[wvns] Weapons fail US troops in Afghan firefight

Weapons failed US troops during Afghan firefight
Oct 11, 2009
By RICHARD LARDNER
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091011/D9B8SUPO0.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - In the chaos of an early morning assault on a remote
U.S. outpost in eastern Afghanistan, Staff Sgt. Erich Phillips' M4
carbine quit firing as militant forces surrounded the base. The
machine gun he grabbed after tossing the rifle aside didn't work
either.

When the battle in the small village of Wanat ended, nine U.S.
soldiers lay dead and 27 more were wounded. A detailed study of the
attack by a military historian found that weapons failed repeatedly at
a "critical moment" during the firefight on July 13, 2008, putting the
outnumbered American troops at risk of being overrun by nearly 200
insurgents.

Which raises the question: Eight years into the war against the
Taliban in Afghanistan, do U.S. armed forces have the best guns money
can buy?

Despite the military's insistence that they do, a small but vocal
number of troops in Afghanistan and Iraq has complained that the
standard-issue M4 rifles need too much maintenance and jam at the
worst possible times.

A week ago, eight U.S. troops were killed at a base near Kamdesh, a
town near Wanat. There's no immediate evidence of weapons failures at
Kamdesh, but the circumstances were eerily similar to the Wanat
battle: insurgents stormed an isolated stronghold manned by American
forces stretched thin by the demands of war.

Army Col. Wayne Shanks, a military spokesman in Afghanistan, said a
review of the battle at Kamdesh is under way. "It is too early to make
any assumptions regarding what did or didn't work correctly," he said.
Complaints about the weapons the troops carry, especially the M4,
aren't new. Army officials say that when properly cleaned and
maintained, the M4 is a quality weapon that can pump out more than
3,000 rounds before any failures occur.

The M4 is a shorter, lighter version of the M16, which made its debut
during the Vietnam war. Roughly 500,000 M4s are in service, making it
the rifle troops on the front lines trust with their lives.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a leading critic of the M4, said Thursday
the Army needs to move quickly to acquire a combat rifle suited for
the extreme conditions U.S. troops are fighting in.

U.S. special operations forces, with their own acquisition budget and
the latitude to buy gear the other military branches can't, already
are replacing their M4s with a new rifle.

"The M4 has served us well but it's not as good as it needs to be," Coburn said.

Battlefield surveys show that nearly 90 percent of soldiers are
satisfied with their M4s, according to Brig. Gen. Peter Fuller, head
of the Army office that buys soldier gear. Still, the rifle is
continually being improved to make it even more reliable and lethal.
Fuller said he's received no official reports of flawed weapons
performance at Wanat. "Until it showed up in the news, I was surprised
to hear about all this," he said.

The study by Douglas Cubbison of the Army Combat Studies Institute at
Fort Leavenworth, Kan., hasn't been publicly released. Copies of the
study have been leaked to news organizations and are circulating on
the Internet.

Cubbison's study is based on an earlier Army investigation and
interviews with soldiers who survived the attack at Wanat. He
describes a well-coordinated attack by a highly skilled enemy that
unleashed a withering barrage with AK-47 automatic rifles and
rocket-propelled grenades.

The soldiers said their weapons were meticulously cared for and
routinely inspected by commanders. But still the weapons had
breakdowns, especially when the rifles were on full automatic, which
allows hundreds of bullets to be fired a minute.

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.

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.

"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.

Bogar was killed during the firefight, but no one saw how he died,
according to the report.

*********************************************************************

WORLD VIEW NEWS SERVICE

To subscribe to this group, send an email to:
wvns-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

NEWS ARCHIVE IS OPEN TO PUBLIC VIEW
http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

Need some good karma? Appreciate the service?
Please consider donating to WVNS today.
Email ummyakoub@yahoo.com for instructions.

To leave this list, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

------------------------------------

Yahoo! Groups Links

<*> To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/

<*> Your email settings:
Individual Email | Traditional

<*> To change settings online go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wvns/join
(Yahoo! ID required)

<*> To change settings via email:
mailto:wvns-digest@yahoogroups.com
mailto:wvns-fullfeatured@yahoogroups.com

<*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
wvns-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

<*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to:
http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/