Killer Rifles to Deadly M-16s: A History of Weapons U.S. Troops Take To War

Task and Purpose

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The best and the worst.

Further modifications to the basic M-16 design and changes in the weapons cartridges since Vietnam slowly overcame most of the technical problems that had caused jamming. However, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have produced more complaints from soldiers and Marines about the reliability of the M-4 and later versions of the M-16.

The U.S. military has stood perpetually accused of not fielding new weapons to troops fast enough since at least the Civil War, when the Union Army took years to replace muzzleloaders with obviously superior repeating rifles.

And when new weapons finally do make it to the front lines, complaints that they are ineffective in actual combat usually follow. The M-16 controversy is a perfect example.

It would be easy to blame such problems on the indifference or outright ignorance of “the brass.” The truth, however, is much more nuanced than that, according to Richard S. Faulkner, the William A. Stofft chair of military history at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College.

Faulkner spoke with Task & Purpose at length about the financial, logistical, and practical factors that determined when and how the U.S. military fielded small arms from the Civil War through the Vietnam War. The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Q: If repeating rifles were available at the start of the Civil War, why did the Union Army continue to use muzzleloaders for the first three years of the war?