Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: ferguson@gorby.src.honeywell.com (Dennis Ferguson)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: m16xx
Message-ID: <7782@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 27 Jun 89 02:38:45 GMT
References: <7700@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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From: ferguson@gorby.src.honeywell.com (Dennis Ferguson)

In article <7700@cbnews.ATT.COM> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes:
>
>The lack of long-range stopping power in Stoner's AR-15 was a conscious and
>deliberate tradeoff.  Very little infantry combat ever happens at much more
>than baseball range, especially in places like Western Europe.  And most
>soldiers can't hit anything at more than baseball range anyway, regardless
>of what scores they make on a dry, safe rifle range with no hostile fire.
>There are large differences between the official military mythology
>of infantry combat and the real thing.  Stoner designed the rifle for the
>real thing.

There is a well documented and explained summary of the M16 fiasco
in James Fallows' book "National Defense" published in 1981.  One chapter
is devoted to how the special forces unknowingly instigated a major
charter battle between the procurement offices and the Army bureau
responsible for small arms development.  Apparently, the bureau
responsible for small arms development is run by people who still
design weapons for WWII and is strongly infected with NIH.  

The conclusion that Fallows arrives at for the M16 (and other weapons
as well) is that the major flaw in the US military is the procurement
bureaus themselves.