I don’t believe the initial Army issued M16 was well received, owing to a lot of Ordnance Department meddling that did actually create a bad rifle. The XM16E1 quickly solved many of the issues, but by then the reputation of the rifle was stained.
Before that however, off the shelf AR-15s had caught the eye of both U.S. advisors in very early Vietnam involvement, and in local soldiers in Vietnam.
There were a lot more dimensions to the drama, but the push between traditionalists and more radical small arms thinking was at play. If you want to follow the drama do a search on “SPIW” and “Project Salvo” regarding thoughts on volume of fire.
The M14 at the time had the advantage of being perceived as more tried and true, as an evolution of the M1 Garand. It was even supposed to use much of the same tooling as the M1 to save money (this turned out to be a lie and cost a lot of money and time).
But that is all off the top of my head in an noncredible community, so ya know, double check sources.
I don’t believe the initial Army issued M16 was well received, owing to a lot of Ordnance Department meddling that did actually create a bad rifle. The XM16E1 quickly solved many of the issues, but by then the reputation of the rifle was stained.
Before that however, off the shelf AR-15s had caught the eye of both U.S. advisors in very early Vietnam involvement, and in local soldiers in Vietnam.
There were a lot more dimensions to the drama, but the push between traditionalists and more radical small arms thinking was at play. If you want to follow the drama do a search on “SPIW” and “Project Salvo” regarding thoughts on volume of fire.
The M14 at the time had the advantage of being perceived as more tried and true, as an evolution of the M1 Garand. It was even supposed to use much of the same tooling as the M1 to save money (this turned out to be a lie and cost a lot of money and time).
But that is all off the top of my head in an noncredible community, so ya know, double check sources.