Can we have the M-14 back?

[HorseSoldier]

I don't think that the instability during full auto fire was due to the caliber as much as it was due to the fact that the rifle had a traditional shaped stock. There is an inadvertently built in pivot point on the rifle stock on the back side of the grip area. This pivot point facilitates muzzle climb in full auto. This is one reason Stoner designed the AR in a straight-line configuration. Obviously the recoil of the 7.62 compounded the problem, but that stock would've made the rifle a bit "helter-skelter" even with a smaller cartridge in FA.

The rifle designed by Earl Harvey (T25, later T47), which was originally preferred over what would become the M14 by the US Army (until the FAL outperformed both, but that's another story . . .) featured an inline stock and a compensator to improve performance when firing automatic. The powers that be watered down his design (more conventional stock design) before dropping it entirely.

Looking at the history of rifle R&D at the time, the M14's only real merits seem to have been that it was (allegedly) easy to produce because of commonality with the Garand (which proved not to be the case in an impressively costly way) and, of course, that it was all American and not some funny foreign weapon like the FAL or EM2.

 

[Sudden]

Quote from HorseSoldier:
that it was all American and not some funny foreign weapon like the FAL or EM2.

I believe there is a security advantage to keeping this type of thing in the country. And I not saying that's a reason to accept an inferior design. Good weapons can be built here. All that we need is someone capable of saying, "Good try but not acceptable, make these changes and come back." As far as the M14 having flaws - few things had more flaws than the M16. A lot of people died because of the flaws of the M16. I haven't been to Iraq but when watching videoes from there I see a lot of different arms in use by our soldiers.

 

[HorseSoldier]

I believe there is a security advantage to keeping this type of thing in the country.

As an end user, if you give me the choice between the best design and an American design, if the two are not the same thing, I'd rather have the best. Particularly when one keeps in mind that US law requires any weapons we purchase on a major scale have to be built here in the US, which is why we have Beretta factories and FN factories here in the US.

I don't recall if the law was in place back at the time, but had we adopted the FAL, it would have been made here in America in any case, and we would have had control of the design the same way the British, Canadians, etc did. Harrington and Richardson made several thousand test rifles back when the T48 was being considered for adoption as it was.

 

[Sudden]

Agreed. I thought that I should have added that right after I hit the Submit button, the best design and made in this country. We should have been able to do both.

 

[SR420]

I continue to see incorrect information posted concerning the M14 Rifle History and Development.
I think Lee Emerson's books would be excellent reading for a few of you.

 

[coyoteplinker]

M 14 ALPHA teams

If you recall, the Black Hawk Down pair of special OPS snipers who dropped down on the original crash site were armed with the M-14 by their own choice, having been offered that option by their special combat status.

Simply overwhelmed by the civilian scourge , these patriots ran out of ammo and took a sizeable chunk of the local populace with them.

They knew the weapon they wanted for this type of tight combat, and used it. These were well experienced soldiers who had some understanding of that type of urban warfare.

I personally see the sense of a heavier, softer slug with a little less speed when it comes to fighting around poured cement spaces. The weight shatters the building materials and makes the shrapnel an effective add on. And the accuracy can't be beat. The faster , smaller rounds tend to burrow into the terrain and leave a nice clean hole. They go further with accuracy, but we aren't talking long range combat here.

Sometimes, lower tech is the way to go, when the going gets brutal.

 

[SR420]

coyoteplinker:

Sometimes, lower tech is the way to go, when the going gets brutal.

+1

Make every shot count.

 

[Desert01]

coyoteplinker posted:
They knew the weapon they wanted for this type of tight combat, and used it. These were well experienced soldiers who had some understanding of that type of urban warfare.

Actualy they selected the weapon they wanted for providing long range fires from a airborne platform in support of a ground operation. There were also teams using Barrets .50 M-82's (before they were M-107's) for Eyes Over Mogadishu. Would that have made a good CQB rifle? With a M-4 or MK-12 they might not have run out of ammo.

They chose to use the weapon they had, not the weapon they wanted, for the fighting that needed to be done.

 

[ronc0011]

smaller rounds tend to burrow into the terrain and leave a nice clean hole. They go further with accuracy, but we aren't talking long range combat here.

Actually the 7.62 goes further with accuracy than the 5.56 and it has more power when it gets there.

Also like you say, in CQB it is very good at penetrating barriers and still killing 1 or even 2 bad guys on the other side.

Let’s face it the 5.56 is never going to have the lethality that the 7.62 does, it’s simple physics.

 

[Desert01]

The M-14 works, but is not a good choice for CQB. The M-4 is a good choice for CQB, but not for long range fires. The M-2, MK-19 and M-240 are good for making holes in walls, cars, ect(I prefer the AH-64 myself ), but are not good for precision fires or CQB. 7.62 and 5.56mm are both compromises to meet given requirements. Both platforms and rounds are long in the tooth and will some day be replaced.

The M-2 has been in sevice continuasly since what, WW I? Very few things are BEST for ALL things, old designs work, but some times new designs are better, some times they are not.

M-14's and M-4/M-16's are differant from each other not better then one or the other. Can we make the madness stop here, before I have to show over and under shotguns are better then either one. Or was it side by sides?

 

[hillbillyboy]

what if they just used .300 whisper. they would only have to change the uppers, and then lal of the accessories and stuff would still work

 

[davlandrum]

I haven't been to Iraq but when watching videoes from there I see a lot of different arms in use by our soldiers.

Really???

Someone from the sandbox chime in, please.

The Army lives on standardization, not individual choice.

Special Ops has totally different rules. Contractors wearing DCUs have different rules.

The normal infantryman gets what Uncle Sam gives him.

 

[MikeWrite]

I can't speak for Iraq, but I got back from a year-long deployment to Afghanistan on March 31. The overwhelming majority of American service members there have M16/M4 series rifles or M249 SAWs. There was a very small smattering of M14s and M107s, and obviously a lot of crew-served weapons. The M110 was just filtering in when I was there.

Accessories added to M4s do vary, depending on unit and individual preference, so that may be what is causing some of the confusion.

My group was located adjacent to an SF compound. The secret squirrels mainly used pretty standard weapons from what I saw. Ditto all the contractors I saw, with the exception of one oddball guy who had what looked like an STI wide-body 1911.

Obviously, the soldiers from the many nations that fell in under ISAF (International Security Assistance Force - or I Suck At Fighting, if you prefer) had the issue weapons of their respective countries.

 

[Water-Man]

It's amazing that those of you who have no combat experience whatsoever are such experts regarding combat weapons. Get a life!

 

[SR420]

HKuser


Can we have the M-14 back?

OK, I admit it, I love the M-14, handy, powerful, reliable, and I saw this story today, let's open full scale production again :

I don't think full scale production of the M14 is in the cards, but if any troops
that are now in or will soon be in harms way want the M14 - they should get them.

 

[HorseSoldier]

They knew the weapon they wanted for this type of tight combat, and used it. These were well experienced soldiers who had some understanding of that type of urban warfare.

Both began the engagement circling overhead in Blackhawks in the counter sniper role. They did not choose M14s as their weapon of choice if they went on the ground. They hit the ground with what they had in hand and available on the birds in their effort to try and secure the crash site before it was overrun.

Their actions, while entirely commendable, don't say one thing about the suitability of the M14 for use as a general issue weapon.

 

[Evil Monkey]

It's amazing that those of you who have no combat experience whatsoever are such experts regarding combat weapons. Get a life!

Why don't you get a life?

Nobody needs combat experience to make judgment, so long as judgment is the result of careful understanding of history and the present.

 

[44 AMP]

The M14 never got the breaks it deserved

Much has been made of the failure of the M14 in full auto mode. Virtually uncontrollable, and extended firing produced stress cracking in some recievers. True. However, instead of finding a simple fix for these problems (and there is one), the military was forced by the MacNamara DOD to adopt the M16, and the way this was don created its own problems, leading to the poor rep for the M16. However, the M16 got decades of service tinkering to get the bugs worked out. The M14 got virtually none.

The simple solution to the full auto problem with the M14 is to lower the cyclic rate. There are a couple of simple ways to do this, but the Army wasn't even interested in trying it. So sad.

Will we see the M14 put back into production? Not likely. The military demand for an actual rifle (which the M14 is) isn't high, and as long as they can meet it from reworked stocks of old M14s or from civilian contrractors, it ain't going back into production as a service rifle.

The M14 is a superb rifle for tactics we seldom use anymore, and from reports is serving well enough as a DMR, but it won't ever be a main service rifle, unless we return to WWII era combat tactics. And even if we did, I'm suree military politics would demand some "new" design instead.

FYI to the poster who was wondering about the "climb" of the Tommy gun. It isn't really the stock design, although that does have a little to do with it. What is is mostly, is the fact that full auto recoil of the tommy gun just about cancels out the weight of the gun, but the shooter is still lifting a 12lb gun (in their mind, and arms), so the muzzle "climbs" badly in some hands. If you ever get a chance to see a real expert with a tommy gun, you can watch them literally lay the gun on the open palm of the hand and fire it with virtually no muzzle climb. This is a knack that can be learned, but very, very few GIs (or police or gangsters) ever did thus the reputation of the tommy gun having bad muzzle climb. With the Cutts compensator, they hardly go anywhere, on their own. It is the shooter that does it.

 

[volkstrm]

I say we should just go with a piston,6.8 upper and we have no more problem.Why we still use that no good direct gas impingement system and the 5.56 round is dumb.Someone needs to get there head out of there ass.

 

[BlondieStomp]

Can we have the M-14 back?

No.

Move on.