This book describes the sense of betrayal that many Vietnam veterans felt when their M14's were replaced with M16's:
A vast number of military officers, civilian defense officials, and civilian contractors were involved in the specification, design, prototyping, testing, manufacture, field testing, and acceptance of the M-16. Yet as one retired military officer blandly put it, 'Early models were plagued by stoppages that caused some units to request reissue of the older M-14." The veteran quoted above experienced the deficiencies of design, manufacture, and especially field testing and acceptance of the M-16 as a gross betrayal of the duties of care and of loyalty by the officers who, by virtue of their office, held his life in trust.
So I'm not asking WHAT was wrong with the M-16, but how it got to the field with so many problems?
So I'm not asking WHAT was wrong with the M-16, but how it got to the field with so many problems?
Logic dictates that you don't know what problems you will encounter until you encounter those problems. The jungles of Vietnam were a bit different in reality than how the testing of the rifles happened. You have 18-22 year olds who may have never fired a rifle in their lives before the military getting their rifles muddy, dirty, wet, sometimes rusty and then firing a large volume of fire causing the rifle to eventually malfunction. One major update what to chrome the chambers so extraction of the spent casing was easier. In testing the rifle an un-chromed chamber was not much of an issue but upon real life circumstances it has made a huge difference.
You would think that the bureaucracy of the military/government would know these things but I think you know the answer there. I think this is still a question of "what was wrong with the rifle" for the M-16 has had many updates throughout it's career.
http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/02/how-reliable-is-the-m-16-rifle/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
You should also check the wiki page as it has about 150 references. You should also look at the testing procedures for new weapons in the 1950's & 60's.