Some history of the M16 and how GM helped.

[45FMJoe]

Thanks for the link. It kind of proves I'm not full of it.

I remember using a Hydra-matic in 1967, but a lot of people told me they didn't come out until '69.

Another one that gets me is the Bird Cage Flash hider on the M16a1. My Hydra-matics had the three prone flash hider. We used them to cut the wire off c-rat boxes. You had to twist it a certain way or you'd twist off the flash hider.

I left Vietnam in June of '68 and didn't see the Bird Cage flash hider until I joined the National Guard in '73.

It's all coming back now.

You couldn't have possibly used a GM Hydra-Matic M16A1 in 1967, as the contracts for M16A1 production were not awarded to GM Hydra-matic and H&R until April of 1968. GM Hydra-Matic's contract number was DAAF03-68-C-0048. Hydra-Matic delivered their first 100 rifles in December of 1968. So unless you had a time machine, it wasn't possible!

The article is a little misleading as well. Colt's XM16E1 was officially adopted as the M16A1 in February of 1967 so GM Hydra-Matic had no "huge part" in helping the Pentagon as the article claimed. Plus, H&R and GM Hyrda-Matic were only awarded 240,000 rifle contracts. A month after they were awarded their contracts, Colt was awarded another contract for over 740,000 rifles.

 

[carpriver]

My senior year in high school I had an internship with a company in Roseville Michigan that was a early NDI company (NDI non destructible testing). I was doing maga-flux testing on M-16 bolts (the item name on the work order). I was to determine if the bolts had cracks in them. About 20% of the bolts were rejected due cracks at the face of the bolts. These bolts were delivered almost daily 500 bolts at a time. This was in 1966. In December 1967 I was in Viet Nam carrying the weapon I had inspected. The weapon had a three pronged flash hider we also used to open c-rat cases. This same weapon would jam, or fail to fire quite often. I oped for a 12 Gage shotgun and a 1911. I have no idea what company was sending the material for testing.

 

[FTG-05]

IIRC Stoner designed his weapon system with a certain brand of DuPont powder and a certain cyclic rate of fire. McNamara and his clan that he brought with him from GM to the DOD decided that some of the production steps Steiner specified were not needed and changed the rate of fire. Then DuPont quit making the powder and the replacement Winchester-Olin ball powder was responsible for the jamming rather than the gun's construction.

I find it ironic that a problem caused by the GM whiz kids changing the specs had to be fixed by a GM plant. Now the big question, how much did these "cost savings" actually cost in troops KIA and the $$ cost to the American taxpayer?

Say what you want about McNamara but I don't think you can pin the M-16 on him. It was the Ordnance Dept that made the decision to use ball powder, it was the US Army that witnessed the jamming problems at Colt and it was the US Army Program Manager that decided to hide the reliability problems until the deaths in Vietnam instigated the Congressional investigation.

Stoner designed the AR-10, not the Ar-15/M-16, tow other Armalite engineers designed the AR-15/M-16, but I forget their names.