M-16: A Bureaucratic Horror Story (1981)
A factor that the article doesn&#x27;t emphasize enough is the extent to which schedule pressure contributed to the bugginess of the released rifle.<p>The Kalashnikov had been designed in 1947, (hence, AK-47), but it took more than a decade before a bug-free version (the AKM) was considered reliable enough to make standard-issue. (When this article refers to &quot;AK-47s&quot;, most of the actual weapons involved were actually AKMs.)<p>The US, by contrast, had spent the decades since WWII resisting the assault rifle concept, so that when Vietnam rolled around their fantastically rich and well-funded military found its infantry outgunned by peasant militias wielding second-hand Soviet rifles. So the rifle went from initial acceptance, including these kinds of stupid last-minute design changes that are common in any project, to large-scale combat deployment within a year; normally, there would have been years of incremental usage to catch these bugs, but the rifle was so desperately needed that it was rushed to the front.<p>A book I&#x27;ve recommended in another thread, which gives a great introduction to the history and impact of the Kalashnikov in particular and assault rifles in general, is C.J. Chivers&#x27;s &quot;The Gun&quot; (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Gun-C-J-Chivers&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0743271734" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.amazon.com&#x2F;Gun-C-J-Chivers&#x2F;dp&#x2F;0743271734</a>), or this shorter-form article he wrote in response to recent msas shootings (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;interactive&#x2F;2016&#x2F;world&#x2F;ak-47-mass-shootings.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;interactive&#x2F;2016&#x2F;world&#x2F;ak-47-mass-sh...</a>)