The platoon-sized unit of U.S. soldiers and about two dozen Afghan troops was shooting back with such intensity the barrels on their weapons turned white hot. The high rate of fire appears to have put a number of weapons out of commission, even though the guns are tested and built to operate in extreme conditions.
Well yeah. A melted barrel tends to be a show stopper. It sounds like these guys were poorly trained/had shitty fire discipline. Unless they were facing down wave assaults, I don't see much to justify continuously firing fully auto (to the point that the barrel melts) from dug in fighting positions. Full auto fire wastes a ton of ammo and doesnt accomplish much (though it is nice in a few very specific instances). This is why the Army moved to from full auto to 3 round burst.
Also, where were the heavy guns in this? Troops in the open is a wet dream come true for most gunners/mortar teams. Surely they had pre-plotted and set up a base defense plan. Surely they had a couple of trucks loaded up and ready to go, so they could get out and maneuver on the attackers. The guy in the 'crows nest' overwatch was using an M4 because the Mk19 was down, right?
Cpl. Jonathan Ayers and Spc. Chris McKaig were firing their M4s from a position the soldiers called the "Crow's Nest." The pair would pop up together from cover, fire half a dozen rounds and then drop back down. On one of these trips up, Ayers was killed instantly by an enemy round. McKaig soon had problems with his M4, which carries a 30-round magazine.
It's either imupheseesmeimdown or just stay in the pocket and slug it out. Get predictable like whack-a-mole and you will get whacked. I'm curious if McKaig really had weapons problems or if he just had a "fuck this" moment when his buddy caught a round.
"My weapon was overheating," McKaig said, according to Cubbison's report. "I had shot about 12 magazines by this point already and it had only been about a half hour or so into the fight. I couldn't charge my weapon and put another round in because it was too hot, so I got mad and threw my weapon down." The soldiers also had trouble with their M249 machine guns, a larger weapon than the M4 that can shoot up to 750 rounds per minute. Cpl. Jason Bogar fired approximately 600 rounds from his M-249 before the weapon overheated and jammed the weapon.
Jesus Christ...
- The M4 is a reliable weapon and doesn't need to be meticulously cleaned like everyone seems to believe.
- 99.9% of M4 failures are due to the shitty GI magazines. Not the rifles, themselves.
- The SAW is an awesome gun. It does exactly what its supposed to do. The only problems I've ever seen/heard about are the result of the shitty plastic ammo box breaking, as well as the clips on the sling crapping out. The cloth nutsack and zip ties sort out these problems.