“Unveiling the Unexpected: Is It Possible for a Gun to Hit Targets Beyond Corners?”
The deficiencies of the battle rifle concept became glaringly obvious as the United States entered the Vietnam War, where the bulky, wood-stocked M14 proved prone to snagging in heavy brush and warping in the tropical humidity. By contrast, the Chinese-supplied SKSs and AKs used by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army proved ideally suited to jungle warfare, being light, compact, reliable, and capable of controlled automatic fire. It quickly became clear to U.S. Commanders that an American answer to the AK was desperately needed. Thankfully, just such a weapon was already in development.
In 1954, Richard Boutelle, president of the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation, created the ArmaLite division to explore the use of aluminium and other aerospace materials in firearms design. The division’s first success came that same year when it designed the lightweight folding AR-5 and AR-7 survival rifles for use by U.S. aircrew shot down behind enemy lines. In 1957, ArmaLite was invited to enter the competition for a new U.S. Forces rifle to replace the WWII-era M1 Garand, and to this end designer Eugene Stoner produced the AR-10, a lightweight aluminium-bodied rifle firing the 7.62x51mm NATO round. While the AR-10 would ultimately lose out to the M14, that same year General Willard G. Wyman, commander of the U.S. Army Continental Command, put out a request for a lightweight automatic rifle to fire the newly-developed 5.56x45mm or .223 calibre intermediate cartridge. Stoner scaled down the AR-10 design to create a new rifle called the AR-15, which after extensive trials and conversion to fully-automatic capability was adopted into U.S. service in 1964 as the M16. While the lightweight, space-age weapon was initially disparaged by troops as the “Mattel Rifle”, the M16 quickly proved its worth in the jungles of Vietnam, and Eugene Stoner’s AR system has formed the basis for all standard U.S. military service rifles to the present day. The rifle also set the trend for modern assault rifles, the 5.56x45mm cartridge being flatter-shooting and more lightweight than the Russian 7.62×54, the latter feature allowing an infantryman to carry more ammunition. As a result, in 1974 the Soviet Union replaced the AKM with the AK74 firing the broadly similar 5.45x39mm cartridge. And in 1980 NATO adopted 5.56x45mm as its infantry standard, replacing the full-power 7.62×51.
