Good article on the M-16 debacle

[William]

Makes me sick thinking of those dead Soldiers and Marines, who could have been alive were it not for the egos of engineers.

Engineers? More like bureaucrats were the real culprit.

[Gman]

Engineers? More like bureaucrats were the real culprit.

^^^THIS!

[CS1983]

Engineers? More like bureaucrats were the real culprit.

I was under the impression from the article that the Ordnance Corps engineers didn't want to listen to Stoner, et al.

I suppose that could also involve their .civ overseers, but ultimately... is it not engineers who develop the tests and conduct them, and then give their report to the decision makers?

His investigation found that the tests had been blatantly rigged. The M-14s used in the tests were all handpicked, handmade, “matchgrade” weapons (suitable for marksmen’s competitions), while the AR-15s were taken straight from the box. The ammunition for the M-14 had also received special care. The inspector found that various organizations of the ordnance corps had met beforehand to discuss how to fix the tests. They agreed to take a day to run through the tests, and then (according to the printed minutes of their meeting) include in the final evaluations “only those tests that will reflect adversely on the AR-15 rifle. …”

I highly doubt some .civ dude who was only a PM was organizing tests, hand picking rifles and ammo from the Ordnance Corps production, and slapping off the line AR-15s into the test. Surely, somewhere, the engineers would say, "wait a hot minute." But they didn't. Because their darling designs and jobs were on the line while only the mere lives of grunts were on the line.

This is what Colonel Mike Mullane talks about in his talk on the Challenger, titled "The Normalization of Deviance"

part 1:

Parts 2-4 are on the sidebar if you view on YouTube. The original engineers for that disaster, from the manufacturer of the o-rings, told NASA and its engineers that any burning evidence on the o-rings was to result in an IMMEDIATE cessation of all flights and the complete grounding of all spacecraft using them. The boosters were recovered on several flights with burned o-rings and NASA's engineers didn't do a damn thing to challenge the .gov machine employing them. Challenger's crew bore the result.

So... was it all and only bureaucrats who caused the problems with the deployment of the AR-15/M16 to Southeast Asia? No way. Those engineers at the Ordnance Corps had a solemn duty to provide the warfighter with the best thing possible. They failed. The reasons for that are debatable, but the engineers don't get a pass because some dickhead in a suit said to do it. That's a lame and cowardly excuse.

[Duman]

"So... was it all and only bureaucrats who caused the problems with the deployment of the AR-15/M16 to Southeast Asia? No way. Those engineers at the Ordnance Corps had a solemn duty to provide the warfighter with the best thing possible. They failed. The reasons for that are debatable, but the engineers don't get a pass because some dickhead in a suit said to do it. That's a lame and cowardly excuse."

That statement is flawed.

The engineers perform their analysis and provide recommendations. The decision to follow or ignore the analysis and recommendations occur at a higher levels.

If the analysis is counter to the prevailing organizational bias (usually coming from the top) the data/analysis is ignored. Until something catastrophic occurs.

[rondog]

Engineers are just employees. No matter what they say, the suits above them have the yea/nay power, and they care the most about their own interests. I work in telecom, and that bullshit is rampant in that industry.

[Gman]

An 'engineer' in the government bureaucracy is still a bureaucrat to me.

Just look at how they gamed the decisions and cooked the books for the 'tests'. The real engineers were at Armalite.

Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk

[10x]

I remember friends coming back from Vietnam. The M14s turned to rust, but never jammed. The M16s failure got a lot of our guys killed. Sad that all happened.

[Rumline]

It's pretty obvious that the decision to switch to ball powder was the result of some backroom pay-to-play shit. Olin Mathieson didn't want to miss out on the lucrative contract so they influenced the velocity spec to be set at 3250 FPS, even though there was no reason to increase it from Stoner's design. Conveniently this new velocity was just higher than IMR powder could meet without making the pressure unsafe. Oh look whose powder just happens to meet the new arbitrary spec? Ours!

That was not engineers' egos at work, that was corruption at the highest levels.

[Rumline]

This is no different than any other development program in any other industry.

The Ford Pinto, Chevrolet Corvair, GM's ignition switch, the Apollo-1 fire, space shuttle Challenger and Columbia.... the list goes on ad infinitum.

There are always a handful of people with integrity that know the score, but the institutions won't do the right thing until people die. This will never change.

I've always said that the movie "Pentagon Wars" should be required viewing for employees new to the defense industry.