THE ASSOCIATED PRESS RECENTLY reported that several congressmen and senators are looking into the renewal of Colt Defense’s sole-source contract for the manufacture of the M4 Carbine, the most widely-used personal weapon in the U.S. Army. Derived from the M16 assault rife, the M4 retains the same firing mechanism and uses the same 5.56 x 45mm cartridge as the M16, but has a much shorter barrel, making it lighter and easier to carry inside a Humvee or armored personnel carrier. On the other hand, the shorter barrel reduces the muzzle velocity, hence the range and lethality of the weapon. As we reported earlier, there have been complaints from the field going back as far as the 1991 “Black Hawk Down” incident in Mogadishu that the M4 lacks “stopping power”–the ability to bring down a man with something other than a hit to the head or the heart–particularly when the enemy is hopped up on drugs (as is frequently the case in places like Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan). In addition, the gun is somewhat more prone to jamming than similar weapons due to its direct gas injection action, and requires frequent and scrupulous cleaning (which can be a problem in dusty climates like Iraq). Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), usually a strong supporter of the military, is one of those who believes the Army is getting a raw deal: “What we have here is a fat contractor in Colt who has gotten very rich off our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” Coburn and other critics point to the age of the basic technology of the M4 (the M16 was first introduced in 1965), as well as its high unit cost ($1500 per carbine) relative to other military assault rifles. He thinks the Army can do better. The Army disagrees, pointing to good reviews from the field (do they read the same mail, one wonders?), as well as the fact that any alternative rifle would take time to test, validate, and procure in large numbers. Army officials argue that the costs of switching now would outweigh any marginal benefits. Col. John Radcliffe of the Army Infantry Center responded to Coburn’s criticsm, noting, “There is not a weapon that is significantly better than the M4.”
That’s open to dispute, as gun nuts all over the country will attest. For some time, a number of experts have pointed out that the design of the M16 and all its derivatives, including the M4, is now quite dated. Looking at weapons used in other countries, such as the Austrian Styr AUG, the French FN-MAS, the British Enfield L85A2, and most recently the Chinese Type 95, all use what is called a “bullpup configuration,” in which the receiver mechanism and magazine are built into the stock of the weapon, behind the trigger (as opposed to the more conventional layout, in which the receiver and magazine are in front of the trigger). This allows the use of a full-length barrel while keeping the overall length of the weapon short. Thus, the problems of range and lethality inherent in the M4 design are avoided.
The bullpup configuration is not new–the Enfield L85, for instance, is derived from the U.S. Armalite AR-18 assault rifle and has been around for almost two decades. Yet the U.S. military never considered adopting a bullpup assault rifle, instead opting to cut down the barrel of the rifle it already had, resulting in an inferior weapon.
This is not a new situation. The U.S. Army’s ordnance corps has always been extremely conservative–some might say hidebound–when it comes to technological innovation. Going back to the Civil War, the Union Army’s Chief of Ordnance was steadfastly opposed to the adoption of breach-loading rifles on the grounds that they were too expensive and, with their higher rate of fire, would cause soldiers to waste their fire and risk running out of ammunition. Later in the war, he opposed the introduction of repeating rifles on the same ground. Only direct intervention by President Lincoln allowed the Army to acquire modern weapons such as the Sharps breachloader or the Spencer and Henry repeating rifles. After the war, in a return to type, the Army recalled all its repeating rifles and instead issued the troops with old Springfield muzzle-loading rifled muskets and carbines converted to breachloaders. To see how well this worked out, ask George Armstrong Custer’s 7th U.S. Cavalry, which was seriously outgunned by the Sioux and Cheyenne at the Little Bighorn (where about a third of the Indians had Henry and Winchester repeaters).
Throughout the remainder of the 19th century, and into the 20th century, the U.S. Army lagged its European counterparts in military small arms. The M1903 Springfield (which served through the Korean War as a sniper rifle) was an unlicensed copy of the Mauser bolt-action repeating rifle. The Browning .30-cal heavy machine gun was a copy of the Maxim. From World War I through World War II, the United States produced only two outstanding weapons: the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) and the M1 Garand (the world’s first semi-automatic infantry rifle). On the other hand, Germany produced the world’s best general purpose machine gun, the MG.42 (still used by the German army today), of which the U.S. M60 machine gun is a very inferior copy. Germany also developed the first assault rifle, much envied by GIs in 1944-45. This served as the basis for Kalashnikov’s brilliant AK-47, while the U.S. had to wait another 18 years to field a practical assault rifle (the M16).
Ironically, given the present situation, the Army fought the M16 tooth and nail, particularly because it used a “sub-caliber” 5.56mm round, as opposed to the full-power .30-06 round of the M1 and its successor, the M14. Attempts to turn the M14 into a fully automatic rifle failed miserably because the high-power cartridge made the gun uncontrollable in full automatic mode. The M16 was, in fact, first purchased by the Air Force for base security forces, and only after much foot dragging by the Army for its troops in Vietnam. As is well known, changes made by the Army to the gun and its ammunition resulted in poor reliability in the muddy conditions of Vietnam, and it was close to a decade before the M16 could be considered fully reliable.
One therefore suspects that the Army’s hard line defense of the M4 carbine is due not so much to the excellence of the weapon but to the fear that testing and evaluation of an alternative will put the Army’s M16 replacement program in jeopardy. Known as the XM29 “Objective Individual Combat Weapon” (OICW), this is a real Buck Rogers contraption that combines a 5.56mm assault rifle (essentially still an M16) with a time-fuzed 20mm cannon intended to engage light armor and targets behind cover. An integral laser rangefinder and ballistic computer are used to set the fuze on the 20mm rounds so that they will explode in mid-air over enemy troops hiding behind walls or in trenches; it also provides the soldier with aiming cues, so all he has to do is put a “death dot” on the target and pull the trigger.
Now in development for more than a decade, the OICW will be manufactured as a joint venture of Hechler & Koch and Alliant Techsystems. With all its electronic whiz-bangs, the new super rifle is supposed to allow every soldier to engage point targets out to a range of 1,200 meters or more–which sounds great, except that it is almost impossible to see a target on the modern battlefield at 1,200 meters. Snipers can carefully crawl to elevated positions that offer such long lines of sight, but for the average soldier the battlefield is obscured by smoke, foliage, buildings, vehicles, and other obstructions (even a small undulation of 2-3 feet can obscure a man-sized target). In fact, infantry engagement ranges have remained remarkably stable for the last 250 years. During the age of the smoothbore musket, most firefights took place at ranges under 100 meters, and often as close as 50 meters. The introduction of the rifled musket during the Civil War did not change that. The research of historians Paddy Griffith and Brent Nosworthy proves pretty conclusively that the average firefight during this “first modern war” took place at a range of about 120 meters (and often went on for hours, which disproves the myth of the greater lethality of Civil War small arms). Early in World War I, there were firefights at very long ranges, but as both sides took to the trenches and adopted infiltration tactics, the range came back down to 100 meters or less (and military pundits of the time decried the atrophy of long-range marksmanship). In World War II, ranges did not increase that much, because it was found that short-range ambushes were much more effective at stopping attackers than long-range fire (which merely drove the attacker to ground). In the jungles of the Pacific, engagement ranges were usually measured in feet, rather than yards, and it was the man who got off the first shot who lived. The experience of Vietnam was much the same. In today’s urban battlefield, firefights take place across streets or between rooms inside buildings. Most engagements still take place at 100 meters or less.
Which makes one wonder why the Army is so interested in the capabilities of the OICW. The answer is technology has a life and momentum of its own. The Army does not pay much attention to history, so when evaluating weapons and setting requirements, it falls back on the crutch of innovation: if you can make a rifle that will hit the bullseye every time at 1200 meters, by all means you must do so. If you can give every soldier a 20mm canon and a digital fire control computer, then you must do that, too. Tactical effectiveness, reliability, and cost effectiveness go out the window because the “Gee Whiz” factor becomes overwhelming.
Problems emerge only when it comes time to pay the piper. How much will this 21st century Wonder Weapon cost? If we believe Army figures, about $9,000 per copy, which makes the M4 carbine look like a steal at $1,500 (of course, you can pick up a Kalashnikov in any Third World bazaar for under $500, but, despite having killed more people than any other infantry weapon in history, the Army establishment will tell you the AK-47 is a piece of junk). Is the Army really ready to give every soldier a $9,000 rifle? How much will that cost? How soldier-proof will something as complex as the OICW be, once it’s actually taken into the field? How many times will a soldier actually use any of the advanced features that justify the weapon and drive its astronomical cost? Who knows?
In the long run, it may be that the soldier needs a simple, lightweight weapon that is accurate out to the ranges at which most firefights occur. In which case, there are plenty of alternatives to the M16 family on the market right now. But too many careers are already invested in the existing weapons, and in their high-tech replacements, to be much interested in looking at cost-effective, non-developmental (hence non-career advancing) solutions to current operational and tactical problems.
Stuart Koehl is a contributing writer to THE WEEKLY STANDARD Online.
