by Chris Kyle
The engagement was a success for the Americans, even with the casualties. It proved air assault works. It also showed how chaotic war in the Vietnamese jungle could be.
And it demonstrated that the theories behind the new black gun made sense in real life. The M16 had made a critical difference in the battle. The large number of bullets it could fire helped turn back the Vietnamese several times.
“Brave American soldiers and the M16 rifle won a victory here,” Colonel Moore concluded after the battle at LZ X-Ray.
But even inside Moore’s unit, the rifle had not been flawless. There were scattered reports of problems.
Captain John Herren, the commander of Bravo Company, was surprised by a North Vietnamese soldier just after he had radioed in a report to another officer. He grabbed his M16 and fired at him; the gun fell apart with the burst, the trigger assembly coming out in his hand. Herren grabbed a grenade and tossed it over the embankment where the NVA soldier had run. Unfortunately, the grenade bounced off some brush and fell away. Herren and the two radio operators he was with didn’t stick around to find out what would happen next. Other soldiers found weapons on the battlefield that were useless, whether because they’d been hit or had jammed was hard to say.
Flaws in the M16 started to become public soon after they reached the troops in large numbers in 1965 and ’66. To that point, the only problem was getting enough of them out the door. But gradually, trial and error revealed that the gun had a fatal weakness as a combat rifle: It was not very forgiving if you fouled it or got it full of dirt. And a change in the powder used by the initial cartridges greatly increased the gun’s failure rate.
In other words, the damn thing had this bad tendency to jam at the worst possible time.
Not always, certainly, but it only has to happen to you once to get you killed. In 1965, soldiers were said to be selling their M14s on the black market so they could buy the new M16 out of their own pocket. By 1967, a lot of them must have been thinking about getting their money back.
The M16 wasn’t junk. It was a promising gun that needed improvements—which should have been fixed before being adopted.
In the years that followed, major revisions were made to the weapon. The M16 was tweaked as the M16A1 very shortly after it was introduced. A forward assist was added, which helped the shooter make sure the bolt was closed—useful when trying to clear a jam. The powder was changed. Instructions emphasized that the weapon needed to be maintained and cleaned often. There had been a lot of hype that it didn’t, which added to the jamming problems.
In the 1980s, a much improved version, the M16A2, became the new standard. Among the improvements from the M16A1 to the M16A2 were a heavier and stiffer barrel, a new hand guard, a new butt stock, a better pistol grip, an improved sight, a redesign of the upper receiver that improved cartridge ejection—you get the idea.
Most critical for the troops using it was a change replacing full-auto with a three-round burst. The M16A3 switched back to semi-auto and full auto. Newer M16A4s and the M4 carbine have a flat-top receiver, which allows devices to be attached via Picatinny rails. As a general rule, the M16A4 is used by the Marines and the M4 Carbine by the Army. They have their limitations, as all guns do, but they are now world-class battle rifles.
If you want to know about a rifle, ask a rifleman. It happens that I have one handy—my brother, Jeff.
Jeff served in the Marines around the time I did, and besides deploying to Iraq, served in Marine Recon and put in time as a weapons instructor. He used several versions of the M16 platform during his military career, including a few old M16A1s that had been kicked around quite a bit.
Above: the M4, a direct descendant of the M16. Below: the Russian AK47, the M16’s lifelong rival.
Colt’s Manufacturing Company (top)
For Jeff, “Learning the history of that weapon was pretty cool.” We’d been shooting since we were kids so he was right at home when the drill instructor finally let them use the gun they’d been marching around with forever. “It was a piece of junk in Vietnam, but it was built up to what it is now. It’s impressive, and they keep making them better. Even in my first four years, they transitioned to A3. Then in Recon, we had the M4.”
His preferences depended on the job that had to be done. The shorter-barreled M4 was a better weapon for clearing a building; the smaller length meant it was easier to maneuver in tight quarters. It was also a little less trouble carrying. But both versions shot more or less the same. “I didn’t see a whole lot of difference in the effect of the rounds when it came to distances,” says Jeff. “And most of our action was pretty close up.”
Getting used to full auto took some practice, but after a few eight to ten-hour days of training, most of the men got to the point where they could squeeze off two or three rounds if they wanted to from the full auto version of the M4. That fire control gave them the advantage of both worlds—they could save ammo with a quick burst, and have full auto instantly if they needed it. But it was only something you could get with a lot of practice.
Where the first generation of M16s had twenty-round mags, thirty go in the boxes under today’s guns. But the improvement my brother felt was the most important over those earlier models were on the rails. They let him hang all manner of gear on them.
Back in World War I, battle rifles were naked, except for the bayonet and strap. The first M16s were pretty naked themselves, though a bayonet was designed to be attached to the tip. Soon, though, someone figured out you could slap a grenade launcher to the bottom of that sucker, and give the average infantry squad a lot more firepower. The 203 grenade launcher became very popular with squads needing a little more oomph in battle—and what rifle squad doesn’t?
U.S. Marines and an M16A4 in Afghanistan, 2009.
U.S. Marine Corps (photo by Cpl. Albert F. Hunt)
With the latest versions of the gun, you can put gear on the top as well as the bottom, thanks to the rails. Scopes and laser sights are the most common; bipods, vertical grips—it’s getting to the point where anything you can think up, someone has found a way to get it onto the gun. All that gear makes the gun heavier, taking away one of its advantages. On the other hand, its light weight to begin with makes the package lighter than it might have been.
Optics and laser sights are now pretty much necessities. Being able to fight well at night gives you an advantage over most if not all enemies. And while the M4 and M16 are not sniper weapons, scopes can help soldiers reach out and touch their enemy at a decent range.
Incidentally, I used a Marine M16 rifle in Fallujah, Iraq. It was a standard infantry rifle, but I got it in an unusual way—I traded a Marine for it.
How do you get a Marine to give up his rifle? Give him a bigger one.
In 2004, I was part of a SEAL sniper unit attached to the Marines as they worked to clear the city of insurgents. After our first few days in the city, the enemy started getting smart and avoiding areas where the snipers were working. Meanwhile, the Marines on the ground going into houses were taking all the risks. It was hard to stand up on a roof feeling useless while they were getting shot inside the buildings. So I offered one of the Marines who was providing security for my sniper post a deal he couldn’t refuse: Take my sniper rifle, I told him, and I’ll use your M16.
I don’t know that he got any kills with my gun, but I used his to shoot some Chechens who’d come to Iraq to help wipe out us infidels. The whole thing was a bit of a shock, for them and for me. We’d just breached the house and I stepped into the front room where they were gathered. I don’t know what I expected to see, but whatever it was, it wasn’t them. I looked at these white faces and blinked—they were the first white guys I saw on the enemy’s side of the fence since I’d been in the country.
They were still dazed from our entry. But that only lasted a second. They started to react, grabbing for guns. So did I. Full auto never felt so good.
The gun that I had traded the Marine was a Mk11, an automatic dec
ked out in a style not unlike an M16. My brother Jeff used the same weapon when he was working as a spotter and secondary shooter on a two-man sniper team as a Marine. Carrying the gun meant he only had to hump one rifle into battle. Because it was a semi-automatic, the Mk11 gave him the ability to provide cover at close range. But it also had long-range accuracy. And the gun’s scope doubled as a spotting scope.
I liked the SEAL version of the gun myself for pretty much the same reasons. Mine didn’t have a collapsible stock, but that was a small tradeoff. The 7.62 × .51mm rounds meant more stopping power, less sweat on my side of the weapon.
The AR-15 family has its own sniper version in use by SEALs, the U.S. Navy Mk 12 Special Purpose Rifle. The rifle has a sixteen-inch barrel but other than that is very similar to an M4. It fires a 5.56 × 45mm round from a thirty-bullet magazine. While the gun could be selected for full auto, I never fired it that way. I suppose it would have been handy to have if the situation came up where I needed it, whether to get the enemy’s head down in a hurry, or to deal with a mass attack.
After the first wave of developers, other manufacturers like HK, Sig, you name it, began working on their own variations of the AR-15 design, knowing that the U.S. military wouldn’t adopt anything else. The process has resulted in a much better gun family. HK’s 416 is a phenomenal weapon, accurate and durable. Sig’s 516 is another excellent development of the original concept, burnished with touches from the Sig brain trust.
Because the weapon has been adapted and adopted by so many countries and large manufacturers, it’s opened the way for small companies to offer add-ons and improvements. That’s become especially big as civilian versions have been adapted by recreational shooters. To some, the civilian version of the AR15 is now a “Barbie Doll for guys”—the platform can be customized any way you want it. Vertical grips, sight systems, rail systems, trigger systems are now a big part of the market.
But customization has been important for one segment of weapons community that probably no one thought would need a high-powered rifle back in the late 1950s or early 1960s—law enforcement.
A series of shootouts in the late 1980s and 1990s convinced police departments they had to change the way they did things, and bring more firepower to the streets. One of the worst incidents occurred February 28, 1997, in North Hollywood, California. Larry Phillips Jr. and Emil Mătăsăreanu picked that day to rob the Bank of America in North Hollywood. It wasn’t a spur of the moment decision—the pair had been scouting the place for months. They had a number of violent crimes on their resume. They came prepared for their forced withdrawal with five rifles, a pistol, and over three thousand rounds of ammo. They were also wearing body armor.
Confronted by the police as they tried to escape, the pair easily outgunned the first officers on the scene, who had only 9mm handguns and a shotgun between them. While the criminals were cut off and trapped outside the bank, it took the police roughly forty-five minutes before they were finally able to kill them. In the meantime, eighteen officers were wounded out of the nearly three hundred involved.
Top: With my M4 on our first deployment in Iraq. Bottom: Hunting feral hogs in Texas with a favorite AR15.
The Kyle family
The two men’s rifles included an HK-91 with a drum magazine and AKMs. Their armor-piercing bullets were capable of slicing through the vests the police wore.
“It was a watershed,” says Mark Hanten, my SWAT commander friend. The shoot-out was studied by his and other police forces all across the country. Among the more obvious conclusions: the police needed to be better armed.
Automatic rifles were part of the solution. While SWAT teams were common by the 1990s, North Hollywood and incidents like it showed that the specialty units were not the only ones who need high-powered rifles. As Rich Emberlin, who’s worked both SWAT and high-level protection roles in the Dallas police department points out, the first guys on the scene are often the ones who have the best chance to contain a situation before it gets ugly.
I can attest to the fact that criminals are seriously armed these days. A while back, the Dallas police department allowed me to tag along when they served a warrant on some suspected bad guys. The weapons stash they had would have made a SEAL’s eyes water. In fact, it did—I couldn’t believe the range of handguns and rifles the criminals had massed. The confiscated weapons filled a large van.
Dallas has started a program to equip patrolmen with AR15 variants. Besides finding the money, one of their biggest problems is making sure that the officers have enough time to train—which means they have to worry about having enough officers to fill their patrol spots while they’re on the range. Out in San Diego, Mark’s department spent five thousand dollars on ammo alone when half the SWAT team trained with new AR15-style rifles.
About those new guns: I worked with Mark as he went about putting the new kits together. They’re Sig Sauer 516s with ten-inch barrels and some very nice optics. It is a great package for perimeter and containment work, as well as being compact enough for interior work. There were smiles all around the range when the team was done.
On the other hand, I don’t think anyone in the department will be sorry if they’re never used anywhere but the target range.
Whether they’re used in war or for keeping the peace, guns are just tools. And like any tool, the way they’re used reflects the society they’re part of. As times change, guns have evolved. If you don’t like guns, blame it on the society they’re part of.
One of the interesting things about the AR15 is its size. Next to the rifle we started this book with, the American long rifle, the modern AR15 combat rifle is small. There’s an advantage in that: it can also be handled by a wide range of people.
Back when our friend Sergeant Murphy was shooting officers out of their saddles, the Continental Army and the American militias were almost exclusively male. Now women are an important part of the military and law enforcement forces.
And so maybe it’s appropriate we end this little tour of the modern combat rifle with the story of Leigh Ann Hester
In civilian life, Leigh Ann Hester was a petite, twenty-three-year-old woman who helped manage a shoe store in Nashville, Tennessee. At 9 a.m. on Sunday, March 20, 2005, she was a U.S. Army sergeant with the 617th Military Police Company, Kentucky National Guard stationed in a combat zone in Iraq. She and her squad of eight men and another woman were patrolling a road south of Baghdad and just north of Salman Pak. As usual, she had her short-barreled M4 within easy reach inside her up-armored Humvee.
Artist James Deitz’s depiction of the events of March 20, 2005, in Salman Pak, Iraq. Sgt. Leigh Ann Hester—and her M4—is pictured in the foreground at bottom right.
U.S. National Guard (painting by James Deitz)
Suddenly, Hester heard gunshots and explosions ahead. The patrol sped up, reaching a convoy of thirty civilian supply trucks and tractor-trailers. The vehicles were being ambushed with intense small-arms fire from the side of the road. An unusually large force of insurgents had filled trenches along the highway and were firing at the trucks. Bullets were flying everywhere.
Staff Sergeant Timothy Nein, in the lead Humvee, saw the civilian trucks trying to scatter. “Flank ’em down the road!” hollered Nein to the rest of the squad. A moment later, a rocket-propelled grenade slammed into the top of his vehicle. Waves of rifle fire punched into the grill and side door as the Hummer ground to a halt.
The others stopped and began engaging the insurgents. The Humvees took multiple hits. In the third truck, all the soldiers except Specialist Jason Mike were wounded. Mike grabbed an M4 assault rifle and an M249 light machine gun and began firing in two different directions to push back the attackers.
Hester spotted a convoy of seven parked cars not far away. The enemy was planning a fast getaway—and more than likely a kidnapping as well. Nein, who was still fighting despite the hits his vehicle had taken, decided their best bet was to go on the offense. He took his rifle and started walking di
rectly toward the enemy positions in the trenches and behind trees and piles of dirt.
Hester jumped from her Humvee to back him up. Carrying her M4 and attached grenade launcher, she ran up alongside Nein as he took cover behind a berm. Nein plugged an insurgent as he popped his head out from behind a tree. Hester zeroed in on a man with a machine gun. She put him in her sights and squeezed the trigger.
“It’s not like you see in the movies,” she said later on. “They don’t get shot and get blown back five feet. They just take a round and they collapse.”
Hester gunned down another insurgent, then she and Sergeant Nein jumped into a nearby drainage ditch to get a better angle on the enemy. They started working their way down, pushing the insurgents back, step by step, using rifle fire and a grenade from Hester’s launcher. When they started running low on ammo, Hester ran on back to her Humvee to get more. The firefight went on for more than thirty minutes until other U.S. forces arrived. The wounded were evacuated by helicopter, and the area was eventually secured. The Americans killed twenty-seven insurgents, wounded six, and took one prisoner. Hester personally killed at least three Iraqis with rifle and grenade fire from her M4. She received the first Silver Star given to a woman since World War II. Six other soldiers in her unit were decorated, including Specialist Jason Mike, Sergeant Timothy Nein, and Specialist Ashley Pullen.
Sergeant Hester “maneuvered her team through the kill zone into a flanking position where she assaulted a trench line with grenades and M203 rounds,” according to the Army citation that accompanied her Silver Star. “She then cleared two trenches with her squad leader where she engaged and eliminated three AIF [anti-Iraqi forces] with her M4 rifle. Her actions saved the lives of numerous convoy members.”