine maintenance done by it's owner. There was a whole lot of so called problems with the M-16 in 65-66 in Vietnam. Sure the main problem was dirty powder initially but that problem was solved pretty quickly. The biggest reason for weapons failure came down to the guy in the field not performing proper maintenance and properly cleaning of the weapon in the field.

Remember the Jessica Lynch convoy attack? They said most of their weapons had jammed. It came out later that most of the soldiers in that unit hadn't performed basic field maintenance on their weapons since hitting the Iraq border.

Well the M16 is more accurate then the AK, and has a wider range of field operation kits though the AK-47 has caught up a great deal in recent years in that area..

The M16 had alot of initial problems due to it's aluminum chamber causing problems as it would pit and when the shell fired it would fill the pit holes and the extractor could not get the shell out. Also it was distributed with very little training and with none of the special cleaning kits since Colt had stated "It was so reliable and sturdy it didn't require such care".

Additionally when it would jam up, many times the bolt would break off from the frantic hammering of the solider trying to get his rifle to work again. Many of these problems were resolved, but the M16 still has issues in harsh environments such as you know.. Sand everywhere.. lol

And the M4 is based off the M16A2 basic design... Including the "touchy" firing chamber.. /sigh It IS a reliable and very highly accurate weapon with many uses, but it's nothing like that AK-47 that could be dug up after 30 years in sand you blow out the sand from barrel and chamber and it will prolly fire.. That SOB designed one hell of a rifle... The problem is, sometimes following the strict maintence requirement isn't practical during long durantion missions in harsh envirments.. The same problem that many of our military hardware has across the board.. F-22, F-35, etc.. Sure they're the best at what they do when they're clean and shiny.

But war is seldom clean...

The M16 only was chosen due to huge favors to government officials in the first place.. Gotta love that part eh?

Originally Posted by TonyF

Someone call the local waste management company because we're knee deep in trash being passed of as fact in this thread.

LOL

[5711-Marine]

Raw Video: Camp Keating Interviews -- from the soldiers who were there, and the pilots who flew in. Interview by ISAF Media.

NOTE: the audio is uneven. Hard to hear the questions, so raise the volume for the questions, lower to hear the response from the military.



PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5


Camp Keating - after the attack 1

after the attack 2

[Orive 8]

"Someone call the local waste management company because we're knee deep in trash being passed of as fact in this thread."


When most firearms aficionados start talking about bullets and their effects; that is usually the case.

More mis-information about this subject than almost any other firearms related topic.

[Franky4Fingers]

I don't think the milk jugs are so far off at all. Watch slow motion vids of ballistics gel being shot. It does damn near the same thing only the gel holds together because its a solid. You can see the gel expand outward like an explosion when the bullet hits. And when hit with a bigger gun, the gel "explodes" more...surprise surprise.

And I did use to hunt years ago.

Obviously our bodies aren't filled with loose water like a jug, but it is soft water based tissue that expands, and I'm bettering if you watch in slow motion a piece of beef being shot it would do near the same thing. You could watch the bullets hit and watch the beef expand.

And it depends on what kind of jugs your shooting to. I said milk jugs, like the cardboard, because they are the weekest, showing that the .223 wont even explode those.

So does shooting a milk jug the same as shooting flesh? Of course not, and I never said as such. All my post said was simple relevance to hydrostatic pressure and force. Don't add things that aren't there.

[missmissy704]

You guys answered alot of my questions. I read the article earlier and wondered why they would continue to use a weapon that has failed and caused senseless deaths of our soldiers. And to top it off, one soldier grabs a machine gun to compensate for his useless M4 and the machine gun fails too. Hmmm! I would not want to have insurgents barreling down on me with a weapon in my possession that I can't put much faith in. Although, the article states that 90% of the soldiers are satisfied with the M4. ? Our soldiers deserve the BEST.....because they are the BEST!!!!! Not one of them should die because their weapon failed them

[Tomcat088]

Originally Posted by Franky4Fingers

I don't think the milk jugs are so far off at all. Watch slow motion vids of ballistics gel being shot. It does damn near the same thing only the gel holds together because its a solid. You can see the gel expand outward like an explosion when the bullet hits. And when hit with a bigger gun, the gel "explodes" more...surprise surprise.

And I did use to hunt years ago.

Obviously our bodies aren't filled with loose water like a jug, but it is soft water based tissue that expands, and I'm bettering if you watch in slow motion a piece of beef being shot it would do near the same thing. You could watch the bullets hit and watch the beef expand.

And it depends on what kind of jugs your shooting to. I said milk jugs, like the cardboard, because they are the weekest, showing that the .223 wont even explode those.

So does shooting a milk jug the same as shooting flesh? Of course not, and I never said as such. All my post said was simple relevance to hydrostatic pressure and force. Don't add things that aren't there.

If you think that milk jugs aren't that far off, then you obviously don't know very much about external ballistics. While you didn't say that shooting milk jugs was the same as shooting flesh, that's what you used to measure the terminal effects of bullets so that's all I had to mention. Yes ballistics gel is a solid, then again, so are people; kind of interesting how that works isn't it? That is kind of the reason why people's bodies hold together as well.

I've seen tons of videos of ballistics gel being shot, and this may come as a surprise to you but almost all of those videos are showing off expanding ammunition. They're videos of hollow points and ballistic tip bullets, in the slow motion ones you can see the bullet expand and exit expanded. This means that ballistics gel does NOT look that way when it's shot by full metal jacket bullets. I'll see if I can find a video of non expanding ammunition and you can see the difference. Either way, what I said obviously still applies even in the videos, expanding ammunition delivers a lot of kinetic energy to the target. The reason that the ballistic gel goes back together is because that's what your body does; it's called "temporary wound channel", typically. Sure you see hydrostatic shock disperse, although those of us that actually study terminal ballistics know that it typically does NOT cause permanent damage. The body is elastic and is able to shift and move without tearing; there's only some parts of the body that will tear from hydrostatic shock. Either way, hydrostatic shock isn't necessarily something that causes permanent wound damage and not something that you can depend on.

If you see a video of gel getting shot by a full metal jacket, it doesn't explode at all; I guess that's gonna be SURPRISE SURPRISE for you. You should also keep in mind that many of those gels are getting shot at point blank or near point blank ranges, so the effects that happen on the gel are to test some expansion characteristics and be a sales pitch video as well. Until they're shooting some of those gels at 50, 100, 200, 300 yards, etc and videotaping it, you won't see exactly what's happening. Sure you see a piece of beef expand when shot with a bullet; you also see it stay intact and typically go back to the shape it was (especially if it has bones), which doesn't cause permanent injury.

A 5.56 or 7.62 FMJ will not reliably burst paper or plastic milk jugs, they punch holes in it and it leaks out. You shoot either of those target with expanding ammunition and both will explode, big deal. Water is water, not the same as bodies. I don't have to add anything that was or wasn't there, I'm answering your claim about hydrostatic pressure and shock. Obviously you're not familiar with the scientific facts and the effects in terms of permanent wound cavity and incapacitation.

[TonyF]

Big Dog,

My comments are not directed at you.

WASHINGTON (AP) - 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.

Bold is a fact.

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.

Bold is a fact.

Despite the military's insistence that they do, a small but vocal number of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq has complained that the standard-issue M4 rifles need too much maintenance and jam at the worst possible times.

Red is conjecture.

A week ago, eight U.S. troops were killed at a base near Kamdesh, a town near Wanat. There's no immediate evidence of weapons failures at Kamdesh, but the circumstances were eerily similar to the Wanat battle: insurgents stormed an isolated stronghold manned by American forces stretched thin by the demands of war.

Bold is a fact.

Army Col. Wayne Shanks, a military spokesman in Afghanistan, said a review of the battle at Kamdesh is under way. "It is too early to make any assumptions regarding what did or didn't work correctly," he said.

Bold is a fact.

Complaints about the weapons the troops carry, especially the M4, aren't new. Army officials say that when properly cleaned and maintained, the M4 is a quality weapon that can pump out more than 3,000 rounds before any failures occur.

Bold is a fact.

"The M4 has served us well but it's not as good as it needs to be," Coburn said.

Red is conjecture.

Battlefield surveys show that nearly 90 percent of soldiers are satisfied with their M4s, according to Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, head of the Army office that buys soldier gear. Still, the rifle is continually being improved to make it even more reliable and lethal.

Bold is a fact.

Fuller said he's received no official reports of flawed weapons performance at Wanat. "Until it showed up in the news, I was surprised to hear about all this," he said.

Bold is a fact

The soldiers said their weapons were meticulously cared for and routinely inspected by commanders. But still the weapons had breakdowns, especially when the rifles were on full automatic, which allows hundreds of bullets to be fired a minute.

Blue is an unsubstantiated claim.

The platoon-sized unit of U.S. soldiers and about two dozen Afghan troops was shooting back with such intensity the barrels on their weapons turned white hot. The high rate of fire appears to have put a number of weapons out of commission, even though the guns are tested and built to operate in extreme conditions.

Red is conjecture.

"My weapon was overheating," McKaig said, according to Cubbison's report. "I had shot about 12 magazines by this point already and it had only been about a half hour or so into the fight. I couldn't charge my weapon and put another round in because it was too hot, so I got mad and threw my weapon down."

Bold is a fact.

Cpl. Jason Bogar fired approximately 600 rounds from his M-249 before the weapon overheated and jammed the weapon.

Bold is a fact.

Based on the facts alone, what conclusions can be drawn?

Here is another fact. A platoon of soldiers ("spread thin") along with 24 Afghan soldiers were attacked by 200+ insurgents.

So, does anyone think the high volume of fire directed at the insurgents given the approximate 4:1 odds they faced may have had something to do with not being able to change barrels on the M249? Or that the sustained rate of fire of the M4's may have been exceeded? Would any platform been able to withstand that kind of abuse? I think not. Even the "practical" sustained rate of fire of the AK is only 90 to 100 RPM.

[TonyF]

Originally Posted by missmissy704

Not one of them should die because their weapon failed them

They didn't. They died because they were outnumbered 4:1.

Being outnumbered is one of the many terrible features of war.

[Asmodeus6]

Originally Posted by Tomcat088

I've heard lots of friends in the military also say that they don't believe the M4 is the most reliable system for the conditions that we're currently fighting in. If you think that a .223 can't reliably kill a person then you are sadly mistaken or don't have very much experience with putting down animals (the 4 legged or 2 legged kind). The .223 is more than an acceptable caliber to kill humans. The problem is the limitation on the ammunition that they use. Even if our soldiers were carrying 7.62mm rounds, most of the time the extra 2.06mm wouldn't mean the difference between a kill or not. Both rounds simply pass thrugh and keep on going, only causing a 5.56mm hole or 7.62mm hole. The 5.56 doesn't tumble and break at the cannelure the way they show in the manuas, as often as people think. Most of the time a FMJ just shoots directly through it's target. Now at longer ranges with slightly differently designed bullets than what we currently use, that might be the case; but not with the way things are designed now at the distances they're typically engaging in.

I've heard of what you're talking about in terms of wounding soldiers. Maybe that's how someone had to justify it back in the day when they were trying to sell the adoption of that caliber. Either way, I doubt that any of the guys in the sandbox are thinking anything about that. They just do everything they can with what they're given, and sadly it's not even close to the best for the job they're trying to get done. I do think that you're right that lots of guys don't complain because they don't know about other platforms or what is possible. Even if they did complain though, most of them probably feel that nothing will get changed; they understand better than most all the BS politics about that. They know that we'd rather buy more expensive bombs than spend an extra $200 or $300 more per weapon system for our guys. Sad day because more insurgents get killed with rifles than they do with bombs.

Now if our guys were allowed to shoot, and given hollowpoints, ballistic tips or efmj's; we'd see guys dying a lot more from single round hits CM. A hollow point from a 5.56 puts a 7.62 FMJ to shame. IF they were allowed to use this type of ammunition we would see more casualties, maybe on both sides, I won't speculate about that. All I know is that expanding bullets get the job done, and it has nothing to do with "the caliber is too small to kill". .45 ACP FMJ's don't do as well of a job at killing as 9mm hollow points, and this is coming from someone that carries a .45 ACP. I don't have a problem with the 5.56 because it's light recoil, easy to carry lots of ammunition and have lots of ammunition in the rifle. I just hate the fact that we can't use expanding munitions, because it would get the job done.

Either way, that's just my opinion on the matter. They do need a system that performs reliably in the conditions they're in, and I do wish they had better ammunition.

I hate to burst your bubble... but.. uh... they kinda DO. Maybe not all troops but I know a few guys who have played around in Afghanistan and Iraq who's issued weaponry was M4's and they were handed a few cardboard strippers of additional ammo.

And they were HP's.

Maybe the exception but it is being done on some level. If that makes you feel any better.



As for the whole M16's and M4's are junk comments... I'll tell you what... he said he put 12 magazines down the pipe in 30 minutes. That's 360 rounds full auto.

I challenge anyone to do that in their AK without it catching on fire.

Not saying it won't fire, or will fail... but being another closed bolt weapon... the chances of it succumbing to a cook off are the same. We are talking about heat, not generic failures... and while I feel the M249 failing is of bigger importance here...

I don't see any of these assault rifles standing up to being used in extended durations at that volume of fire. Not closed bolt guns anyway.

Maybe some of the newer variations which use short stroke pistons, and vent the gas outside of the weapon... hell I don't know.


But as it stands... if you are discussing an M16 or M4 failing after putting hundreds of rounds down the pipe in a handful of minutes... I don't know too many weapons that won't fail... short of open bolt guns.

ETA: Looks like Tony beat me to it...

[TonyF]

Originally Posted by Asmodeus6

Maybe some of the newer variations which use short stroke pistons, and vent the gas outside of the weapon... hell I don't know.

You mean like the AK47?

But as it stands... if you are discussing an M16 or M4 failing after putting hundreds of rounds down the pipe in a handful of minutes... I don't know too many weapons that won't fail... short of open bolt guns.

ETA: Looks like Tony beat me to it...

That's OK.

For those that didn't get it, "practical sustained rate of fire" has significant meaning in this context.