M-16 Development

The study done by the Operations Research Office, at Johns Hopkins Univ., led CONARC (Continental Army Command), in 1957, to search for a rifle firing a smaller cartridge to replace the troubled T-44. Three military projects led to the M-16 and the death of Springfield Armory. The SALVO Project was done by the ORO in an effort to scientificly design the Army's future small arms weapons. The ORO was created in 1948 on the recomendation of Vannevar Bush and Lt. Gen. Anthony McAuliff. ORO was modeled on British W.W.II analysis of radar and sonar use, and the Air Force-sponsored RAND Corp. that studied the tactical and strategic uses of nuclear weapons. Originally meant to deal w/ Cold War nuclear strategy, the Korean Civil War forced the ORO to deal w/ the issue of infantry weapons and tactics. The first infantry related project was ALCLAD, an effort to produce a lightweight body armor. In order to do this the ORO had to study over 3 million wounds from W.W.I and W.W.II. The first conclusion to come from ORO's 'ALCLAD' study was the U.S. needed more automatic weapons to deal w/ the Asian 'human wave' tactics. It was also found that aimed rifle fire was ineffective. It was just about impossible for nervous soldiers to hit a moving target. Most wounds were apparently inflicted because luck, and luck depended on the amount of bullets a soldier was capable of shooting during a given period of time. Automatic weapons were luckier than semi-auto. June 1952 Preliminary findings were outlined in a secret report. Among the findings was that wounds were rarely inflicted at over 328 yrds., which was what British W.W.II studies had indicated. Most wounds were inflicted at less than 100 yrds., and targets could rarely even be seen at more than 300 yrds. The study concluded that a controlled scatter pattern of fire was better than pin-point accuracy. It was also critical of the Lighweight Rifle Program. The findings called for a cartridge that fired several small projectiles. The low recoil of a cartridge much smaller than the Army's standard .30 Cal. rifle cartridge would reduce recoil and aid accurany. The new multi-projectile cartridge was meant to cause wounds and not deaths, in order to increas the number of soldiers siphoned away from the assault force to evacuate the wounded. If the Army was disatisfied w/ the small projectile's lethality, they could be impregnated w/ toxic materials. These findings, together w/ previous research done by Aberdeen Proving Grounds, on small calibre projectiles, led to the SALVO project. Part of the effort to produce a weapon w/ the controlled scatter pattern was assigned to the Springfield Armory late in 1952. One design, by Earl Harvey, was a simple device attached to any rifle barrel that was rotated by the gas exiting the barrel, which slightly altered the direction of the bullet producing a circular pattern. Other designs bordered on the insane. ORO, Springfield, Aberdeen and Winchester all collaborated on some of the most idiotic weapons designs ine history of mankind. The amount of effort wasted on these projects was a decisive factor in the armory's inability to complete the Lightweight Rifle Program. CONARC eventually decided to sink it's efforts into a weapon that fired a .22 (5.56mm) cal. bullet. This size of projectile offered lower recoil to improve accuracy in the automatic fire mode, and allowed soldiers to carry more ammo into battle, while being easier to produce. The U.S. Army was finally catching up to the Soviets and Nazis. CONARC asked Winchester and ArmaLite to submit prototypes for tests. Winchester's was just an M-1 Garand chambered for the smaller cartridge, and was not as well recieved as Armalite's futuristic new design, the AR-15. Four men conspired to create the ArmaLite design. They were Eugene Stoner, Charles Dorchester, George Sullivan and Dick Boutelle. Dorchester was a plastics engineer, Stoner was the rifle designer, Sullivan specialized in non-ferrous metals and Boutelle was the President of Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corp. who recognized the need for lightweight weapons. Fairchild created ArmaLite in Oct. 1954. Their first rifle design worthy of public display was the AR-10. It was chambered for the T-65 and met the Army demands at only 7 lbs. The titanium barrel of this AR-10 was susceptable to catastrophic failure. Unfortunatly it was too late to stop the T-44, but it caught CONARC's attention and a request for a .22 Cal. prototype was made. CONARC couldn't fully implement the ORO study. It wanted the new rifle to be able to penetrate both sides of a helmet, flak jacket and 3 mm of steel plate, at 550 yrds. This specification was made to make the rifle more acceptable to the Army die-hards who were used to 1,000 yrd. capable rifles. 1958 Aberdeen's Ballistic Research Laboratory set preliminary specifications for the .22 cal. rifles. They should fire a 50 grain bullet w/ a muzzle velocity of 3,500 ft/sec. In order to meet the 500 yrd. demand Stoner enlarged the case of a Remington .222 cal. cartridge to fire a 55 grain bullet at 3,300 ft/sec. After an uncontrollable traditional design for the new cartridge, Stoner rechambered his AR-10. This he dubbed the AR-15. It had a straight in-line stock like the Harvey T-25, and a gas-tube recoil/feed system similar to that used in the French MAS sub-machine guns. It had a hinged 2 piece reciever and a recoil buffer in the stock, like the Fn-Fal, and an MP-44 type ejection port dust cover. It was the first U.S. rifle to make extensive use of aluminum for the reciever. It had many unresolved flaws that ArmaLite couldn't resolve w/ it's meager resources. It recieved it's first Army tests on 3/31/58, and was given a satisfactory review as far as it's prototype status could expect to recieve. However, subsequant tests revealed a major flaw. The barrel was prone to bursting when fired w/ small amounts of water in the barrel. The problem persisted (ArmaLite disputed the severity) even after the barrel was strengthened. The Army then sent some of the rifle to Alaska for arctic tests. ArmaLite felt this was a violation of an agreement to have Stoner present at all times. As an omen of things to come, the rifles were inproperly disassembled and reassembled, which caused malfunctions. The Army still issued a report on the arctic tests that blamed the rifle for all the problems. The 4 month Powell study followed and it's final report recommended the aquisition of 750 AR-15s for extensive testing. The Army's small arms R and D staff objected, because they didn't like the small cartridge. They countered w/ a proposal to develope a .258 (6.35mm) cal. cartridge. They actually claimed they had found the .258 to be the ideal size. The Powell then recommended the use of the M-14. The final report was sent to Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Maxwell Taylor. He didn't want the unproven .223 cartridge, because he was worried about te reaction of NATO members who had just adopted the U.S. sponsored T-65 cartridge. Fairchild decided it was time to get out of the rifle business and get back the $1.45 million they had invested in the AR series of of rifles. 1959 It sold the rights to the AR-15 to Colt Patent Firearms Manufacturing Co. owned by Fairbanks Whitney. Fairchild got $75,000 and a 4.5% royalty on any future sales. Stoner left ArmaLite in 1960 when ArmaLite separated from Fairchild. Colt had been having financial problems for over a decade and was looking for a savior. A large publicity campaign to critisize the M-14 was mounted to ensure the adoption of the AR-15. Colt asked for more tests, Army supporters of the M-14 refused. Colt decided to try selling the rifle to other branches of the military. They aranged a demonstration for Air Force Chief of Staff, Gen. Curtiss LeMay. He arranged for an order of 8,500 AR-15s to replace the M1 carbines the Air Force was using for it's security guards. Colt also got ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) to send 1,000 AR-15s to Vietnam. ARPA was Army R and D agency that analysed new weapons. At that time it was involved w/ Project Agile to find weapons that were more suited to our smaller Asian 'allies'. M-14s and many other U.S. infantry weapons were just too big for most Asians. Project Agile's report on the AR-15's performance recommended it's use for all South Vietnamese soldiers. Combat revealed the .223 bullet to be capable of blowing a man's head completely off. McNamara's Defense Dept. systems analysts studied the rifle in 1962, and found it to be better than the M-14. It even found the old M-1 to be better than the M-14. McNamara was puzzled. He ordered a new evaluation of the M-14, AR-15 and AK47, to be complete by 1963. Army Chief of Staff, Gen. Earl Wheeler gave the usual dumb reasons for keeping the M-14. Aberdeen Proving Grounds did more tests, but still couldn't figure out which was better, the M-14 or AR-15. Edgwood Arsenal (responsible for studying the wounds caused by Army weapons) tested the AR-15 and could not duplicate the wounds claimed in the ARPA report. Oct. 1962 McNamara ordered more tests. Chief of Staff, Wheeler, recommended extensive testing in all possible weather conditions. The extensive tests were done in less than 4 months. Again the Army claimed the M-14 was the rifle of choice and mentioned the NATO effort to make the T-65 the standard cartridge. Rumor were going through the Pentagon and an Inspector General's investigation was started to see if the Army was rigging the tests. The investigation concluded that it was. Colt saw it's chance a started a P.R. campaign for the AR-15, circulating the only 2 'news' story to question the abilities of the M-14. The Army saw it's reputation being challenged and tried to kill the talk of AR-15s, by claiming the SPIW was the weapon of the future. The Army even awarded 4 contracts for prototypes of the rediculous weapons, claiming they offered a chance for a weapon that was much better than the AR-15 and M-14. They even claimed they could have SPIW ready for production in 4 yrs., 1/3 rd the amount of time it had took to get the M-14 ready for production. McNamara fell for the story so he terminated the M-14 program as of the end of fiscal year 1963. He then anounced the aquisition of 85,000 AR-15s for the Army and 19,000 for the Air Force. However, it was soon apparant that SPIW would not be ready in 4 yrs., so in late 1964 the SAWS (Small Arms Weapons Study) was done to finally find out what was the best infantry weapon. After 18 months the SAWS report finally recommended that the AR-15 was the weapon of choice, even though it really didn't find a clear advantage for it. The war in Indo-China was on it's way to forcing the adoption the AR-15 as the Army's main infantry rifle. SPIW had been narrowed to 2 prototypes, which were encountering major delays. Dec. 1966 Army Chief of Staff submitted a report that recommended the AR-15 along w/ a major effort to find new small arms weapons for the infantry. Another study was ordered to determine the exact cost of using only the AR-15 vs. the AR-15 and M-14. It also was to look at the possible NATO reaction. Until large numbers could be produced, the Army continued to send M-14s to soldiers sationed in Europe while it sent AR-15s (now called M-16s) to the soldiers in Vietnam. The Defense Dept. also ordered the Army to look for a second source of the M-16s for competition's sake. U.S. soldiers in Europe would not start to get M-16s until 1969. Competition was not going to stop a huge controversy over jamming that was the consequense of some bad decisions by the Army, Air Force and Armalite long before the weapon had been sent Vietnam. ArmaLite decided not to coat the bore of the barrel w/ chrome. These and other govt. decisions would lead to the Ichord subcommittee investigation, and the Cannon subcommittee investigation.

NATO Standard M-16A2 Rifle Disasters Index