The Real Reason the M16 Failed in Vietnam (It Wasn't the Gun) скачать в хорошем качестве

The Real Reason the M16 Failed in Vietnam (It Wasn't the Gun)

May 2, 1967. Hill 881 South. Private First Class Michael Scuff pulls the trigger of his state-of-the-art XM16E1 rifle. It fires once, then locks up. A spent casing, swollen by heat and pressure, has fused to the chamber walls. In the middle of a mortar attack, Scuff is forced to disassemble his primary weapon, desperately trying to ram a cleaning rod down the barrel. Moments later, he is dead—not because of enemy tactics, but because of a mechanical failure that plagued thousands of American troops. This video dissects the anatomy of a "bureaucratic murder." We expose how the US Army Ordnance Corps, driven by institutional ego and the "Not Invented Here" syndrome, sabotaged Eugene Stoner’s brilliant engineering. We analyze the lethal chemistry of the ammunition switch—replacing clean-burning stick powder with dirty WC 846 ball powder—which spiked the cyclic rate and turned the M16’s gas system into a carbon trap. We examine the physics of the "Failure to Extract," a catastrophic malfunction caused by the Army's refusal to chrome-line the chamber to save $1.50 per rifle. We also look at the devastating "Self-Cleaning" myth that sent soldiers into the jungle without cleaning kits, forcing them to maintain complex machinery with shoelaces and toothbrushes. Ultimately, this is the story of how the "Mattel Toy" was redeemed through the blood of the "Beta Testers" of 1967, evolving from a national scandal into the M16A1—the longest-serving rifle in American history. 🎖️ FEATURED WEAPONS & PERSONNEL: XM16E1 vs. M16A1 Eugene Stoner (Designer) The US Army Ordnance Corps Representative Richard Ichord (The Ichord Hearings) WC 846 Ball Powder vs. IMR 4475 Stick Powder #VietnamWar #M16 #MilitaryHistory #EngineeringFailure #EugeneStoner #FirearmsHistory #CombatAnalysis #ColdWar #OrdnanceCorps 📚 SOURCES & FURTHER READING: The Black Rifle: M16 Retrospective by R. Blake Stevens Report of the Special Subcommittee on the M-16 Rifle (The Ichord Hearings, 1967) M16A1 Rifle: Operation and Preventive Maintenance (The "Sweet 16" Comic by Will Eisner) About Face by Colonel David Hackworth If you found this breakdown of the tragic collision between politics and engineering informative, please like, subscribe, and share.