US ARMY M4 - Full auto?

[ComradeHX]

Why did they need to introduce 3 round bursts besides ammo conservation in the first place? AFAIK the M16A1 was full auto and it was used by the US Army.

Back then, U.S. Army spray-and-prayed with no regard to marksmanship...

[chris_stoiva_ganjais]

Im sure there are many reason to limit full auto. M16 in its beginning jammed on 30 round clips, therefore lowered to 20 round clips. The gun itself jammed alot, so singleshot lowered propabilty for jam. Ammo conservation, get a good aim (actual kill-effective fire) should also be a good reason for squadeffectiveness.

For Norways sake, G3 on full auto is barely used, only in extreme situation. 2-3 seconds to empty a clip just isnt effective nor precise.

This is what i read, not 100 percent sure.

In PR i prefer not to use M4/M16 for this reason. Maybe im just a bad shooter, also the aimpoint limits my sideview. Im more then happy to go medic.

[DeltaCommando]

Hmm weird... I always thought the difference between M4 and M4A1 was the flat top, RIS and so on.
Another weird thing is that if you go to Colt website, you'll see they have the following:

AVAILABLE MODELS
RO977 : Flat top, Safe/Semi/Full Auto
RO979 : Flat top, Safe/Semi/Burst
RO777 : Fixed handle, Safe/Semi/Full Auto
RO779 : Fixed handle, Safe/Semi/Burst

[ComradeHX]

Hmm weird... I always thought the difference between M4 and M4A1 was the flat top, RIS and so on.
Another weird thing is that if you go to Colt website, you'll see they have the following:

AVAILABLE MODELS
RO977 : Flat top, Safe/Semi/Full Auto
RO979 : Flat top, Safe/Semi/Burst
RO777 : Fixed handle, Safe/Semi/Full Auto
RO779 : Fixed handle, Safe/Semi/Burst

IRL, the biggest difference is in the receivers/who uses it.

For example: Some MK18 were made out of conversion kits + M16A1 receiver.

And RIS has no influence on model of any AR-15 based rifle, because you can attach any kind of RIS unit you want...(Daniel Defense, for example, can be instaleld instead of the more common Knight's Arms one).

[Ninja2dan]

Why did they need to introduce 3 round bursts besides ammo conservation in the first place? AFAIK the M16A1 was full auto and it was used by the US Army.

The earlier M-16A1 was a fairly new weapon when it was first fielded. There was not a lot of pre-combat unit testing with the weapon like many other firearms. So for the most part, it was an untested design.

The A1 variants were automatic because that was an option they wanted soldiers to have. But the rifle had a thin barrel, lighter construction, higher RoF, and in my opinion a light magazine capacity. And as mentioned by others, soldiers at the time were mostly drafted and sent off to combat quickly. There was little concern with proper marksmanship training over simply knowing how to aim and shoot.

It was the feedback from the Vietnam war that caused the many changes in the M-16A1 rifles and redesignated the A2.


[quote=""'[R-MOD"]Mongolian_dude;1309230']Ammo conservation I would think is the main reason.

Other reasons I could think of might be:
-Retain weapon discipline (once someone spooks and goes full auto, everyones gonna else will do it too)
-Weapon performance (+rounds in a shorter space of time means +jamming in a shorter space of time)
-Weapon durability (weapons get worn from extended firing periods)
-Firefight dynamics (massive luls in fire output could be caused by everyone reloading 7 seconds into a firefight. This would leave a unit very open to suppression)
-The rise of the SAW (SAWs are better designed to handle the stress and capacity requirements for sustained auto-fire)


...mongol...
...mongol...[/quote]

You pretty much nailed it as well. The weapon was still new at the time and so were combat tactics, especially those for jungle and unconventional/guerilla warfare. Once the military saw how the rifle performed under those conditions, the necessary changes were made.


[quote="Hotrod525""]i fired mine on Full Auto on range for Level 3... and its just... not a nice thing. Keep it steady is just so hard it dosent worth it. [/quote]

Firing just about any weapon on full-automatic isn't impossible, it just takes a lot of training and practice. The M-16, M-4, and other 5.56mm weapons usually have a pretty "light" recoil compared to similar-sized weapons. The buffer system of the M-16/M-4 family actually works pretty well, and with enough training/practice you can fire any variant in automatic with ease.

But the same goes with just about any FA weapon. I have trained for many years to operate automatic weapons, so my ability to use sustained automatic fire is going to be much higher than the average soldier or LEO. But if you were to give GI Schmoe an M-16 or AK-47 and tell him to empty the magazine all in one go, chances are not even 20% of his rounds will hit the paper.

It's taken some time for militaries around the world to finally understand this, and their forces are either switching to burst modes on battle rifles or issuing full-auto only to highly-trained soldiers that can actually use them effectively.

The reason I heard was because when people are killed their muscles often spasm and because Vietnam era GI's didn't have the battle discipline to space themselves properly a single dead GI's hand clamping on his trigger while he fell could mean half a squad dead to his M16's automatic function.

Just what I heard.

Who ever told you that needs to quit drinking the bong water.

Hmm weird... I always thought the difference between M4 and M4A1 was the flat top, RIS and so on.
Another weird thing is that if you go to Colt website, you'll see they have the following:

AVAILABLE MODELS
RO977 : Flat top, Safe/Semi/Full Auto
RO979 : Flat top, Safe/Semi/Burst
RO777 : Fixed handle, Safe/Semi/Full Auto
RO779 : Fixed handle, Safe/Semi/Burst

Colt uses different designation codes for their firearms based on the intended customer. Military weapon systems have a prefix of RO, Law Enforcement/Government Agencies have LE, and civilian have AR.

The designation M4A1 is the military designation, which was not originally from Colt. Just like the M16 was originally the AR15, but termed the M16 by the military. Colt has since called the military family of the rifles M16's and the carbines M4's. They still use the AR designation for their civilian rifles.

The only M4 rifles to not have a removable carrying handle were the very first run of military carbines. Those were quickly ceased and the new models produced, so chances of even finding an M4 without a removable carrying handle will be very difficult. Most have either been destroyed, sold/transferred to foreign governments, converted to dummy/training weapons, etc.


As for America's Army using the M4 carbine, they do not. They use only the M4A1 (aka SOPMOD) variant, which was released as part of their Special Forces expansion. This is also why players needed to complete a special SF-oriented training mode in order to use the M4A1 and its various mods during games.


The ONLY difference between an M4 and M4A1 is the lower reciever firing rate selection, and the associated internal components. Both firearms are capable of accepting the same modifications ranging from a swap of the pistol grip all the way up to a whole new upper. Unless you can read the "BURST" or "AUTO" lettering near the selector, there is no other way to tell the difference (excluding the weapon stamping, duh).

[barbdwyer22]

Ninja2dan for the win.

[K4on]

@ Ninja2dan:

that was uhm... interesting.

[Smegburt_funkledink]

Who ever told you that needs to quit drinking the bong water.

Quality sig-material right there.

[Sirex[SWE][MoW]]

Im sure there are many reason to limit full auto. M16 in its beginning jammed on 30 round clips, therefore lowered to 20 round clips. The gun itself jammed alot, so singleshot lowered propabilty for jam. Ammo conservation, get a good aim (actual kill-effective fire) should also be a good reason for squadeffectiveness.

For Norways sake, G3 on full auto is barely used, only in extreme situation. 2-3 seconds to empty a clip just isnt effective nor precise.

This is what i read, not 100 percent sure.

In PR i prefer not to use M4/M16 for this reason. Maybe im just a bad shooter, also the aimpoint limits my sideview. Im more then happy to go medic.

I have used and fired the swedish version of G3, AK4, in the national protection forces and you easily hit a target with auto up to 6-8 rounds at 15 meters, and take in to account that i am 162cm and 55kg, a big man should have no problem firing the thing on auto controllable in close quarter.

But you don't do that because one-three NATO 7.62 is enough and you only have 20 rounds in the magazine so you won't to avoid having to reload, especially in urban fighting.

Also the AK5 works on auto quite well, but again it is easier and faster in real life to switch target and fire one-3 round manually then having to work with the recoil during target switch.

The times you need auto are when you expect multiple target when breeching doors or to fire at an area and not at individual targets.

To illustrate this, first time our platoon fired auto with our AK5 at 3 targets at around 20-30 meters 10 rounds no one hit all three targets. But anyone in our platoon could easily have hit all three targets with manual fire in less time then with auto.

[Nano516]

i think since the M16 and the M4 on the game are the only semi auto /burst gun it should get a little more accuracy because i just finish getting into a firefight and my M4 after 10seconds standing still missed but the Ak101 and 74 hit easy right after running and shooting wats up with that

[DankE_SPB]

i think since the M16 and the M4 on the game are the only semi auto /burst gun it should get a little more accuracy because i just finish getting into a firefight and my M4 after 10seconds standing still missed but the Ak101 and 74 hit easy right after running and shooting wats up with that

nothing, deviation for those weapons is the same and there is no AK-101 in game

[Hunt3r]

The thing is that in PR I've found that semi-auto is more effective in CQC because although your rate of fire isn't as great, your shot dispersion is less, which can be everything.

[bromley]

burst fire is very useful on the m4 but i prefer the C7, wicked accurate on auto even with the optics, problem is though once you kill a guy in CQ its about time to reload

[onikenshin]

i beleive the US army is using m4a1 ive never heard of a semi/3roundburst m4 nor seen 1 just the m4a1 it makes more sense for a semi/auto m4 now since they have mags that hold 45 (i looked at the mags in pr on 1 of the us army maps and they look like the 45 mag) i think the m4 was ment to be a short version of the m16 for cqc 3 round burst isnt very good for that since you would usually hold down the trigger if you see some1 and they see you to get a hip shot off 3 rounds there gonna hit sumwere other then were you hope to hit, spray and pray ^^

[masterceo]

you probably just lost every inch of credibility on these forums, my friend

[crazy11]

i beleive the US army is using m4a1 ive never heard of a semi/3roundburst m4 nor seen 1 just the m4a1 it makes more sense for a semi/auto m4 now since they have mags that hold 45 (i looked at the mags in pr on 1 of the us army maps and they look like the 45 mag) i think the m4 was ment to be a short version of the m16 for cqc 3 round burst isnt very good for that since you would usually hold down the trigger if you see some1 and they see you to get a hip shot off 3 rounds there gonna hit sumwere other then were you hope to hit, spray and pray ^^

And where are your sources for your claim? We have military advisors who are telling us what the Army is using.

[masterceo]

oh he provided sources for his claim, let me outline them

i beleive the US army is using m4a1 ive never heard of a semi/3roundburst m4 nor seen 1 just the m4a1 it makes more sense for a semi/auto m4 now since they have mags that hold 45 (i looked at the mags in pr on 1 of the us army maps and they look like the 45 mag) i think the m4 was ment to be a short version of the m16 for cqc 3 round burst isnt very good for that since you would usually hold down the trigger if you see some1 and they see you to get a hip shot off 3 rounds there gonna hit sumwere other then were you hope to hit, spray and pray ^^

obviously, you're wrong

next time check your claims at least on wikipedia, it's not a very good source but in this case you can get some basic knowledge about the M4

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_carbine

[Jaymz]

thread's purpose served.