I just had to vent a little...
The debate between the M16 and AK47 has been raging since the Vietnam War. With the advent of online shooting forums, it has reached new levels of retarded.
The entire premise of the debate is stupid! And here's why, starting with a brief summary of each gun.
The AK47 was designed in the waning hours of WWII. Largely inspired by the German STG-44 rifle, Kalashnikov and his team wanted to create an automatic rifle that was solider proof and weather proof. The AK has been praised for its ruggedness, simplicity, lack of moving parts, and ease of maintenance. The weapon was purposely made that way for a simple reason: Stalin. During Stalin's reign, Red Army vets who returned from POW camps were put into the gulags because of their "expose to the corrupting fascist influence." The army had been purged in the 1930s, making its leadership some of the most ineffective in the world at that time. Gun control was also a staple of the Communist philosophy. How else could the Ukraine be starved into submission? The average Russian grunt entering service had no real knowledge or experience related to firearms. Kalashnikov wanted the rifle to be stupid simple. In short, it was meant to be used by a poorly equipped, poorly trained (and even worse lead), conscript army.
The M16 was different, slightly. The average American GI in 1965 had some kind of gun handling experience, mainly from hunting or other sporting activities. He already knew how to safely inspect a gun and aim properly. The M16 is a finely tuned machine that needs proper, consistent care. Despite early problems with the original weapon, the XM16E1, the M16A1 released in 1968 corrected all of that. Compared to the M14, it's lighter weight, allowed for more ammunition to be carried on one's person, and it was shorter (which was perfect for the helicopter-based mobile warfare strategy in Vietnam). The weapon is ideally suited to a highly trained, well-supplied, well-disciplined, modern army.
Neither weapon is better than the other. They are both assault rifles, designed to hit targets at 300 yards, open sights (studies show this to be the average combat distance between belligerents on modern battlefields, which had been closing since the world wars).
The argument is clothed in the "illusion" of a debate because people taint it with political references. Yes, the Vietnamese used the AK and we left after ten, one-year tours. So what? Something else I've noticed is that people debate the issue based on the first variants ever produced. Even the original AK47 underwent substantial renovations after Stalin's death in the mid 1950s. The modern AKM is a far cry from the "bullet hose" used by insurgents in the Middle East. Consequently, the M16 is much better than it was in the past. We have better parts, better cleaning materials, better training (fueled by lots of experience), and better ammunition.
And any soldier will tell you that the human is the real weapon. Soldiers don't gloat about their guns, they gloat about the fact they can use ANY gun to complete the mission (if they have to).
The entire debate is stupid.
Up next: 1911 v. Everyone Else!
