In depth(and long) video on the M16 in Vietnam

[Jagdwyre]

I found this video sometime last year but recently came across it again, a man named Chris Bartocci goes into detail about what was real and what was a myth about the M16 in Vietnam.

One of the things that stuck out to me was at 11:35, where he comments on how downloading 20 round magazines to 18 rounds because of "bad springs" was a myth and mainly just had to do with the simple design quirk of the M16 family of rifles where if the bolt is in the forward position trying to seat a fully loaded magazine can be difficult. Something that still happens with modern fully loaded 30 round mags(which is why people typically either only seat a full mag after they've locked the bolt back or download their mags to 29 or 28 rounds even today).

It also stuck out to me, and part of why I'm posting this here, because 18 rounds is currently the capacity of the M16A1 in RS2 because of the idea of the 20 round mags having "bad springs." The creator of this video also has done years of research on the M16 so I find it interesting his view on this is counter to AMG/TWI's findings on this specific subject.

 

[Flashburn]

And the m16a1 has the forward bolt assist. You could certainly beat the crap out of that to get it into battery if it got jammed up on a round if you wanted too. Your hosed if its an M16 though. GI mags have always been the weak link of the rifle. Certainly not the best design ever. Lord did it take forever to get them pretty good. Still to flimsy and no real way to make it beefier without making the mag well larger. The magic NATO standard mag that most of Nato members said hell no too at one point or another.

 

[Jagdwyre]

I've seen varying opinions on the forward assist, it can help aid just as much as it can make a malfunction worse. If a failure to go into battery does occur you can just rack the charging handling back again, though personally I'd rather have a forward assist and no need it than need it and not have it. It is also interesting to note that 2 popular NATO rifles at the time, the G3 and FN FAL, also both featured non-reciprocating charging handles meaning neither have a forward assist.

And Aluminum GI mags were originally supposed to be disposable, that just never ended up being the case. But that being said mags universally having to be downloaded to 18 rounds because of bad parts(the feed spring in this case) isn't the same as individual mags eventually wearing out from overuse. Mag durability has largely been negated with Pmags today though.

 

[FR4NCH3K]

It's not a quirk that loading the AR on a closed bolt is "hard". Every gun has this "issue" because magazines are designed to be as compact as possible so when the mag is fully loaded the spring is at it's end and you've got to work a little harder to press the magazine into the weapon. That being said, I've got probably 20 original, first issue run M16 magazines and they work perfectly fine and really aren't all that hard to load. I think it's a bunch of crap that 18 is the current capacity. They hold 20 and people loaded them to 20.

And the m16a1 has the forward bolt assist. You could certainly beat the crap out of that to get it into battery if it got jammed up on a round if you wanted too. Your hosed if its an M16 though. GI mags have always been the weak link of the rifle. Certainly not the best design ever. Lord did it take forever to get them pretty good. Still to flimsy and no real way to make it beefier without making the mag well larger. The magic NATO standard mag that most of Nato members said hell no too at one point or another.

Beating your gun into battery is never a good solution. Everyone from Eugene Stoner to Colt to the USMC to the Air Force was against it and only the Army wanted it and, surprise surprise, the Army won out.

USGI mags are perfectly fine. I have 80 of them ranging from first production run Vietnam magazines (aluminum follower, they say .223 on the bottom rather than the later-marked 5.56, have jungle tape still stuck to them, etc.) to black follower to green follower to tan follower. Them not working fine is a myth. They're not the strongest mags in the world, but if you're not hitting them with a hammer they'll work.

 

[Jagdwyre]

It's not a quirk that loading the AR on a closed bolt is "hard". Every gun has this "issue" because magazines are designed to be as compact as possible so when the mag is fully loaded the spring is at it's end and you've got to work a little harder to press the magazine into the weapon.

It's the fact that the amount of force to lock in a fully loaded mag on a closed bolt AR is much more than it takes for several other rifle designs. Of course a magazine is going to have more tension on the spring when it's fully loaded but it's particularly hard(relatively speaking, it's not like you need to be iron man to seat an AR mag) on an AR because of how much you have to press that magazine right up under the bolt. It is nowhere near as hard to seat a fully loaded AK magazine, for instance. The mag locks up differently and the bolt/bolt carrier has a little more clearance to move around in the receiver than an AR bolt does.

I mean it's not like this is a big deal, AR's have a bolt hold open and bolt release for a reason.

 

[FR4NCH3K]

It's the fact that the amount of force to lock in a fully loaded mag on a closed bolt AR is much more than it takes for several other rifle designs. Of course a magazine is going to have more tension on the spring when it's fully loaded but it's particularly hard(relatively speaking, it's not like you need to be iron man to seat an AR mag) on an AR because of how much you have to press that magazine right up under the bolt. It is nowhere near as hard to seat a fully loaded AK magazine, for instance. The mag locks up differently and the bolt/bolt carrier has a little more clearance to move around in the receiver than an AR bolt does.

I mean it's not like this is a big deal, AR's have a bolt hold open and bolt release for a reason.

I mean, I've got several ARs, an AKM, an AK74, an ARX, and a whole slough of other rifles sitting right here next to me that I've tried out and I disagree. When it comes to style with which the AR flocks in, I'd say it's relatively easy compared to other rifles that use the same method.

Now, if we want to complain about rifles that have an incredibly hard magazine latch, we can talk about the SVD Dragunov. The reload animation for that is magnificently fast even though those things are ridiculously hard to rock into place thanks to having a small magazine and a strong latch spring, why is it not slowed down to reflect this fact if we're willing to compromise the M16A1's round count to do so?

I believe the M16A1 shouldn't be gimped two rounds on an already-small magazine simply because certain people (most of which are civilians rather than military/leo) think it's hard to seat fully loaded magazines on a closed bolt. At the most, make the reloading animation .3 seconds longer to reflect the extra amount of force it takes, but don't short me two rounds.

 

[exhausted]

There was a letter posted on the Washington Times front page describing the frustration of cleaning up after battles because the Marines were breaking their rifles down after a single shot to clear stoppages.
Roughly half of them fired reliably and half of them were single shot weapons.

Most of the problems we've heard about were from the XM16E1. The chamber was too tight, the brass ammunition cases were often out of spec, the buffer was light, and the most common jams were caused by an empty round stuck in the chamber. These easy fixes led to the M16A1 we have in game.

It was so bad that half of the GIs could only depend on firing one round in a firefight before having the disassemble their rifle and borrowing their friends' cleaning rod segments (each only issued one segment of a rod) so they could push the spent round out of their chamber. Next, they could fire one round and then have to re-clear their jam again. Sometimes it would try to feed a new round 'through' the jammed round, and cause an even bigger mess.

 

[Lemonater47]

Em-2

 

[Jagdwyre]

I believe the M16A1 shouldn't be gimped two rounds on an already-small magazine simply because certain people (most of which are civilians rather than military/leo) think it's hard to seat fully loaded magazines on a closed bolt. At the most, make the reloading animation .3 seconds longer to reflect the extra amount of force it takes, but don't short me two rounds.

I think you're misunderstanding me here. I just brought up seating mags on a closed bolt as the only reasonable explanation people would be downloading their mags by one or two rounds, including the old 20 rounders. Past that my entire point on forcing a cap of 18 rounds on 20 rounders is that it isn't something I agree with. I want 20 round mags to actually hold 20 rounds in RS2.