<story><title>M-16: A Bureaucratic Horror Story (1981)</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>azernik</author><text>A factor that the article doesn&amp;#x27;t emphasize enough is the extent to which schedule pressure contributed to the bugginess of the released rifle.&lt;p&gt;The Kalashnikov had been designed in 1947, (hence, AK-47), but it took more than a decade before a bug-free version (the AKM) was considered reliable enough to make standard-issue. (When this article refers to &amp;quot;AK-47s&amp;quot;, most of the actual weapons involved were actually AKMs.)&lt;p&gt;The US, by contrast, had spent the decades since WWII resisting the assault rifle concept, so that when Vietnam rolled around their fantastically rich and well-funded military found its infantry outgunned by peasant militias wielding second-hand Soviet rifles. So the rifle went from initial acceptance, including these kinds of stupid last-minute design changes that are common in any project, to large-scale combat deployment within a year; normally, there would have been years of incremental usage to catch these bugs, but the rifle was so desperately needed that it was rushed to the front.&lt;p&gt;A book I&amp;#x27;ve recommended in another thread, which gives a great introduction to the history and impact of the Kalashnikov in particular and assault rifles in general, is C.J. Chivers&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;The Gun&amp;quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;Gun-C-J-Chivers&amp;#x2F;dp&amp;#x2F;0743271734&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;Gun-C-J-Chivers&amp;#x2F;dp&amp;#x2F;0743271734&lt;/a&gt;), or this shorter-form article he wrote in response to recent msas shootings (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;interactive&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;ak-47-mass-shootings.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;interactive&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;ak-47-mass-sh...&lt;/a&gt;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mannykannot</author><text>If the article is correct, the schedule pressure was entirely manufactured: In the AR-15, the US had a reliable, production-ready assault rifle, that those in the infantry who had tested it were enthusiastic about, but the ordnance board delayed and eventually stopped its adoption with dogma-driven design changes that led to the M-16 also being unreliable as well as late.</text></comment>
<story><title>M-16: A Bureaucratic Horror Story (1981)</title><url>https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1981/06/m-16-a-bureaucratic-horror-story/545153/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>azernik</author><text>A factor that the article doesn&amp;#x27;t emphasize enough is the extent to which schedule pressure contributed to the bugginess of the released rifle.&lt;p&gt;The Kalashnikov had been designed in 1947, (hence, AK-47), but it took more than a decade before a bug-free version (the AKM) was considered reliable enough to make standard-issue. (When this article refers to &amp;quot;AK-47s&amp;quot;, most of the actual weapons involved were actually AKMs.)&lt;p&gt;The US, by contrast, had spent the decades since WWII resisting the assault rifle concept, so that when Vietnam rolled around their fantastically rich and well-funded military found its infantry outgunned by peasant militias wielding second-hand Soviet rifles. So the rifle went from initial acceptance, including these kinds of stupid last-minute design changes that are common in any project, to large-scale combat deployment within a year; normally, there would have been years of incremental usage to catch these bugs, but the rifle was so desperately needed that it was rushed to the front.&lt;p&gt;A book I&amp;#x27;ve recommended in another thread, which gives a great introduction to the history and impact of the Kalashnikov in particular and assault rifles in general, is C.J. Chivers&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;The Gun&amp;quot; (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;Gun-C-J-Chivers&amp;#x2F;dp&amp;#x2F;0743271734&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.amazon.com&amp;#x2F;Gun-C-J-Chivers&amp;#x2F;dp&amp;#x2F;0743271734&lt;/a&gt;), or this shorter-form article he wrote in response to recent msas shootings (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;interactive&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;ak-47-mass-shootings.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.nytimes.com&amp;#x2F;interactive&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;world&amp;#x2F;ak-47-mass-sh...&lt;/a&gt;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dingaling</author><text>&amp;gt; The Kalashnikov had been designed in 1947&lt;p&gt;1944 actually, there were examples in trials by 1946.  1947 was the year of adoption of a developed version but it was only ever called AK in Soviet documents.&lt;p&gt;Something else the article gets wrong is use of a hyphen in M14, M16 etc. A minor point but immediately shows a lack of familiarity or research with the subject.  It&amp;#x27;s like reading a 2019 article that talks about the i-Phone.</text></comment>