@@lanceroberthough1275 my father told me if they heard AK fire cause an AK makes a distinct sound they'd think it was the VC or NVA n risked a friendly fire incident or getting a strike on their position.
@@WilliamFlansburg-uj7zm my father said the same thing around 1966/67 during the transition over to the M16. I heard the VC would take AK rounds n shoot them outta captured M14 since it was still a shorter .30 cal round still.
Actually you couldn't trust enemy ammo. You never knew when one of ours had took a bag of spicy ammo with him on a little night trip behind enemy lines and swapped a single round from an enemies magazine or ammo belt with one designed to explode as soon as you tried to fire it. We also used to leave entire enemy gun positions standing after having done the same thing, hoping they'd come back to get it and the ammo. You can imagine the psychological implications of that I'm sure.
No they didn't US troops were expressly forbidden to use captured 7.62x 39 ammo because of the sabotaged ammo slipped into their supplies by MACV-SOG teams with Project Eldest Son
@@StrangeTerrorin his book SOG, John L. Plaster refers dead NVAs with the bolt of their AKs stuck deep in their eye sockets due to tampered overloaded ammo. As a NVA soldier, I'm sure it wouldn't cheer you up much... 😱 🪰🪰🪰
They didn't prefer the ak, thats the biggest lie bro, the m16 only failed the 2 first years and in 1967 they introduced the m16a1 with no fails, some guys grabbed an ak but the majority prefer the m16a1
Why did US troops in Vietnam use AK47s instead of the M16? Short Answer: They didnt. Long Answer: Some did but it's almost exclusive to special forces. There's some examples of regular troop using Vietnamese weapons in certain circumstances but it was not common in the slightest. Soldiers would take AKs and other weapons as trophies/ souvenirs constantly which is why they're pictured with them from time to time not because they actually used them.
that makes much more sense i dont know how reliable this fact is, but one thing i heard about why soldiers never use the enemies guns is because the noise the different guns make when firing can potentially confuse your own troops
@@Hyde-dg7ef Hell, the jungle was confusing enough. A friend of my dad's was involved in a 45 minute long blue on blue firefight in 'Nam. No casualties.
@@rockpadstudios was a weapons instructor. We got the history of the M16. The army wanted a 7.6mm or a 6.5 mm and was rigging the tests to fail stoners design. He flew to and figured out what the army was doing and called them on it. An Air Farce Gen asked if he could contract the M16 for his Air Police (Security police or Security Forces). Thats how the military got the M16
I worked in the government doing EMP testing for the Air Force and there are a lot of scummy people working for the government. Many professionals also but there are people that just get in the way of progress because they want to feel they are more than what they really are. @@OutBack-pt4zm
@linusmayden8465 Lmao yes they do! The myth about AKs never jamming and being super rugged has been disproven so many times. Watch any video on RU-vid of a content creator doing a mud test with an AK amd an M16 and see that AK completely seize up while the M16 just doesn’t stop.
The M-16 was an early design that was subject to jamming. The 20 round magazines them selves would jam or stick with 20 rounds. Which made it necessary to load only 18 rounds. There was a problem with the M16 fouling with mud. The M-14 was 100% battle ready all the time. It had none of the problems of the M-16, or the AK-47. Which made a distinct sploosh sound when fired. How do I know. I was there. I carried an M-14.
Who knew that dirt getting compressed and baked would be super hard and could throw off the function of a gun. DIRT IS JUST A BUNCH OF LITTLE ROCKY SHIMS
@@andrewmiller5794 hmm, interesting. I don’t know how that would work as the CAR-15 Carbine had a much faster rate of fire, but it’s not impossible. Ima look into that, thanks for the info.
The ammo used in tests of the M16 used expensive civilian propellant powder that did not cause appreciable fouling, so some clown decided the weapon needed no cleaning kit and the weapon did not need cleaning. Meanwhile, the dudes in charge of procurement changed the propellant for the 5.56 round to military “Ball” Propellant powder, which was much cheaper but does cause serious fouling. Thus a perfect storm was created.
McNamara went on a fact finding mission to Vietnam and when he got back he told Kennedy he was being lied to about the war. This is one of the reasons the pres. decided to pull out of Vietnam in '63 before it really even started per National Security Action Memorandum 263. But then Dallas and one of the first things the usurper did was reverse that order. 🤔 Nothing to see here folks.
Never saw anyone carry an AK in the field. A few laying around in hooch's, bunkers, and guard shacks as kind of backups. The SOG guys carried CAR-15/XM177 with 30 round mags. Did see some NVA who were KIA that carried M-16s, and M-2 Carbines.
Sad reality’s in my high school rn we a a stone plaque by this tree honoring students who lost their lives in Vietnam and people step on it which pisses me off cuz they just disrespect someone who died for a pointless war
Thank Bob McNamara and the Democrat party for embroiling us in a pointless war with no clearly defined and realistic goals or accountability for our leaders. Sounds oddly familiar.
Myth: Ho Chi Minh was a nationalist and a benevolent leader of his people Fact: Ho Chi Minh was a dedicated communist and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of his fellow countrymen. Ho Chi Minh was a founding member of the French Communist Party in 1920 and founded the IndoChinese Communist Party in 1930. He spent four years training in Russia and became a member of the Comintern. He was not just a member of the Comintern. He was the protege of Dmitry Manuilsky, right hand man to both Stalin and Lenin. He was a dedicated Stalinist who never swayed from his desire to forward the cause of international communism. He turned his fellow countrymen over to the French for money and to eliminate his rivals while consolidating his power. He "purged" the North Vietnamese landowner class, killing at least 50,000 (some estimates are as high as 900,000!) of them for the "crime" of being financially independent. He slaughtered and imprisoned hundreds of thousands of his own countrymen in the South in an effort to rid himself of all opposition
Exactly, I came into contact with people from all over the world in my younger years. One thing about Israeli former IDF was this. In Battle Ak's were picked up an.d slung over their shoulder and enemy ammo scooped up. Why? In intense fire fights using the 9mm sub machine gun, ammo could be expended quickly in intense firefights. Having a back up weapon could be the difference in surviving firefights against the enemy. And second, many IDF carried as many grenades as they could carry. This was a very common topic of conversations I had with former IDF soldiers Male or female. If I had one choice for ANY weapon to only Carry it would be a very modified SKS. Just my two cents. One other thing they also scooped up a rifle I think it was called a Rasheed and it was also 7.62x32.
Additional facts: M16 was first marketed as a self cleaning rifle and didnt require much maintnace becouse of that troops werent issued cleaning kits and the lower quality munition built more remnant inside making the situation even worse
That was actually a propaganda machine by the Army Ordinance Corps to make the troops more disappointed. They wanted the rifle to fail intentionally. The only thing hard chrome about that thing was the BCG and bolt, (which is excellent even by today’s standards)
@@earlyprimateI couldn’t agree more, however, there was more then that, the Army Ordnance Corps completely sabotaged the whole M16 project, from aluminum that is more corrosive, to no chrome lined barrel.
@CowboybubPercussion yea the ordinance corps really wanted to screw the M16 hard. Must of been pissed when idk the army actually investigated why this was happening
@@lucasfragoso7634 basically a general wanted his legacy to be the M14 and the 7.62x51 nato cartridge to be his legacy in life, but instead he found himself in infamy
Correction, it wasn’t design flaws in the M16, it was sabotaged by request when the M16 was requested to NOT use original manufacture spec aluminum, lack chrome lined barrel, AND literally request ammunition that wasn’t only charged with underpowered powder, but it was also significantly more corrosive!! If you consider all these things combined it’s a miracle it made it at all. If these things were manufacture specification, Not military, the M16 would’ve surpassed the AK47 because the gas system spits mud away from the chamber.
The big problem for US troops who used AK-47’s was their distinctive noise. They sounded completely different than M16’s. Troops using them often got fired on by friendly troops thinking they were VC
Nah, we used the AK 47 for 3 reasons: 1. If the point man carried an AK and dressed in black, it gave him an advantage on 1st sighting, the opposition thought he was one of them, he knew they were opposition, 1st shot wins that contest, 2. The AK and M16 each had a distinctive sound, in a contact situation the other side tended not to fire at AK noises, and 3. It looked way cool carrying an AK to the pogo pricks who never went beyond the wire.
Number 1 sounds dangerously close to violating The Hague Convention, but I guess the Vietcong didn’t have much in the way of a uniform so I guess it would be fine.
The biggest problem with the roll-out of M16s was the widespread belief that they were self-cleaning. It was touted as this “weapon of the future” with plastic furniture instead of wood. Most problems were fixed once cleaning kits became standard issue and we switched to more reliable ammo
There is a Difference between: "they use them" and "they learn how to operate weapons of the enemy in covert Operations Or in a Situation where there Standard issued weapons are unavailable (logistics)" And i guess all militarys do Look on especially common weapon familys Like the AK's.
@@lebijr I hate to inform you but unless you can shoot using the force then you need to have your hand on the gun which means to train with it you need to use it.
The problem with the AK-47 IS IT MADE A SPLOOSH SOUND. WHILE THE M-16 had a distinct short pop sound. In a firefight in heavy jungle folage. U. S. troups were told to direct their fire towards the sound of the AK-47. How do I know this. I was there. I carried an M-14. Which sounded like any 30-06. Powerful.
Navy seal told me this was BS. VC boobytrapped weapons all the time just like Seals and SF did with the exploding AK ammo they left for the VC He carried an M2 carbine or a Swedish K. When he came home after his 3rd tour, he sold every last gun in his house because he didn't trust himself.
I had never heard of that and I looked that up. I wonder if that whole thing was made up. Just saying you did this would be pretty effective psychologically. If that story was not planted in the media that is a very actionable treason charge. Most probable case is they did it and leaked a story they did it. It was publicized the military was in trouble for too slowly planting the bad munitions. Meaning they were going to drastically increase the sabotage to save face. That’s a pretty specific twist on psychological warfare. Public ally stating we have been doing it and plan to do a lot more of it.
This isn’t fully true only special forces used them for the most part and the main reason is once it starts becoming widespread the enemy will start setting traps on them and then you’ll have thousands killed or taken out of action from trapped weapons and ammo. It’s been that way since WW2 because of how many were killed in that exact way
I heard tipically the point man of foot patrols in special operations would dress as an nva soldier and carry an ak to try and get the first shots on the enemy while theyre guard was down
Special operations guys used AK's because they didn't want the enemy to know they were American the AK and the M-16 sound completely different when fired.
A lot of it had to do with covering the fact that it was American forces. SF units often operated in places they were not supposed to be like Laos and Cambodia. A bunch of 5.56mm shell casings was a dead giveaway but if they used AK's or even sometimes an M1 or M2 carbine it could be blamed on the Arvin or locals.
It also depended on the unit you were with. I flew with HMH-463 Sea Stallions, you had a choice of what you wanted to carry. I carried a .38 in a cowboy holster and was responsible for the two M-60's. My crew chief carried an M-3 Grease Gun. Regards, Denis Berte' USMC (Nam 70-71)
From what I've researched about this topic, when the M16 was first being battle tested it did have a lot of reliability issues plus the soldiers weren't too impressed with the polymer and plastics. (Guns up to this point were metal and occasionally wooden furniture) There was a running joke amongst the men that the M in M16 stood for Mattel since it felt like a toy, which led to actual lore that Mattel was contracted to manufacture weapons during the conflict (which wasn't the case). I may not be 100%, but this seems to be the information I'd read. And props to the M16 rifle itself. After working out the issues, it became one of the most functional and versatile weapons of the next half century.
The initial units that first tested it were in special operations units or the air force. Both really liked it. The M16 was light, very maneuverable, and could very quickly put down rounds that were also accurate. The units that received them when the rifle got formally adopted would go on to NOT like them. This was mainly because of the reliability issues caused by ordnance corps. They changed the powder used which caused jams, they didn't chrome line the bore which caused the rifle to corrode, they told the soldiers it was self cleaning when it wasn't. The military messed with the design of the rifle and it got people killed. Had the M16 been left alone and remained the way it was when the other units tested it, the history of the gun would be much better. All the stuff about the plastic and polymers was born out of preexisting disdain for what they thought was an unreliable weapon
@@rad_lad_2715 I had no idea. Wow.. they should have left alone what had been battle tested and proven, and provided better instruction. Those men didn't deserve the bad information or to rely on equipment that had been altered....
Love how my phone listens to me because ive been playing amra reforger on the nam server talking about exactly this yesterday and i have taken over 100 clips since then but randomly got a recommended video about a topic i specifically discussed, they aint even trying to hide it
A friend of mine was in Vietnam, a patrol went out and they didn't come back on time, after a time another patrol went out to find them, they found the patrol dead, their m16's had all jammed.
But they went from ball powder to stick powder and bigger gas tubes and from what I was told they were issued the guns and said they did not need cleaning so they were not give cleaning kits so I've heard
My watchmaker was a former _Commando_ Sargent in the Portuguese Army in Angola and they were forbidden to use AKs or SKS in combat in order to avoid any friendly fire incident or ammo issues. He praised the rifle a lot - they always called it the _Kalash_ - but they used the great G3 exclusively, and even so in semiauto only except the point man. He could carry his in full auto, in case he had a bad day.
The design of the M16A1 was excellent. Unfortunately, the army decided to use shitty ammunition, Colt took liberties with the design, and the army failed to issue cleaning kits with the rifles. The AR15 and it's derivatives were and still are one of the best fighting rifles/carbines ever made. Providing further proof, as if any was needed, that the government ruins everything it touches.
Surprisingly, after the initial issues with the m16 in combat, they normally outperformed the ak47 simply because the former is better in wet, muddy environmental conditions, while the ak is better in arid, sandy environment. The reason a lot of Americans were using them was either for the psychological effect of killing your enemies with their own weapons, or due to convenience. There were also the special forces that used them to blend in and take them out from the inside.
The M16 had two original problems, one was magazine size, the AK47 had 30 rounds, and the M16 had 20 rounds, because the pencil pushers at the Pentagon didn't want our troops wasting bullets in a fight. Second the contractor that the Pentagon had to manufacture the M16 rounds changed the original composition of the powder, using a less powerful powder from the M14 bullets. To save money, these lower powered rounds failed to eject after the first shot and had to be pryed out by knife/bayonet , but the next round also failed to eject. When the enemy realized these things they went full auto and charged our troops. You never bring a knife to a gun fight. Politicians and civilian contractors killed our troops, and they were not prosecuted. I was shot more than a dozen times with an AK47, the Doctors took out 5, but i still have 3 in me. I view the M16 as a 9, but the AK47 is a 10.
The M-16 jammed with even a speck of dirt in the action, but the AK-47 would function even in a sandstorm and although sandstorms didn't occur in Vietnam, the battlefields in Vietnam were very dusty which mattered with the M-16, but not with the AK-47. The AK-47 didn't require as much cleaning as the M-16, which meant that you weren't likely to have to clean the AK-47 while people were shooting at you like you would with the M-16 and it wasn't the powder that changed between the prototype and the production model, it was the projectile
Not only lack of quality, Colt knowingly sold thousands of bent barreled M-16's. The sounds of each rifle was quite distinct . Charlie would fire at sounds of an M-16. Barrels had wrong twist rate. ARs fired to fast causing jams, a change to slower weight "After " war ended. Over 1 million Vietnamese died by M-16 compared to 50,000 + Americans by Ak.
The use of AK's by American forces did more than confuse the enemy, it also confused friendly forces into thinking the shooter was NVA or Viet Cong. So sometimes an American soldier firing an AK might receive friendly fire, as his buddies recognized the sound of the AK and returned fire. (But if they had existed at the time, an AK chambered in 5.56 would have been readily accepted over the M16.)
In 1968, to avoid these problems with the m16, a few green berets used the musket and bow and arrow for a variety of reaons: to get back to their primative historical roots, for stealth, and diminish their carbon foot print 👣
The M16 was getting most of our guy's killed due to all the jamming. But the AK-47 you could find at the bottom of the river and it would still fire without hesitation. It's no wonder Mozambique has the AK-47 on their country flag.
MACV-SOG used AKs because it didn't sound like an M16, and as another commenter said, most of the issues with the M16 were ironed out within the first year.
We were in Vietnam for a long time. Every soldier that went into the field had a unique experience. My experience. I spent a year in the field. 1969 1970. I personally used a car 15. Those were issued to men with my MOS. Scout dog handler. In my time in the field I never saw a US soldier carrying an AK-47. The only ones I ever saw we’re being used by the enemy.
My dad served with the River Patrol Force, Task Force 116, River Section 511, 1967-68. His weapon of choice? The M-79 grenade launcher. He was the patrol offer on the lead boat, they had plenty of firepower and the M-79 gave them additional ways to end the enemy before the Honeywell came out and was made available. Brown Water Black Beret By Commander Thomas J Cutler, US Naval Historian. Chapter “God-Be-Here” That’s him…..
If they changed the ammo load then why didn't they mass issue the XM-177 when it had a shorter gas system and shorter buffer tube which could help the AR15 itself load a round easier because of the amount of gas needed to travel on the gas tube to the bolt carrier.
The “Earliest” M16s were in use with special forces groups and performed well, which is what got them accepted for wider army issue - the problems began after. For one reason or another, either bureaucratic incompetence or possibly even deliberate sabotage by the Army Ordnance corps trying to save Springfield Armory and the M14, the M16s delivered to the Army had key deficiencies. The mass-produced ammunition used the wrong powder, whose residue would gum up the mechanism with extended firing. The chamber was not chrome lined, which made the powder problem worse, while also corroding in the humid environment. Unlike the Special Forces soldiers who had been using the rifles before, the typical american serviceman was a conscript who had never been trained on the rifle until after he arrived in Vietnam. Cleaning kits for the rifles were not issued, and there are stories that the soldiers were even told the M16 “cleans itself,” further compounding the other problems. The magazines were made of VERY thin aluminum, designed to be disposable after one use. Of course, they were instead reused repeatedly and wore out quickly. On top of this, as US Army ordnance had previously rigged several rifle selection trials in favor of the M14, the early reports of the M16’s problems were assumed to be exaggerated and were not taken seriously until soldiers started writing their congressmen personally.
The reason was scavenging ammo off of Charlie. The m-16's issue's were the cheaper powder used it the 5.56 cartridge issue a few months after the M-16 was first deployed. Up until that point, it worked well with the high-quality ammo first provided. Some worthless politician decided to lower the quality of the ammo and pocket the cash. Of course, this was a blessing in disguise. The army worked their asses off to accommodate the poor cartridge by improving the already decent M-16 platform with a cleaning kit and improved components.
Spec ops used AKs for easy ammo since a fallen enemy will supply you and if you open fire, it sounds like an NVA opened fire vs the distinctive M16 5.56 fire sound
The scariest sound in a firefight is when you pull the trigger and hear nothing but a click ..jam ?..misfire ?..squib round ?..bean counters screwing us up with unreliable powder/ primers ?! Yes..
The issues with the M-16 was due to the army making changes that lead to the problems which Stoner had already encountered and solved. And AK-47 was rarely used by anyone in combat unless they didn't maintain their M-16 and had a problem they might take one to use but since they weren't issued ammo for them they would ship them home if converted to semi auto otherwise the left them in the armory. Almost every one who went in behind the lines used AK-47's since that was what the enemy used and it would confuse them if they were fired at by their own weapons.
The M16 problems resulted from the Army switching to a cheaper powder that was dirtier and had a different pressure curve. Did additional filing from the dirtier powder eliminated the rifles ability to be self-cleaning. This problem was solved quickly by the hasty issue of cleaning kits. The new powder provided the same muzzle velocity what's a different pressure curve resulted in much higher pressure when the gas is vented into the action. This higher pressure resulted in the action opening faster and with more force which compromise the Integrity of the parts, directly breaking some but causing others to corrode faster. When Colt Arms Company found out about the problems and what it was they're very quickly came up with a fix in the Army switch to the modified design.
The day I turned 18 I signed on the dotted line’ 75’ and the guys back from Vietnam talked about AK-47 being better in the field with mud and dirt’ and banging around and not needing to clean as much as the M-16’ but it did seem special forces had that option on what weapons they wanted’ shotgun sawed off was another option’ I heard’
Not to mention,when they used the AK,they could resupply ammo just about anywhere,and sense it was the same caliber,the VC couldn't distinguish who was firing
A lot of people tend to forget or just don’t know, that after a while when the enemy caught on to the troops picking up the Ak’s the enemy would then boobytrap the ak’s with some sort of explosive resulting in the troops going back to the m-16s.
That weapon was not tested on the battlefield in vietnam. The M16 made its first appearance for the secret service, under the Kennedy administration. It was tested on a US president. She also: the Zubriter film.
Also resulted in many friendly fire incidents. In the dark, a man left behind in retreat would get cut down, because he was still firing at the enemy with an AK-47.
Okay let me explain the M16 it did have maintenance problems because it was not built for the jungle but they were well trained with the guns but the guns were breaking down because they were not built to be in the humid jungle environment that was the problem with them but they did get fixed in later models but that only happened about halfway through the Vietnam war and no they actually didn't prefer the enemy guns they were actually told not to pick up the enemy guns because they could be rigged with explosives or a trap
Kind of getting sick of finding out our government had the audacity to cut corners to the extent that they did and didn’t think we would get sick of it. Man, when they want their slave army they will do anything to get it.
The AK might have been better on reliabilty but it made a distinct sound when fired. Sure it'll confuse the enemy but friendlies in the area would have trouble discerning is that AK fire a friend or foe.
