Post by bigdoghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1NztVYoQsNw/TsQ6L9Fk7RI/AAAAAAAAT_Q/kKUpsIG...
Was surfin' the net regarding Gen Clifton and came across this pic on
Bill Kelly's Blog site..."JFK countercoup".
JM/HD
It appears JFK is holding an AR-15 which was being tested by the military
and would later be adopted as the standard battlefield rifle as the M-16.
The general looks to be holding a crossbow built on a rifle frame. I
wonder what the story is behind that.
Actually it is an interesting story. The development of the AR-15 was
very controversial. Wikepedia covers some of it. JFK was a supporter of
new tactics in Vietnam. But there was an argument about which weapons
should be developed.
M16 adoption
Curtis LeMay viewed a demonstration of the AR-15 in July 1960. In the
summer of 1961, General LeMay had been promoted to the position of USAF
Chief of Staff, and requested an order of 80,000 AR-15s for the U.S. Air
Force.[22] However under the recommendation of General Maxwell D.
Taylor, who advised the Commander in Chief that having two different
calibers within the military system at the same time would be
problematic, President Kennedy turned down the request.[22] However,
Advanced Research Projects Agency, which had been created in 1958 in
response to the Soviet Sputnik program, embarked on project AGILE in the
spring of 1961. AGILE's priority mission was to devise inventive fixes
to the communist problem in South Vietnam. In October 1961, William
Godel, a senior man at ARPA, sent 10 AR-15s to South Vietnam to let the
allies test them. The reception was enthusiastic, and in 1962 another
1,000 AR-15s were sent to South Vietnam.[23] Special Operations units
and advisers working with the South Vietnamese troops filed battlefield
reports lavishly praising the AR-15 and the stopping effectiveness of
the 5.56 mm cartridge, and pressed for its adoption. However, what no
one knew, except the men directly using the AR-15s in Vietnam, were the
devastating kills[24] made by the new rifle, photographs of which,
showing enemy casualties made by the .223 (5.56 mm) bullet remained
classified into the 1980s.[24]
The damage caused by the .223 (5.56mm) "varmint"[24] bullet was observed
and originally believed to be caused by "tumbling" due to the slow 1 in
14-inch (360 mm) rifling twist rate.[25] However, this twist rate only
made the bullet less stable in air.[25] Any pointed lead core bullet
will turn base over point ("tumble") after penetration in flesh, because
the center of gravity is aft of the center of the projectile.[25] The
large wounds observed by soldiers in Vietnam were actually caused by
projectile fragmentation, which was created by a combination of the
projectile's velocity and construction.[25]
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara now had two conflicting views:
the ARPA report favoring the AR-15 and the Pentagon's position on the
M14. Even President John F. Kennedy expressed concern, so McNamara
ordered Secretary of the Army Cyrus Vance to test the M14, the AR-15 and
the AK-47. The Army's test report stated only the M14 was suitable for
Army use, but Vance wondered about the impartiality of those conducting
the tests. He ordered the Army Inspector General to investigate the
testing methods used, who reported that the testers showed favor to the M14.
U.S. Soldier cleans his XM16E1 during the Vietnam War in 1966.
Secretary Robert McNamara ordered a halt to M14 production in January
1963, after receiving reports that M14 production was insufficient to
meet the needs of the armed forces. Secretary McNamara had long been a
proponent of weapons program consolidation among the armed services. At
the time, the AR-15 was the only rifle that could fulfill a requirement
of a "universal" infantry weapon for issue to all services. McNamara
ordered the weapon be adopted unmodified, in its current configuration,
for immediate issue to all services, despite receiving reports noting
several deficiencies with the M16 as a service rifle, including the lack
of a chrome-lined bore and chamber, the 5.56 mm projectile's instability
under arctic conditions,[citation needed] and the fact that large
quantities of 5.56 mm ammunition required for immediate service were not
available.[citation needed] In addition, the Army insisted on the
inclusion of a forward assist to help push the bolt into battery in the
event that a cartridge failed to seat in the chamber through fouling or
corrosion. Colt had argued the rifle was a self-cleaning design,
requiring little or no maintenance. Colt, Eugene Stoner, and the U.S.
Air Force believed that a forward assist needlessly complicated the
rifle, adding about $4.50 to its procurement cost with no real benefit.
As a result, the design was split into two variants: the Air Force's M16
without the forward assist, and for the other service branches, the
XM16E1 with the forward assist.
In November 1963, McNamara approved the Army's order of 85,000 XM16E1s
for jungle warfare operations;[26] and to appease General LeMay, the Air
Force was granted an order for another 19,000 M16s.[16][27] Meanwhile,
the Army carried out another project, the Small Arms Weapons Systems, on
general infantry firearm needs in the immediate future. They recommended
the immediate adoption of the weapon. Later that year the Air Force
officially accepted their first batch as the United States Rifle,
Caliber 5.56 mm, M16.
The Army immediately began to issue the XM16E1 to infantry units but the
rifle was initially delivered without adequate cleaning supplies or
instructions. When the M16 reached Vietnam with U.S. troops in March
1965, reports of stoppages in combat began to surface. Often the gun
suffered from a stoppage known as “failure to extract,” which meant that
a spent cartridge case remained lodged in the chamber after a bullet
flew out the muzzle.[28] Although the M14 featured a chrome-lined barrel
and chamber to resist corrosion in combat conditions, neither the bore
nor the chamber of the M16/XM16E1 was chrome-lined. Several documented
accounts of troops killed by enemy fire with inoperable rifles
broken-down for cleaning eventually brought a Congressional
investigation.[29]
“ We left with 72 men in our platoon and came back with 19, Believe it
or not, you know what killed most of us? Our own rifle. Practically
every one of our dead was found with his [M16] torn down next to him
where he had been trying to fix it.
- Marine Corps Rifleman, Vietnam.[29] ”
The root cause of the stoppages turned out to be a problem with the
powder for the ammunition. In 1964 when the Army was informed that
DuPont could not mass-produce the nitrocellulose-based powder to the
specifications demanded by the M16, the Olin Mathieson Company provided
a high-performance ball propellant of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerin.
While the Olin WC 846 powder was capable of firing an M16 5.56 mm round
at the desired 3,300 ft (1,000 m) per second, it had the unintended
consequence of increasing the automatic rate of fire from 850 to 1000
rounds per minute. This would leave behind dirty residue, making the M16
more likely to have a stoppage. The problem was resolved by fitting the
M16 with a buffer system, slowing the rate of fire back down to 650 to
850 rounds per minute and outfitting all newly produced M16s with an
anti corrosive chrome-plated chamber.[30]
On February 28, 1967, the XM16E1 was standardized as the M16A1. Major
revisions to the design followed. The rifle was given a chrome-lined
chamber (and later, the entire bore) to eliminate corrosion and stuck
cartridges, and the rifle's recoil mechanism was re-designed to
accommodate Army-issued 5.56 mm ammunition. Rifle cleaning tools and
powder solvents/lubricants were issued. Intensive training programs in
weapons cleaning were instituted, and a comic book style manual was
circulated among the troops to demonstrate proper maintenance.[16] The
reliability problems of the M16 diminished quickly, although the rifle's
reputation continued to suffer.[16]
According to a February 1968 Department of Defense report the M16 rifle
achieved widespread acceptance by U.S. troops in Vietnam. Only 38 of
2100 individuals queried wanted to replace the M16 with another weapon.
Of those 38, 35 wanted the CAR-15 (a shorter version of the M16)
instead.[31]
