Why is this the US military's weapon of choice?

>>34736228
Because it still works?

>>34736228
shitty politics behind admitting it's one of the worst small arms designs ever devised.

>>34736228
Can you think of a better option?

>>34736254

How so?

>>34736228
it's relatively simple, it's easy to produce, lightweight, and the caliber isn't being rendered obsolete by the sandniggers suddenly having an R&D division of their own pumping out next generation body armor.

>34736254 (you)
Ah, a (you) farmer. I'm sure you'll have a bumper crop by nights end.

>>34736228
We don't give a shit about small arms.

>>34736228
It's the best assault rifle ever made

>>34736228
It's cheap, it works, and the cost of replacement isn't justified by the minimal increase in performance.

>>34736228
It's good enough for the money.

>>34736228
Because it has DIRECT INJECTION

>>34736305

(you) don't give a shit about small arms. Than fucking leave.

>>34736228
>that top rail cover just one notch too far forward
rrrreeeeeeeeeeeee

>>34736264

>unreliable in general
>flawed DI system
>.22magnum performance


theres a reason only 2 guns ever existed with DI gas system.

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^

>>34736389
2/10 but DI does have its shortcomings.

>>34736228
What else is it supposed to be, especially after all of these years of STANAG modernization and shit
You want the military to use mosin nagants or qbbs or something?

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>>34736389

>>34736355
I can't fucking unsee

>>34736306
Kek

>>34736332
He means the US military doesn't give a shit about small arms, numbnuts. And they kinda don't.

The modern assault rifle is just a means to keep an enemy in place while you call in air support and/or artillery. Modern warfare is not a paintball match where two teams need to out-shoot each other, it's two sets of combined arms maneuvering with the infantryman as just one small part of it. That's part of why we transitioned from the 7.62 to the 5.56 round in the first place.

We are better off putting the ridiculous amount of money that would be spent on SCARs and M416s into bombs and other heavy ordinance that is far more decisive in modern conflict. No matter how much people bitch about the M4, at the end of the day we are simply not losing battles because of M4 jams or 5.56 not killing/disabling targets. It's a pain in the ass but our troops remain capable of using the equipment to a satisfactory level.

>>34736332
But hes right nigger. Small arms dont matter, they are just a mechanism for suppressing fire to allow machine gunners/DMs to maneuver or pin enemies until CAS or artillery can be utilized. Therefore whether the military is using gucci 6.8mm caseless rifles or 60s-era SP1 rifles, it has no meaningful effect on doctrine or performance.

>>34736228

Because instead of holding a new rifle competition Colt and their lobbyists got the M4 accepted as the new army rifle by claiming it was a variant of the M16.... while at the same time keeping the rights to the M4's TDP and forcing a 5% royalty to be paid to Colt if any manufacturer besides Colt makes the M4. The US government agreed to this ridiculous condition because they thought they would be rid of it before they needed a new batch.

Aside from Colt's legal team, the private defense industry is more intertwined with the military than ever before. Every manufacturer that makes AR and AR accessories is going to try to keep the status quo. If a company brings out a proprietary rifle then everyone else loses, so they all lobby to kill anything that is too different.

If the HK416 was as different as the G36 or XM8, it would be just as dead.

>>34736620
>>34736683
this is why you lose

4 moa m4s and relic acogs with the worst eye relief in existence.

>>34736239
Why the fuck is it 16 inches and not 20?

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>>34736228
Will the US ever get to a point where free-float rails are standard issue?

>>34738891
the m4 is 14.5"

>>34738891
It's 14.5.

Because 5.56.

>>34738963
when /arg/ takes over the armed forces

>>34738891
Because easier for them to use if they spend a lot of time with humvees or other vehicles.

because christopher walken is outlawed by the hague conventions
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQ7z57qrZU8

>>34738963
when the army goes back to 20 inch barrels, uses a better barrel profile and twist for long range shooting, and uses a heavier grain higher quality bullet. otherwise the benefit of a freefloat is negligible for a service rifle.

>>34738891
Because barrel length is a meme and everyone's known that for the last twenty years.

Ironically enough, barrel length does actually start to matter for 5.56 once you get into sub-16 territory.

>>34740221
enjoy your shit velocity.

>>34740243
>he still uses m193/m855

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>>34740243
5.56 is the most length-velocity sensitive round I know of, and even then, it's perfectly fine.

>>34740243
Who cares. Still kills out to 300m, and anything beyond that is 240b and mk14 territory.

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>>34740298
More like 500ish, if you can manage to actually hit something.

Barrel length is fucking fuddlore.

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>>34740298
a few clicks of the rear elevation knob and you can kill things out to 500m. though you run into the problem of barely being able to see the target well enough to aim, and service rifles really not set up for that kind of shot.

>>34740298
>>34740332
I've actually seen someone hit a man sized steel at 1000m with a 14.5" AR with a 4x ACOG shooting 77gr SMK's

>>34740342
Yeah, you can do it, but it's not effective at all.

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>5.56 out of an M4 is the same as getting hit by .22lr past 300m

>>34740348
Oh yeah, I'm sure it had the kinetic energy of a bee sting at that range. I was still impressed though. I made a few hits with my 18" AR and a 1-6x.
Made a lot more misses.

>>34740379
>Retards actually believe this
>>34740381
Fair enough. I dislike intermediate rounds in general, but only for reasons of personal taste.

We are soon getting the m4 and m16 mostly replaced with the IAR.

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>>34740332
Wtf?

Who cares about the drop, its about the killing capacity.
Sure,mto reach out and touch is great, but if your ice picking some fucker, chances are its not going to drop him.

Especially with these over glorified 22s and their shiney fmjs

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>I hurt myself today...

>>34740408
>I don't understand how 5.56 works
>I've never heard of Mk262

>>34740408
killing power is not the problem fried
5.56 tends to tumble inside the body so they are plenty killy
the problem is barrier penetration
even relatively minor obstacles like small branches cause the 5.56 to veer off all over the place so someone behind a bush could be pretty hard to take out

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>>34740413

>To see if I still feel...

>>34736228
Really the only problem this has in modern combat is the buffer tube system. Not being able to fold the stock leads to going to shorter than optimal bbl lengths. Comparing it to any bullpup is a pro/com battle that nether one comes out a clear winner.

I'm not super knowledgeable about the details, but doesn't the AR-15 design have some inherent flaws that cannot be remedied?

>Forward assist necessary because of nonreciprocating charging handle
Would making it a side charger attached directly to the bolt help?

>buffer tube prevents having a folding stock
I never understood how other weapons don't have a buffer tube, while the AR does. Can this be changed?

>direct impingement dirties the chamber and action, or as Ivan Chesnokov put it, the AR shits where it eats
I know short stroke piston designs have resolved this--is there any disadvantage to them?

Also, do other rifles have the limitation where you can't put a full mag in when the bolt is closed?

I like the bolt release button, though. Seems easier to maneuver than working the action when the bolt locks back.

>>34740595
>you can have it all
>my empire of dirt colored guns

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>>34736228
Because it's not this.

>>34741563
U havin a laff?

>>34741549
>forward assist
Isn't needed most of the time, does nothing negative to help in very rare failures.
>Buffer tube
Lower bore axis helps with recoil and sight over bore, con is no folding stock
>DI
I see a lot of stuff about this, I'm no expert so I won' comment. There seems to be a lot of bro science about this on both sides.

You can put a full mag on a closed bolt, that wouldn't be any different than any other closed bolt design, which open vs closed bolt is a whole nother beast.

I think the paddle is a weak point in the design, but things like a bad lever help to remedy it.

>>34737060
Name one battle where any of that was a decisive factor.

>>34736228

It's America's rifle, and it always will be.

It would take a significant technological change to infantry combat for it to ever be rendered "obsolete", but with minor technical improvements it will probably remain the service rifle of the USA for the next century or more.

>>34736228
that one general guy in the 60s really really liked them

>>34741651
Daily when soldiers miss shots because there equipment is half as good as it should be for minor cost increase

>>34737060
>m4s and acogs are the reason you lose when you go up against AKs and iron sights

git out of here

>>34742751
You're going to have to substantiate these claims, fagboy

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i hate this place

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>>34742780
i really do hate this place

>>34742751
Daily reminder that the US military has never in its history fielded a service rifle better than 4 MOA, meaning that by virtue of having mass issued optics US troops are the most accurate they've ever been.

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>>34742786
really fucking hate this place

>>34736228
Because SOF said it was ok in the 90's.

>>34741589
You realize that the uk stopped using the sa80 long ago? They're using the l85a2 now, looks the same but the internals were modified and produced by hk so it's actually decent now.

>>34742883
Yes, I am aware that we now use the A2/A3 even though the A3 doesn't technically exist. It's just fun to hate on it. I've heard god knows how many stories of the A1 jamming and being unreliable, and to be honest, HK did a pretty great job of fixing it. As a piece of design it's actually pretty great. The charging handle design that doubles as a case deflector I love.
Also, not technically produced by HK, since they are no longer in production, they were only upgraded by HK.

>>34742959
Those jams were a result of the powder used in the ammo and not a flaw in the design. Inrange and Chris Bartocci have done videos about this. The short stroke piston didn't add much of an improvement on the 416.

>>34742959
>I've heard god knows how many stories of the A1 jamming and being unreliable
How much would I have to pay you to go away and never make /k/ suffer your ignorance again?

>>34743578
This, the A1 was reliable and fixed many of the flaws of the M16 (which were in fact created by the US Military, and not a byproduct of the weapon design, ex: removal of chrome lined barrel, changing powder type, etc).

For the same reason that countries around the world use it. Even the Chinks have a copy of it. Special Forces units of nations that don't use the M4 or a derivative of it will still use M4s. Only in the last decade or so have they begun trying out newer arms, frequently ones based on the M16/M4.

It's ergonomic and adaptable to most any combat situation. Its more reliable than most are led to believe, and it's accurate as shit at the ranges it needs to be.

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>>34740408
>77 grain
>glorified 22

Hello retard.

>>34740298
>anything beyond that is 240b and mk14 territory
Maybe if you're a drunken slav with a birth defect and a couple of brain tumors.

>>34736355
What did they mean by this

>>34740221
1965 to present day: barrel length keeps getting shorter, velocity less and bullet design more shit

You: this is a meme

KYS

>>34743782
Look at OP's pic, then look at the heat shield, now look at the top part of the heat shield.

>>34743798
>mk318 and mk262 are shit bullet designs
ok m8

>>34743798
>bullet design more shit
>more shit

Because being able to both penetrate barriers and fragment at the same times in soft targets is a bad thing.

Go somewhere else, dumb dumb.

>>34736228
Because a fucking asshole canned the XM8

>>34743810
What percentage of the US armed forces use that vs what percentage use a glorified armor piercing round in a 14.5" barrel? KYS

>>34743834
Marines and sf who actually use there rifles to kill people use good ammo. This is just a bait thread but are you upset that rear epsilon and reservists who dont use there rifles in support of combat operations are given 4moa service rifles with 55gr fmj? Are you advocated uniform issuance of a submoa performance rifle with match ammo exclusively for all branches nothing less? should all service rifle include some type of optic to take advantage of this match service rifle with there 13 week basic training?