If SAR 21 is a junk,then how about M4?
http://article.wn.com/view/2008/04/20/Critics_turn_crosshairs_on_militarys_main_rifle/
Very few US govaman procurement do not call for open tender.
This include the rifle in the hands of every single services men
and women!
Can u tell me what improvements
have been made to this rifle since
Vietnam war?
I am sad to read this referring to Colt workshop.
''Many of the old ways remain, however. Brick-lined pit
furnaces dating back to the 1960s are still used to temper steel
rifle barrels.''
Does Colt still using grand dad era technology?Some body told me
in
30 years ago,ST already get a metal really hard which even the
experienced
craftman never seen before.Is this the barrel of U100?
http://article.wn.com/view/2008/04/20/Critics_turn_crosshairs_on_militarys_main_rifle/
Critics turn crosshairs on military's main
rifle
Now, as Congress considers spending millions more on
the guns, this exclusive arrangement is being criticized as a bad
deal for American forces as well as taxpayers, according to
interviews and research conducted by The Associated Press.
"What we have is a fat contractor in Colt who's gotten
very rich off our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan," says Sen. Tom
Coburn, R-Okla.
The M4, which can fire at a rate of 700 to 950 bullets
a minute, is a shorter and lighter version of the company's M16
rifle first used 40 years ago during the Vietnam War. It normally
carries a 30-round magazine. At about $1,500 apiece, the M4 is
overpriced, according to Coburn. It jams too often in sandy
environments like Iraq, he adds, and requires far more maintenance
than more durable carbines.
"And if you tend to have the problem at the wrong time,
you're putting your life on the line," says Coburn, who began
examining the M4's performance last year after receiving complaints
from soldiers. "The fact is, the American GI today doesn't have the
best weapon. And they ought to."
U.S. military officials don't agree. They call the M4
an excellent carbine. When the time comes to replace the M4, they
want a combat rifle that is leaps and bounds beyond what's
currently available.
"There's not a weapon out there that's significantly
better than the M4," says Col. Robert Radcliffe, director of combat
developments at the Army Infantry Center in Fort Benning, Ga. "To
replace it with something that has essentially the same
capabilities as we have today doesn't make good sense."
Colt's exclusive production agreement ends in
June 2009. At that point, the
Army, in its role as the military's principal buyer of firearms,
may have other gunmakers compete along with Colt for continued M4
production. Or, it might begin looking for a totally new
weapon.
"We haven't made up our
mind yet," Radcliffe says.
William Keys, Colt's chief executive officer, says the
M4 gets impressive reviews from the battlefield. And he worries
that bashing the carbine will undermine the confidence the troops
have in it.
"The guy killing the enemy with this gun loves it,"
says Keys, a former Marine Corps general who was awarded the Navy
Cross for battlefield valor in Vietnam. "I'm not going to stand
here and disparage the senator, but I think he's wrong."
In 2006, a non-profit research group surveyed 2,600
soldiers who had served in Iraq and Afghanistan and found 89% were
satisfied with the M4. While Colt and the Army have trumpeted that
finding, detractors say the survey also revealed that 19% of these soldiers had their
weapon jam during a firefight.
And the relationship between the Army and Colt has been
frosty at times. Concerned over the steadily rising cost of the M4,
the Army forced Colt to lower its prices two years ago by
threatening to buy rifles from another supplier. Prior to the
warning, Colt "had not demonstrated any incentive to consider a
price reduction," then-Maj. Gen. Jeffrey Sorenson, an Army
acquisition official, wrote in a November 2006 report.
Coburn is the M4's harshest and most vocal critic. But
his concern is shared by others, who point to the "SCAR," made by
Belgian armorer FN Herstal, and the HK416, produced by Germany's
Heckler & Koch, as possible contenders. Both weapons cost about
the same as the M4, their manufacturers say.
The SCAR is being purchased by U.S. special operations
forces, who have their own acquisition budget and the latitude to
buy gear the other military branches can't.
Or won't.
"All I know is, we're not having the competition, and
the technology that is out there is not in the hands of our
troops," says Jack Keane, a former Army general who pushed
unsuccessfully for an M4 replacement before retiring four years
ago.
The dispute over the M4 has been overshadowed by larger
but not necessarily more important concerns. When the public's
attention is focused on the annual defense budget, it tends to be
captured by bigger-ticket items, like the Air Force's F-22 Raptors
that cost $160 million each.
The Raptor, a radar-evading jet fighter, has never been
used in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the troops who patrol Baghdad's
still-dangerous neighborhoods or track insurgents along the
Afghanistan-Pakistan border, there's no piece of gear more critical
than the rifles on their shoulders. They go everywhere with them,
even to the bathroom and the chow hall.
Yet the military has a poor track record for getting
high-quality firearms to warfighters. Since the Revolutionary War,
mountains of red tape, oversize egos and never-ending arguments
over bullet size and gunpowder have delayed or doomed promising
efforts.
The M16, designed by the visionary gunsmith Eugene
Stoner, had such a rough entry into military service in the
mid-1960s that a congressional oversight committee assailed the
Army for behavior that bordered on criminal negligence.
Stoner's lighter, more accurate rifle was competing
against a heavier, more powerful gun the Army had heavily invested
in. To accept the M16 would be to
acknowledge a huge mistake, and ordnance officials did as much as
they could to keep from buying the new automatic weapon. They
continually fooled with Stoner's design.
"The Army, if anything, was trying to sideline and
sabotage it," said Richard Colton, a historian with the Springfield
Armory Museum in Massachusetts.
Despite the hurdles, the M16 would become the
military's main battlefield rifle. And Colt, a company founded
nearly 170 years ago by Hartford native Samuel Colt, was the
primary manufacturer. Hundreds of thousands of M16s have been
produced over the years for the U.S. military and foreign
customers. Along with Colt, FNMI, an FN Herstal subsidiary in South
Carolina, has also produced M16s.
Development of the carbine was driven by a need for a
condensed weapon that could be used in tight spaces but still had
plenty of punch. Colt's answer was the 7½-pound M4. The design
allowed the company to leverage the tooling used for the M16.
In 1994, Colt was awarded a no-bid contract to make the
weapons. Since then, it has sold more than 400,000 to the U.S.
military.
Along the way, Colt's hold has been threatened but not
broken.
In 1996, a Navy office
improperly released Colt's M4 blueprints, giving nearly two
dozen contractors a look at the carbine's inner workings. Colt was
ready to sue the U.S. government for the breach. The company wanted
between $50 million and $70 million in damages.
Cooler heads prevailed. The Defense Department didn't
want to lose its only source for the M4, and Colt didn't want to
stop selling to its best customer.
The result was an agreement that made Colt the sole
player in the U.S. military carbine market. FNMI challenged the
deal in federal court but lost.
And since the Sept. 11 attacks, sales have
skyrocketed.
The Army, the carbine's heaviest user, is outfitting
all its front-line combat units with M4s. The Air Force, Navy,
Marine Corps and special operations forces also carry M4s. So do
U.S. law enforcement agencies and militaries in many NATO
countries.
More than $300 million has been spent on 221,000 of the
carbines over the past two years alone. And the Defense Department
is asking Congress to provide another $230 million for 136,000
more.
Keane, the retired Army general, knows how difficult it
is to develop and deliver a brand-new rifle to the troops. As vice
chief of staff, the Army's second highest-ranking officer, Keane
pushed for the acquisition of a carbine called the XM8.
The futuristic-looking rifle was designed by Heckler
& Koch. According to Keane, the XM8 represented the gains made
in firearms technology over the past 40 years.
The XM8 would cost less and operate far longer without
being lubricated or cleaned than the M4 could, Heckler & Koch
promised. The project became bogged down by bureaucracy, however.
In 2005, after $33 million had been invested, the XM8 was shelved.
A subsequent audit by the Pentagon inspector general concluded the
program didn't follow the military's strict acquisition rules.
Keane blames a bloated and risk-averse bureaucracy for
the XM8's demise.
"This is all about people not wanting to move out and
do something different," Keane says. "Why are they afraid of the
competition?"
As Colt pumps out 800 new M4s every day to meet U.S.
and overseas demand, the company is remodeling its aging
270,000-square-foot facility in a hardscrabble section of
Connecticut's capital city. New tooling and metal cutting machines
have been installed as part of a $10 million plant improvement.
Many of the old ways remain, however. Brick-lined pit
furnaces dating back to the 1960s are still used to temper steel
rifle barrels.
"Modernizing the plant while trying to maintain quality
and meet deliveries has been a challenge," says James Battaglini,
Colt's chief operating officer.
Within military circles there are M4 defectors. U.S.
Special Operations Command in Tampa, was one of the carbine's first
customers. But the elite commando units using the M4 soured on it;
the rifle had to be cleaned too often and couldn't hold up under
the heavy use by Army Green Berets and Navy SEALs.
When the M16 was condensed into an M4, the barrel and
other key parts had to be shortened. That changed the way the gun
operated and not for the better, concluded an internal report
written seven years ago by special operations officials but never
published. Dangerous problems ranged from broken bolt assemblies,
loose and ruptured barrels, and cartridges stuck in the firing
chamber.
"Jamming can and will occur for a variety of reasons,"
the report said. "Several types of jams, however, are
'catastrophic' jams; because one of our operators could die in a
firefight while trying to clear them."
Pointing to the report's unpublished status, Colt has
disputed its findings. The M4 has been continually improved over
the years, says Keys, the company's chief executive. The M4 may not
meet the exacting standards of U.S. commando forces, he adds, but
it fills the requirements spelled out by the regular Army.
Special Operations Command is replacing the M4s and
several other rifles in its arsenal with FN Herstal's SCAR, which
comes in two models: one shoots the same 5.56 mm round as the M4;
the other a larger 7.62 mm bullet and costs several hundred dollars
more. Both SCARs can accommodate different-size barrels allowing
the weapons to be fired at multiple ranges.
The SCARs are more accurate, more reliable and expected
to last far longer than their predecessors, said Navy Lt. Cmdr.
Marc Boyd, a command spokesman.
"SOCOM likes to be different," says Keys of Colt, using
the acronym for the command. "They wanted something unique."
With the SCAR not yet in full-scale production, Heckler
& Koch's HK416 is being used by elite units like Delta Force,
the secretive anti-terrorism unit. The command would not comment on
the HK416 other than to say there are "a small number" of the
carbines in its inventory.
A key difference between the Colt carbine and the
competitors is the way the rounds are fed through the rifle at
lightning speed.
The SCAR and HK416 use a gas piston system to cycle the
bullets automatically. The M4 uses "gas impingement," a method that
pushes hot carbon-fouled gas through critical parts of the gun,
according to detractors. Without frequent and careful maintenance,
they say, the M4 is prone to jamming and will wear out more quickly
than its gas-piston competitors.
"A gas piston system runs a little bit smoother and a
lot cleaner," says Dale Bohner, a retired Air Force commando who
now works for Heckler & Koch. "If the U.S. military opened up a
competition for all manufacturers, I see the 416 being a major
player in that."
The top half of the Heckler & Koch gun — a section
known as the upper receiver that includes the barrel and the gas
piston — fits on the lower half of the M4. So if the military
wanted a low-cost replacement option, it could buy HK416 upper
receivers and mate them with the lower part of the M4 for about
$900 a conversion, according to Bohner.
Yet outside of Special Operations Command, there seems
to be no rush to replace the M4.
Brig. Gen. Mark Brown, head of the Army office that
buys M4s and other combat gear, traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan
last summer to get feedback from soldiers on Colt's carbine.
"I didn't hear one single negative comment," Brown
says. "Now, I know I'm a general, and when I go up and talk to a
private, they're going to say everything's OK, everything's fine. I
said, 'No, no, son. I flew 14,000 miles out here to see you on the
border of Afghanistan. The reason I did that was to find out what's
happening."'
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., says the troops may not be
aware of the alternatives. He wants the Pentagon to study the
options and make a decision before Congress does.
"Sen. Coburn has raised a good question: 'Do we have
the best personal weapon?' And I don't know that we do," Sessions
said. "We're not comfortable now. Let's give this a rigorous
examination."
M4 FALLS SHORT IN TEST 
HARTFORD, Conn. — When the dust finally settled, Army officials
sought to put the best face on a sandstorm test that humbled Colt
Defense's vaunted M4 carbine.
The tests were conducted at an Army laboratory in Maryland last
fall. Ten M4s and 10 copies each of three other carbines the SCAR
from Belgium's FN Herstal, and the HK416 and the XM8 from Germany's
Heckler & Koch were coated in heavy layers of talcum-fine dust
to simulate a sandstorm. Tens of thousands of rounds were fired
through the rifles.
The M4s malfunctioned 882 times. Bullets that didn't feed
through the rifles properly or became lodged in the firing chamber
were the biggest problems.
The other carbines had far fewer hitches. The carbine with
highest marks was the XM8, a gun with a Star Wars look that the
Army considered buying just a few years ago but didn't. The program
collapsed due to bureaucratic infighting and questionable
acquisition methods.
Despite the testing troubles, the Army and Colt are defending
the M4, the rifle U.S. forces rely on in combat. The tests, they
stressed, were only meant for research purposes and didn't
represent actual conditions.
Dust and dirt are constant obstacles in Iraq, but no properly
trained soldier would ever let his weapon become so clogged that it
misfired.
"This is not what soldiers encounter on the battlefield," says
Brig. Gen. Mark Brown, the officer who runs the Army acquisition
office that buys rifles and other battlefield gear. "It doesn't
matter if you're firing a flintlock from the Revolutionary War or
you're firing the M4, you've got to clean your weapon."
The XM8, Brown adds, had 10 cartridges break apart during
testing a flaw that can injure the shooter. The M4 only had one
ruptured cartridge.
In overall scoring, the M4 finished the sandstorm test with a
98.6 roughly 1 percentage point behind the others, according to
Col. Robert Radcliffe, director of combat developments at the Army
Infantry Center in Fort Benning, Ga.
"That is good performance," Radcliffe says.
But the M4's chief critic wasn't buying the Army explanation
spelled out in Power Point charts.
"What it shows is out of the four weapons tested, the M4 is the
worst," says Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla. "If it's your son that's the
1% that takes a bullet in the head (from the enemy) because his gun
jammed, that 1% is pretty meaningful."
Colt executives can't account for the M4's poor showing. And
they hinted that the M4s sent from Colt's plant in Hartford may
have been mishandled after being delivered to the lab.
"There's no way they left the factory like that," says Phillip
Hinckley, Colt's executive director of quality and engineering. "It
does leave a major question mark in your head."
— The Associated Press
AT A GLANCE
One of the biggest differences between Colt's M4 carbine and its
competitors is the way the bullets are fed through the rifles. The
HK416, XM8 and SCAR use a gas piston system to cycle the bullets
automatically. The M4 uses "gas impingement," a method that uses a
tube to push hot gas through key parts of the gun. This leaves
residue behind, detractors say, and makes the M4 more prone to
jamming. But Army officials and Colt executives say they've
received no significant complaints from troops in Iraq and
Afghanistan.
M4: Colt Defense's M4 carbine is a direct
descendant of the company's M16 first used during the Vietnam War.
At 33.6 inches long and weighing 7 pounds when loaded, it is
shorter and lighter than the M16 but shoots the same 5.56 mm round.
(The round is about the size of an AAA battery.) The M4's compact
design makes it ideal for troops traveling in Humvees or fighting
in confined areas. An M4 costs about $1,500. The weapon is used by
all the U.S. military branches.
HK416: Designed by Germany's Heckler &
Koch, the HK 416 carbine is slightly heavier than the M4, but
otherwise similar in appearance and feel. Heckler & Koch
advertises its weapon as more rugged and accurate than the M4. At
$1,425 each (2007 prices), the HK416 costs about the same as the
M4. It also shoots a 5.56 round. Elite U.S. military units such as
the anti-terrorist Delta Force are using the HK416. Norway selected
the rifle last year for its military forces.
XM8: Also designed by Heckler & Koch, the
XM8 weighs 8.3 pounds and fires 5.56 mm ammunition. Several years
ago it was being pursued as a replacement for the M4s in the U.S.
military's inventory. The project was halted in 2005, however, due
to questions over how the program was being handled. No pricing
data is available.
SCAR: The acronym stands for Special Operations
Forces Combat Assault Rifle. Made by Belgium's FN Herstal, two
versions of the weapon one fires the 5.56 round and another shoots
a heaver 7.62 mm cartridge are being purchased by U.S. Special
Operations Command in Tampa The lighter SCAR weighs 8.5 pounds
loaded. The command, which has its own budget for unique gear, says
the SCARs are more durable and accurate than the M4. The command
and FN Herstal are negotiating costs, but they expect the light
model SCAR to cost about the same as an M4.
— The Associated Press
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