You might be asking why after all this time I decided to reach out to @CalBear and humbly ask for just one final take on the subject, specifically to discuss the firearm known officially as United States Rifle, Caliber 7.62 mm, M14 and if NATO decided to adopt it instead of the FAL.
Am I trolling? No, but instead this is the complete and honest truth here yet I totally understand if for any reason one of the moderators decide to kick me per the rules on trolling despite not being my intention at all.
Instead, to be both humbly and sincerely honest with you all, I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was when I created this thread,
my literal first one after joining the site as a member, and got overwhelmed.
I even didn't say much and the last post I made on this thread (https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ndardize-weaponry.463940/page-9#post-19305667 ) was just two videos I found and no comment by yours truly.
I just wasn't sure how to best respond to the inquiries and make my case.
But after conducting some significant research here since January, I now feel extremely confident that I can make a convincing argument on how the M14 could plausibly be labeled as the Right of the Free World instead of the FAL.
And my sources are as follows in case anyone would like to check them out:
* The 12th Edition of Small Arms of the World by Edward Clinton Ezell, published in 1983.
* The Last Steel Warrior: U.S. M14 Rifle by Frank Iannamico, published in 2005.
* Cut Down In Its Youth: Arguably America's Best Service Rifle, the M14 Never Had the Chance to Prove Itself by Phil Schreier.
* The New M14 Complete Owner's Guide by Walt Kuleck, published in 2017.
* The M14 Battle Rifle by Leroy Thompson, published in 2014
* Operational Requirements for an Infantry Hand Weapon by Norman Hitchman, published in 1952.
*Random Shots: Episodes in the Life of a Weapons Developer by Roy E. Rayle, published in 1997.
* AGAINST ALL ODDS - THE MAN BEHIND THE M14 RIFLE: LT. COL. ROY E. RAYLE by George Kontis P.E.
*https://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2011/4/18/marksmanship-matters/
* Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afghanistan: Taking Back the Infantry Half-Kilometer by Major Thomas Ehrhart of the United States Army, published in 2009.
*
*https://www.m14forum.com/threads/the-m14-–-why-did-it-fail-and-who-was-to-blame.507075/
*https://www.m14forum.com/threads/how-reliable-is-the-m14-in-combat.507405/
*https://www.m14forum.com/threads/m14-production-the-myth.508459/
*https://www.quora.com/Was-the-M14-a-better-weapon-than-the-M16
So anyway, please forgive the lengthy message for this fresh take as I decided to make up for the lost time by listing key points here.
If any of the moderators think it would be better for me to break my post separately, or perhaps even just do a completely new fresh thread to address the subject, then I'll without hesitation do so.
I only decided to have just only One Final Chance with this subject and at least have the opportunity to present my case here.
With that out of the way, I'm now going to state my hopefully compelling case to the jury.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1) I'm going to start with addressing the manufacturing issues as noted in the 1962 Hitch Report and this was due to an unanticipated SNAFU situation endured by two contractors: Winchester and Harrington & Richardson.
========================================================================================================
Winchester: (Paraphrased from The Last Steel Warrior: U.S. M14 Rifle by Frank Iannamico, pages 92-94)
The first commercial entity chosen to manufacture the new M14 rifle was Winchester, a well-known, and longtime manufacturer of firearms. The company had previous experience manufacturing the similar M1 rifle during World War Two and Winchester placed a biid to produce the M14 at the price of $68.75 per rifle.
Winchester planned to automate the manufacturing process of more complicated parts such as the receiver.
The company was awarded its first contract on February 17th, 1959 with the first delivery of completed rifles expected by April of 1960 and the first contract was to be completed by March of 1961.
However, Winchester encountered a number of problems during their initial production.
The arms maker had originally planned to produce the M14s during one shift and sporting rifles on a second shift. In April of 1960, the firm was given a second contract for an additional 81,500 rifles and Winchester agreed to a December 1961 delivery date.
Although Winchester hoped to expedite production by using automated machinery, the manufacture of the complex receiver proved to be more difficult than planned. And they ordered two expensive machines which were especially built to produce the said receivers by performing thirty-two critical machining operations.
There were also unexpected delays in delivering the machinery and setting them up for production, not to mention encountering trouble in making barrels for the M14 as well.
Due to the diligence of Winchester employees, the difficulties were solved and production was back on track. By 1961 most of the hindrance had been resolved and Winchester began meeting the monthly production goals on schedule. Full-time technical assistance from Springfield Armory was discontinued in March of 1962.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
H&R: (Paraphrased from The Last Steel Warrior: U.S. M14 Rifle by Frank Iannamico, pages 94-99)
Harrington & Richardson, Inc. was a well established firearms manufacturer and had previously built weapons under contract for the U.S. Government. The company had planned to produce the M14 at low cost by using much of the machinery and parts they had left from their M1 rifle contract along with using a number of subcontractors to manufacture and supply parts.
The first government contract was awarded to H&R in April of 1959 with first deliveries of the rifles to be expected in June of 1960. The firm had barely begun delivering their first productions when they received a second contract for an additional 75,000 M14 rifles at a cost of $97.70 per rifle, not to mention raising the production requirements to 10,000 rifles per month.
While the company did manage to substantially increase production, the rejection rate by Ordnance inspection personnel also increased disportionately, resulting in a dispute after government personnel blamed poor quality control at the plant.
During extended range firing of some of the new M14 rifles at Fort Benning in December of 1960, three of the weapons experienced catastrophic failures which included a receiver built by H&R, serial number 73293, and two bolt failures. It was quickly discovered that all of the failed components were of H&R manufacture, causing an overhaul of rifles at several installations and personnel dispatched to the manufacturing facility in Massachusetts.
After reviewing the procedure and manufuracturing process it was concluded that low-grade steel had somehow been used to build an unknown number of receivers and bolts, and while the blame was initially cast on poor methods at H&R, the actual problem was eventually learned to be a mixed up with the suppliers of the steel.
By August of 1961, following an inspection to remove the defective receivers and a change in the manufacturing process, Harrington & Richardson were producing quality weapons that easily passed all of the inspections conducted at Springfield Armory.
==========================================================================
And therefore it was the initial production of the M14s until quality control at both Winchester and H&R was corrected by early 1962 with even the National Rifle Association going from completely critical of the Army's new service rifle to vocal optimistic believers and that was after an official NRA delegation visited the individual factories to see what was going on, even going so far as to praise the firm TRW.
In fact, it's pretty ironic how the two notable firearms companies suffered problems as contractors while Thompson Ramo Wooldridge Inc., which had no previous firearms experience at all before winning the bid, suffered no rejections at all.
The 1962 Hitch Report was also criticizing the early productions specifically.
And while only a sidenote not completely relevant, it's also ironic that TRW was an aircraft parts manufacturer and of course, the successor to the M14, the M16, is partially the result of the aerospace industry, not to mention that Armalite even made a bid to produce M14s only for the government to choose TRW.
Imagine what Eugene Stoner could've done tinkering with the design!
Or even Studebaker, another unsuccessful bidder.
2) While there are mixed reports about reliability in desert environments for both rifles with more sources on sand being a problem for the FN FAL, at least based on what I have gathered, the M14 has been tested to the utmost to work in cold environments and even if the biased test against the T48 is taken away, there are other reports to vindicate the reliability differences.
Granted, there are more iterations of the FAL compared with the M14 but despite sand cuts, it failed the Israelis which resulted in them replacing it with the Galil.
And interestingly there hasn't been similar complaints, at least as far as I'm aware of, on the M14s transferred to the IDF from the United States Government as military aid.
The FAL is no longer in service with NATO members nor has it surfaced in Afghanistan for use as even a stopgap DMR rifle compared to the M14 and G3 platforms.
3) All of the studies conducted by S.L.A Marshall has been called into question by the 1990s by historians and other researchers, which seriously raised red flags on his credibility as a military researcher on effectiveness in combat.
4) I stumbled on a post by @ExScientiaTridens on this site, and he pointed out some serious flaws with how the Hitchman study was tested:
After reading the report for myself, I honestly don't know why Infantrymen weren't used here to carry out the study as their primary purpose is to use rifles in combat to engage the enemy, not build or destroy bridges under fire.
5) The M1 Garand, Post - World War 2, was either in use by or even standard issue in the Bundeswehr, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Portugal. Most went on to adopt the FN FAL but would it be logically simpler to have the troops transition to a platform similar to the previous service arm?
The mentioned nations were using the Garand at least in the early 1950s and Portugal used them as late as 1964.
6) The next warzone was seen as happening either the Fulda Gap and the North German Plains or even Korea again, not to mention desert environments with the whole Suez debacle and Lebanon and those environments do have plenty of open terrain.
7) Even in Vietnam, there have been occurrences of long-range shots. Most people don't realize that Vietnam isn't just jungles and rice paddies (with the paddies also being a potential for shooting far) but valleys and hills as well, especially in the central highlands and here is one account:
Hi
The best confirmed shot I made was near Tam Key[not sure of the spelling] in Nam. It was 1240 meter's fired with a NM M14 with a Weaver 4x scope and firing national match ammo. I will admit it was mostly luck with the nva guy running. I used a lot of kentucky windage and the round seemed like it took forever to get there. It took so long I was getting ready to try another shot when the guy went down. It was a middle body shot hitting 3 inche's from the heart.
Needless to say I told the guy's it was a easy shot and I could do them all day.
I was really surprised I hit him. I didn't even want to try the shot with him running but the Lt. told me to take it.
Greg
Source: https://www.m14forum.com/threads/longest-shot-youve-fired-with-m14.103657/#post-739230
And thus with everything I have read, I wouldn't say that 300 Yards is the maximum limit for combat engagements for average grunts, such as when dealing with flat rice paddies.
Does long-range combat take place often?
No but based on the terrain of Germany, Korea, and the Middle East, I would choose a rifle chambered in 7.62 NATO or 6.5 Creedmoor and nothing else.
8) The M14 have fewer parts compared to the FN FAL. The M14 is described to have better sights than the FN FAL, both due to a better sight picture and also being more rugged than the FAL design.
M14 sight picture:
FN FAL sight picture:
9) "Designed for ease of production and low cost, the AK-47 may be produced in large numbers and because of its simplicity requires less maintenance than other rifles. The FN FAL, on the other hand, requires substantial machining and is more costly. For comparison, about two million FALs have been built, while, reportedly, more than 100 million AK-47s have been produced. As with most German weapons, the G3 shows high-quality production, which also increases price and requires expertise for manufacture. The M14 was relatively expensive to produce, though there was some carryover in expertise from producing the M1 Garand." - Quoted from The M14 Battle Rifle (Weapon Book 37) by Leroy Thompson.
While the M14 couldn't be built on M1 Garand machinery, there still was experience with making Garands not only by Winchester and H&R but other firms including the Italian arms maker Beretta.
10) To conclude: The FAL is also heavier than the M14, has a smaller magazine release, and due to the mindset still being around at the time: most FAL variants didn't use stripper clips though there are exceptions such as the Canadian C1A1.
________________
Those are the main points I wanted to make and again I apologize for the length here but those are the exact reasons why the M14 gets a lot of slack over the FN FAL and it seemed like fate somehow had it in for the M14.
The Ordnance Department missed the deadline for the 1958 fiscal year budget followed by the 1959 Steel Strike which resulted in H&R substituting the steel with foreign-manufactured and unknowingly had bought the wrong specified steel, mixing it in for producing receivers and they cracked, then there's also the fact that there was a six-month long period from the official announcement of the M14's adoption to ordering production to commence at Springfield Armory.
But in short and you can check it for yourselves with the provided sources: It seemed that fate had it in for the M14 and the biased criticism of the design isn't well deserved as it isn't the fault of the rifle but the uncontrollable events it went up against.
With that out of the way and assuming that there were no delays in production such as the lack of funding and a nationwide strike which years later will contribute to the Rustbelt, is there even a chance for the M14 to become the rifle of the free world?
Or even with the credible evidence presented based on the in-depth reading I have done, even with it all butterflied away, even with the sweetening of Stoner potentially getting involved, it will still be a complete nada?
Am I trolling? No, but instead this is the complete and honest truth here yet I totally understand if for any reason one of the moderators decide to kick me per the rules on trolling despite not being my intention at all.
Instead, to be both humbly and sincerely honest with you all, I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was when I created this thread,
my literal first one after joining the site as a member, and got overwhelmed.
I even didn't say much and the last post I made on this thread (https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...ndardize-weaponry.463940/page-9#post-19305667 ) was just two videos I found and no comment by yours truly.
I just wasn't sure how to best respond to the inquiries and make my case.
But after conducting some significant research here since January, I now feel extremely confident that I can make a convincing argument on how the M14 could plausibly be labeled as the Right of the Free World instead of the FAL.
And my sources are as follows in case anyone would like to check them out:
* The 12th Edition of Small Arms of the World by Edward Clinton Ezell, published in 1983.
* The Last Steel Warrior: U.S. M14 Rifle by Frank Iannamico, published in 2005.
* Cut Down In Its Youth: Arguably America's Best Service Rifle, the M14 Never Had the Chance to Prove Itself by Phil Schreier.
* The New M14 Complete Owner's Guide by Walt Kuleck, published in 2017.
* The M14 Battle Rifle by Leroy Thompson, published in 2014
* Operational Requirements for an Infantry Hand Weapon by Norman Hitchman, published in 1952.
*Random Shots: Episodes in the Life of a Weapons Developer by Roy E. Rayle, published in 1997.
* AGAINST ALL ODDS - THE MAN BEHIND THE M14 RIFLE: LT. COL. ROY E. RAYLE by George Kontis P.E.
*https://www.americanrifleman.org/articles/2011/4/18/marksmanship-matters/
* Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afghanistan: Taking Back the Infantry Half-Kilometer by Major Thomas Ehrhart of the United States Army, published in 2009.
*
*https://www.m14forum.com/threads/the-m14-–-why-did-it-fail-and-who-was-to-blame.507075/
*https://www.m14forum.com/threads/how-reliable-is-the-m14-in-combat.507405/
*https://www.m14forum.com/threads/m14-production-the-myth.508459/
*https://www.quora.com/Was-the-M14-a-better-weapon-than-the-M16
So anyway, please forgive the lengthy message for this fresh take as I decided to make up for the lost time by listing key points here.
If any of the moderators think it would be better for me to break my post separately, or perhaps even just do a completely new fresh thread to address the subject, then I'll without hesitation do so.
I only decided to have just only One Final Chance with this subject and at least have the opportunity to present my case here.
That's sincerely it.
With that out of the way, I'm now going to state my hopefully compelling case to the jury.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
1) I'm going to start with addressing the manufacturing issues as noted in the 1962 Hitch Report and this was due to an unanticipated SNAFU situation endured by two contractors: Winchester and Harrington & Richardson.
========================================================================================================
Winchester: (Paraphrased from The Last Steel Warrior: U.S. M14 Rifle by Frank Iannamico, pages 92-94)
The first commercial entity chosen to manufacture the new M14 rifle was Winchester, a well-known, and longtime manufacturer of firearms. The company had previous experience manufacturing the similar M1 rifle during World War Two and Winchester placed a biid to produce the M14 at the price of $68.75 per rifle.
Winchester planned to automate the manufacturing process of more complicated parts such as the receiver.
The company was awarded its first contract on February 17th, 1959 with the first delivery of completed rifles expected by April of 1960 and the first contract was to be completed by March of 1961.
However, Winchester encountered a number of problems during their initial production.
The arms maker had originally planned to produce the M14s during one shift and sporting rifles on a second shift. In April of 1960, the firm was given a second contract for an additional 81,500 rifles and Winchester agreed to a December 1961 delivery date.
Although Winchester hoped to expedite production by using automated machinery, the manufacture of the complex receiver proved to be more difficult than planned. And they ordered two expensive machines which were especially built to produce the said receivers by performing thirty-two critical machining operations.
There were also unexpected delays in delivering the machinery and setting them up for production, not to mention encountering trouble in making barrels for the M14 as well.
Due to the diligence of Winchester employees, the difficulties were solved and production was back on track. By 1961 most of the hindrance had been resolved and Winchester began meeting the monthly production goals on schedule. Full-time technical assistance from Springfield Armory was discontinued in March of 1962.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
H&R: (Paraphrased from The Last Steel Warrior: U.S. M14 Rifle by Frank Iannamico, pages 94-99)
Harrington & Richardson, Inc. was a well established firearms manufacturer and had previously built weapons under contract for the U.S. Government. The company had planned to produce the M14 at low cost by using much of the machinery and parts they had left from their M1 rifle contract along with using a number of subcontractors to manufacture and supply parts.
The first government contract was awarded to H&R in April of 1959 with first deliveries of the rifles to be expected in June of 1960. The firm had barely begun delivering their first productions when they received a second contract for an additional 75,000 M14 rifles at a cost of $97.70 per rifle, not to mention raising the production requirements to 10,000 rifles per month.
While the company did manage to substantially increase production, the rejection rate by Ordnance inspection personnel also increased disportionately, resulting in a dispute after government personnel blamed poor quality control at the plant.
During extended range firing of some of the new M14 rifles at Fort Benning in December of 1960, three of the weapons experienced catastrophic failures which included a receiver built by H&R, serial number 73293, and two bolt failures. It was quickly discovered that all of the failed components were of H&R manufacture, causing an overhaul of rifles at several installations and personnel dispatched to the manufacturing facility in Massachusetts.
After reviewing the procedure and manufuracturing process it was concluded that low-grade steel had somehow been used to build an unknown number of receivers and bolts, and while the blame was initially cast on poor methods at H&R, the actual problem was eventually learned to be a mixed up with the suppliers of the steel.
By August of 1961, following an inspection to remove the defective receivers and a change in the manufacturing process, Harrington & Richardson were producing quality weapons that easily passed all of the inspections conducted at Springfield Armory.
==========================================================================
And therefore it was the initial production of the M14s until quality control at both Winchester and H&R was corrected by early 1962 with even the National Rifle Association going from completely critical of the Army's new service rifle to vocal optimistic believers and that was after an official NRA delegation visited the individual factories to see what was going on, even going so far as to praise the firm TRW.
In fact, it's pretty ironic how the two notable firearms companies suffered problems as contractors while Thompson Ramo Wooldridge Inc., which had no previous firearms experience at all before winning the bid, suffered no rejections at all.
Not one!
The 1962 Hitch Report was also criticizing the early productions specifically.
And while only a sidenote not completely relevant, it's also ironic that TRW was an aircraft parts manufacturer and of course, the successor to the M14, the M16, is partially the result of the aerospace industry, not to mention that Armalite even made a bid to produce M14s only for the government to choose TRW.
Imagine what Eugene Stoner could've done tinkering with the design!
Or even Studebaker, another unsuccessful bidder.
2) While there are mixed reports about reliability in desert environments for both rifles with more sources on sand being a problem for the FN FAL, at least based on what I have gathered, the M14 has been tested to the utmost to work in cold environments and even if the biased test against the T48 is taken away, there are other reports to vindicate the reliability differences.
Granted, there are more iterations of the FAL compared with the M14 but despite sand cuts, it failed the Israelis which resulted in them replacing it with the Galil.
And interestingly there hasn't been similar complaints, at least as far as I'm aware of, on the M14s transferred to the IDF from the United States Government as military aid.
The FAL is no longer in service with NATO members nor has it surfaced in Afghanistan for use as even a stopgap DMR rifle compared to the M14 and G3 platforms.
3) All of the studies conducted by S.L.A Marshall has been called into question by the 1990s by historians and other researchers, which seriously raised red flags on his credibility as a military researcher on effectiveness in combat.
4) I stumbled on a post by @ExScientiaTridens on this site, and he pointed out some serious flaws with how the Hitchman study was tested:
After reading the report for myself, I honestly don't know why Infantrymen weren't used here to carry out the study as their primary purpose is to use rifles in combat to engage the enemy, not build or destroy bridges under fire.
5) The M1 Garand, Post - World War 2, was either in use by or even standard issue in the Bundeswehr, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Portugal. Most went on to adopt the FN FAL but would it be logically simpler to have the troops transition to a platform similar to the previous service arm?
The mentioned nations were using the Garand at least in the early 1950s and Portugal used them as late as 1964.
6) The next warzone was seen as happening either the Fulda Gap and the North German Plains or even Korea again, not to mention desert environments with the whole Suez debacle and Lebanon and those environments do have plenty of open terrain.
7) Even in Vietnam, there have been occurrences of long-range shots. Most people don't realize that Vietnam isn't just jungles and rice paddies (with the paddies also being a potential for shooting far) but valleys and hills as well, especially in the central highlands and here is one account:
Hi
The best confirmed shot I made was near Tam Key[not sure of the spelling] in Nam. It was 1240 meter's fired with a NM M14 with a Weaver 4x scope and firing national match ammo. I will admit it was mostly luck with the nva guy running. I used a lot of kentucky windage and the round seemed like it took forever to get there. It took so long I was getting ready to try another shot when the guy went down. It was a middle body shot hitting 3 inche's from the heart.
Needless to say I told the guy's it was a easy shot and I could do them all day.
I was really surprised I hit him. I didn't even want to try the shot with him running but the Lt. told me to take it.
Greg
Source: https://www.m14forum.com/threads/longest-shot-youve-fired-with-m14.103657/#post-739230
And thus with everything I have read, I wouldn't say that 300 Yards is the maximum limit for combat engagements for average grunts, such as when dealing with flat rice paddies.
Does long-range combat take place often?
No but based on the terrain of Germany, Korea, and the Middle East, I would choose a rifle chambered in 7.62 NATO or 6.5 Creedmoor and nothing else.
8) The M14 have fewer parts compared to the FN FAL. The M14 is described to have better sights than the FN FAL, both due to a better sight picture and also being more rugged than the FAL design.
M14 sight picture:
FN FAL sight picture:
9) "Designed for ease of production and low cost, the AK-47 may be produced in large numbers and because of its simplicity requires less maintenance than other rifles. The FN FAL, on the other hand, requires substantial machining and is more costly. For comparison, about two million FALs have been built, while, reportedly, more than 100 million AK-47s have been produced. As with most German weapons, the G3 shows high-quality production, which also increases price and requires expertise for manufacture. The M14 was relatively expensive to produce, though there was some carryover in expertise from producing the M1 Garand." - Quoted from The M14 Battle Rifle (Weapon Book 37) by Leroy Thompson.
While the M14 couldn't be built on M1 Garand machinery, there still was experience with making Garands not only by Winchester and H&R but other firms including the Italian arms maker Beretta.
10) To conclude: The FAL is also heavier than the M14, has a smaller magazine release, and due to the mindset still being around at the time: most FAL variants didn't use stripper clips though there are exceptions such as the Canadian C1A1.
________________
Those are the main points I wanted to make and again I apologize for the length here but those are the exact reasons why the M14 gets a lot of slack over the FN FAL and it seemed like fate somehow had it in for the M14.
The Ordnance Department missed the deadline for the 1958 fiscal year budget followed by the 1959 Steel Strike which resulted in H&R substituting the steel with foreign-manufactured and unknowingly had bought the wrong specified steel, mixing it in for producing receivers and they cracked, then there's also the fact that there was a six-month long period from the official announcement of the M14's adoption to ordering production to commence at Springfield Armory.
Six months!
But in short and you can check it for yourselves with the provided sources: It seemed that fate had it in for the M14 and the biased criticism of the design isn't well deserved as it isn't the fault of the rifle but the uncontrollable events it went up against.
With that out of the way and assuming that there were no delays in production such as the lack of funding and a nationwide strike which years later will contribute to the Rustbelt, is there even a chance for the M14 to become the rifle of the free world?
Or even with the credible evidence presented based on the in-depth reading I have done, even with it all butterflied away, even with the sweetening of Stoner potentially getting involved, it will still be a complete nada?
Last edited: