Did Weapons Fail U.S. Troops During Afghanistan Assault?

[austin552]

Did Weapons Fail U.S. Troops During Afghanistan Assault? - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News - FOXNews.com

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.

Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, do U.S. armed forces have the best guns money can buy?

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.

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.

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.

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.

The M4 is a shorter, lighter version of the M16, which made its debut during the Vietnam war. Roughly 500,000 M4s are in service, making it the rifle troops on the front lines trust with their lives.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a leading critic of the M4, said Thursday the Army needs to move quickly to acquire a combat rifle suited for the extreme conditions U.S. troops are fighting in.

U.S. special operations forces, with their own acquisition budget and the latitude to buy gear the other military branches can't, already are replacing their M4s with a new rifle.

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

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.

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.

The study by Douglas Cubbison of the Army Combat Studies Institute at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., hasn't been publicly released. Copies of the study have been leaked to news organizations and are circulating on the Internet.

Cubbison's study is based on an earlier Army investigation and interviews with soldiers who survived the attack at Wanat. He describes a well-coordinated attack by a highly skilled enemy that unleashed a withering barrage with AK-47 automatic rifles and rocket-propelled grenades.

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.

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.

Cpl. Jonathan Ayers and Spc. Chris McKaig were firing their M4s from a position the soldiers called the "Crow's Nest." The pair would pop up together from cover, fire half a dozen rounds and then drop back down.

On one of these trips up, Ayers was killed instantly by an enemy round. McKaig soon had problems with his M4, which carries a 30-round magazine.

"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."

The soldiers also had trouble with their M249 machine guns, a larger weapon than the M4 that can shoot up to 750 rounds per minute.

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

Bogar was killed during the firefight, but no one saw how he died, according to the report.

[Arizona_928]

maybe we should switch over to AK's like the rest of the world?

[HardDrive]

Saw this article as well. Pisses me off.

[pwd72s]

Originally Posted by AZ_porschekid

maybe we should switch over to AK's like the rest of the world?

Mini-14's....

[Arizona_928]

yeah who can you blame.....
Conspiracy's theories anyone?

[alf]

wonder what the spec ops are buying.

[jyl]

I thought it was the FN rifle, the FN SCAR?

[MotoSook]

FM SCAR is already in limited service and likely to replace the M16 as time goes on. Like a lot of things in G'ment it is probably going to be a slow process.

The guys on the AR15 forum have been all over this article. Seems the claims of over heating is a little questionable. And the soldier's comment about tossing his rifle aside without trying to clear the jam was a little disturbing. Maybe he did try but the author didn't include it in the article. The article may not be the full story.

[Danimal16]

Ya gotta maintain them! The other thing is that the article stated that these weapons are at full automatic. That is simple BS, the M16 and the M4 only shoot three round bursts when in select fire. Also on the 240g as with any machine gun you have to swap barrels, ALL MGs require this. I am suspect of the claims on the 240g as this weapon in one form or another has been around since the 1930s (German heritage). I do not know how many times this crap has come up, but the claims with the Garand occurred in the early stages of WWII. There is such a thing as fire discipline.

[cashflyer]

Welcome back to 1965.

[m21sniper]

Originally Posted by austin552

Did Weapons Fail U.S. Troops During Afghanistan Assault? - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News - FOXNews.com

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.

Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan, do U.S. armed forces have the best guns money can buy?

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.

M4's and M-16A2 and newer models are among the finest small arms ever made. This article is nonsense.

Seriously, just read the article, and it becomes patently clear that the M4 is just being used as a scape goat. It's ridiculous. I would choose an M-4 over an FN SCAR any day of the week.

[m21sniper]

Originally Posted by Soukus

FM SCAR is already in limited service and likely to replace the M16 as time goes on. Like a lot of things in G'ment it is probably going to be a slow process.

The guys on the AR15 forum have been all over this article. Seems the claims of over heating is a little questionable. And the soldier's comment about tossing his rifle aside without trying to clear the jam was a little disturbing. Maybe he did try but the author didn't include it in the article. The article may not be the full story.

The FN SCAR will never replace the M16 in widespread use in the US military. It's simply not a significant upgrade.

Originally Posted by AZ_porschekid

maybe we should switch over to AK's like the rest of the world?

The Soviet Union replaced the AK-47 in front line service over 30 years ago.

Originally Posted by pwd72s

Mini-14's....

...would have over-heated long before the HBAR M-4s did.

Every rifle has a sustained fire rate. Exceed it for an appreciable amount of time and every rifle at some point becomes a paper weight.

The M249's mentioned in the article are considered to be the finest LMG's on earth, and even they malfunctioned after severe overheating. This article is all wet and looks to blame equipment for what was a manpower/staffing failure.

If you want to blame someone for these "disasters", blame Obama. He's the one that's dragging his feet on reinforcing our men in A-stan. Him, and no one else.

[flatbutt]

I've never served in combat but I must ask seriously... is a white hot barrel actually possible? Even red hot?

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by Danimal16

There is such a thing as fire discipline.

I'll start right off with a disclaimer: I have never been in a fire fight.

That said, WTF?? 12 magazines - 360 rounds fired in half an hour from the M4? Plus 600 more from the M-249? This is just one of each weapon. Can we assume the other soldiers were firing their weapons at approximately the same rate? That puts thousands of rounds downrange in half an hour, against what - 200 some insurgents? How many of them did they actually hit? Sounds like it should have been every damn one of them, several times over. Yet is also sounds like that was not the case. Is this sort of panicked, ineffectual "spray and pray" how they are trained to fight? Or does training go right out the window when it really hits the fan? I don't want to second guess these guys, as I will never "walk a mile in their shoes (or boots...), but this sounds like more of a training/discipline breakdown than a weapons breakdown. I'm not sure any rifle would hold up to that rate of sustained fire.

[m21sniper]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

I've never served in combat but I must ask seriously... is a white hot barrel actually possible? Even red hot?

Yes.

[m21sniper]

Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins

I'll start right off with a disclaimer: I have never been in a fire fight.

That said, WTF?? 12 magazines - 360 rounds fired in half an hour from the M4? Plus 600 more from the M-249? This is just one of each weapon. Can we assume the other soldiers were firing their weapons at approximately the same rate? That puts thousands of rounds downrange in half an hour, against what - 200 some insurgents? How many of them did they actually hit? Sounds like it should have been every damn one of them, several times over. Yet is also sounds like that was not the case. Is this sort of panicked, ineffectual "spray and pray" how they are trained to fight? Or does training go right out the window when it really hits the fan? I don't want to second guess these guys, as I will never "walk a mile in their shoes (or boots...), but this sounds like more of a training/discipline breakdown than a weapons breakdown. I'm not sure any rifle would hold up to that rate of sustained fire.

Jeff modern US military thought dictates that you want to outweigh your enemies volume of fire to sieze the initiative and pin them in place while you manuever(or call in support assets/fires).

IOW, all that ammo that was fired was suppressive fire, not precision fire. Most of the MG firing was almost certainly grazing fire.

Volume of fire: http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA167920
Precision fire: http://www.answers.com/topic/precision-fire
Suppressive fire: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suppressive_fire
Grazing fire: http://usmilitary.about.com/od/glossarytermsg/g/g2700.htm

Very, very, very little of actual infantry firing is directed at specific targets. In vietnam it was something like 300,000rds of small arms ammo fired for every inflicted casualty. Some 85% of all casualties in war are caused by fragments (from mortar/arty/air strikes and grenades).

[Jeff Higgins]

Interesting tactic. I'm no military tactician and, again, have never been in a fire fight, but - it seems to me it would be far more effective to hold fire until you can actually hit someone or something. Especially in situations like this, with a finite number of men, rifles, and therefor sustained firepower. I would think it would be better to try to make every round count under these conditions.

[m21sniper]

Read this it should give you some idea as to the reasoning behind volume of fire type tactics.

http://www.themilitaryhobbyist.com/blog/2009/02/suppressive-fire-in-infantry-combat/

Suppressive Fire in Infantry Combat
Published February 3, 2009

Imagine for a moment that you are sitting in a small fighting position overlooking an open range of gently rolling hills. Your company has been deployed here to prevent the enemy’s advance on your local headquarters not far beyond your current location. You’re dug in well enough with a shallow trench and perhaps some sandbags, and your position gives you an excellent view from which to protect a nearby machine gunner.

Suddenly you detect movement at the edge of your vision. Before you can identify what it is, a bullet whizzes past your head. That bullet is promptly followed by several more, some of which impact the dirt only a couple of feet in front of your face, launching small clouds of dust into the air.

Now tell me, what are you more likely to do: bring your rifle up to a firing position, carefully take aim on what now appears to be one of the several dozen camouflaged men about 300 meters away from you, and fire; or will you drop to a protected position and then start thinking about popping up to squeeze off a few rounds before dropping to safety again?

If you said you’d calmly take aim and fire, then you’re a better man than me; better than most in fact, and probably lacking in a lot of survival instincts as well.

Instinctive response

Most people, when presented with well-aimed fire against their position, will seek to take cover from the attack. They have been suppressed by the enemy attack, and this provides the best kind of cover the enemy can have: they have a 0% chance of being hurt if they aren’t being shot at, and they can advance at will.

That’s why any defending soldier, unless pinned down by an enemy who has achieved a dominating superiority of fire (far greater volume of incoming bullets than bullets being fired in return, often achieved with intense machine gun fire) against him, is going to seek to pop up to fire off at least a few hasty return shots before returning to cover. Those rounds force the enemy to drop to cover as well, and the two sides can set into a protracted shootout rather than it ending in a close-ranged slaughter of the defenders or a total rout.

More rounds on a position adds up to a better suppression effect. Due to their rapid rate of fire, machine guns are the ideal candidates for laying down suppressive fire with small arms. Rifles can do the trick as well, but one machine gunner can put out the fire of several rifleman.

Aimed, not random, fire

While a combatant isn’t too particular over whether the bullets hitting near him are aimed or fired randomly, “suppressive fire” is usually used to refer to the deliberate firing of rounds at a position rather than an individual.

While initial aimed shots at an individual have a suppressive effect and cause him to seek cover, later rounds of suppressive fire remind him that the enemy has sights on his position and cause him to want to keep his head down, allowing them to advance further to his position and putting him that much closer to being overwhelmed.

Suppressive fire can be directed at targets merely suspected of containing enemies and will largely have the same effect as fire at targets known to contain enemies, but as the volume of fire will likely be less the suppressive effect will less as well.

Bigger is better

If aimed and suppressive rifle and machine gun fire can cause soldiers to take cover, surely something larger like an artillery shell would have an even greater effect, right?

Of course it would! And doesn’t it make sense? Several bullets nearly hitting you are scary, but an artillery shell exploding even a good distance away is very unnerving. Factor in the known deadliness of shrapnel, how loud an artillery shell explosion is, and the inability for an infantryman to do much about artillery except radio for counter-battery fire, and you have some very effective suppressive fire. Attacks by aircraft have a similar effect for similar reasons.

The deadliest round that never hit you

A bullet doesn’t need to hit you to kill you. It just needs to cause you to duck down long enough for the enemy to get close enough to you, and perhaps in a flanking position. The widespread use of suppressive fire is one major reason why the “rounds per kill” statistics for modern conflicts can become so high.

Ammunition is cheap, soldiers are expensive (in more ways than one).

Tags: Infantry, Tactics

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The bottom line is that it's not individual weapons that inflict casualties, but rather crew served weapons, indirect fire weapons, and air dropped weapons. The main #1 purpose of individual weapons is to provide suppressing fire to keep the enemy pinned in place for large weapons systems, or to keep them pinned down and unable to return fire as your elements manuever to outflank/encircle them, usually destroying their positions with grenades.

[Jeff Higgins]

Thanks, that makes a lot more sense now.

How well supported by artillary, aircraft, and such were these guys? I get the impression not all that well, if at all. Are we really spread that thin over there, where our standard infantry tactics fail because the support that is meant to arrive during the suppressive fire stage never does?

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by m21sniper

Yes.

then, under such conditions wouldn't a malfunction be expected? seems to me metal will change it's shape under such heat and cause a jam. No?

And in this instance it seems they had the superior volume?