Well, well, well. C.J. Chivers sends this dispatch from Afghanistan:
Examining the Complaints About American Rifle Reliability:
"The M-4 and M-16 were not seen to be suffering from reliability problems, at least not among people whose paths have crossed ours."
Wait a minute! The M4, as we all know, fails our troops daily in combat. We all know it is based upon the M16A1 fielded in Vietnam, which was notorious for jams that put troops' lives in danger, right? What the hell does C.J. Chivers know?
"... after years of carrying an M-16 (the A2 version, in the 1980s and 1990s) and years of observing them in the field, often in firefights, I have yet to see a modern M-16 or M-4 fail in the ways described in others’ reports, and I have not found significant reliability complaints from troops using the rifles in trying environments. (Interestingly ... the special operations community had dropped its program to replace M-4s with a rifle colloquially known as the SCAR... because it was not regarded as offering an upgrade on the M-4 that was worth the investment.) ... the Army’s examination of the battle of Wanat, which was part of the fuel on the latest controversy, did not find systematic problems with weapons."
How can this be?! We've all heard the stories. Right? Oh, wait a minute...
"And it is hard not to notice, as we have tried to examine the issues, that many of the complaints about M-4 and M-16 reliability are almost impossible to trace because they are either anonymous or do not include essential information, including the unit’s name, and the date and location of the failure... If there are widespread problems with the rifles, then they should be detectable in units in heavy fighting."
Oh, damn. Now I see the problem. The people complaining about the M4 are just full of shit. Now that I think about it, I would hazard a guess that most of the people who bitch about the M4 have never even had to fire a round in combat, yet they'll talk shit like they've been forced to duke it out hand-to-hand with 10 al-Qaeda operatives because of a malfunctioning M4. STFU.
"If we’ve got this wrong, or have been looking in the wrong places, help us out (my e-mail address is..."
I can't imagine what kind of BS emails he will get after making that request. I don't know what it is about this issue but it brings out the stupid in just about everyone. C.J. Chivers is a lonely voice of sanity on this issue.
See also: Quit griping about the weapon