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D.E. Watters

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Everything posted by D.E. Watters

  1. D.E. Watters
    I've always liked Dan Shea's take on this. He prefers to use the term "Relatively Knowledgeable Individual" (RKI).
  2. D.E. Watters
    It was his whole "Hur, Hur, Hur...stupid old guy with a notebook" attitude that rubbed me wrong, combined with his inability to read what Hatcher had actually written. It is true that the recorded accidents represent a low percentage of the receivers produced. However, we don't know how many more have failed since 1929, nor how many more would have failed if they had not been condemned during arsenal refits or lost in combat.
  3. D.E. Watters
    One thing that gets to me is the constant claims of Army Ordnance NIH syndrome. However, the Army treated John M Browning, John Pedersen, and even foreign firms like FN with respect. The Army seems to work just fine with inventors and contractors who play within the system. The trouble begins when you have inventors and companies that immediately start throwing elbows, dragging their drama out in public to Congress and the press when their genius invention isn't immediately recognized. Consider the case of Loren C. Cook. https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1798&dat=19530303&id=mAEdAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NYoEAAAAIBAJ&pg=3268,207079&hl=en http://hdl.handle.net/2027/mdp.35112104230976?urlappend=%3Bseq=1109 Cook made a lot of bizarre claims for his designs, which really make you question his competence as a designer. However, that didn't him from acting like a fool in front of the media and attracting Congressional attention. His design weighed almost twice as much as he claimed, and he had to be delusional if he thought a ~10" barrel SMG was going to achieve 1,800 fps with .45 ACP. (But...but...the barrel is nearly twice as long as the M1911 pistol!) I'll go as far as to suggest that the biggest issue with NIH designs was not that they came from outside Army Ordnance, but rather that the proposals were often unsolicited. Testing an unsolicited proposal basically steals funding and time away from official programs of record. I seem to remember Julian Hatcher complaining that some inventors/manufacturers just wanted to use the Army as a free R&D test service. "Why spend our own personal savings/corporate funds on ammunition and engineering tests to debug our design when the American taxpayer can foot the bill instead?"
  4. D.E. Watters
    The survival weapons weren't intended for fighting enemy personnel. Rather, they were promoted as foraging tools so that aircrew downed in isolated areas might survive long enough to be rescued. You'll note that the USAF was also testing lightweight revolvers with aluminum frames and cylinders that were adopted as the M13. FYI: DTIC has a 1950s vintage report on wound ballistic testing of .22 Hornet ammunition.
  5. D.E. Watters
    Most texts assume that Dr. Frederick H. Carten succeeded Col. Rene R. Studler as Chief of Small Arms R&D after Studler retired in 1953. It appears that Carten only served as acting Chief until the position could be filled. The May 1956 issue of "American Rifleman" had a picture of some former and then current members of the OCO's R&D Division Small Arms Branch. Carten was identified as Deputy Chief, while Col. Gilvary P. Grant was credited as Chief. Another employee was listed as John R. Bird. Also in the photo were Studler and Col. Edwin H. Harrison, Studler's predecessor and at the time of the photo, a member of the Rifleman's technical staff. Studler was listed as employed by Olin Mathieson. I can't find much on Grant other than his full name was Gilvary Preston Grant, and that he retired as a Lt. Colonel in June 1963. It appears that John R. Bird was working for the R&D staff of Army Materiel Command as late as 1964.
  6. D.E. Watters
    Found some numbers on the M4 and M6 survival weapons. There were 34,910 M4 acquired between 1950 and 1951. In contrast, 66,600 M6 were acquired during roughly the same period. The M6 was officially considered standard, with the M4 as a limited standard. Between the two, 10,934 survival weapons had been lost in combat, crashes, or fires by early 1954.
  7. D.E. Watters
    I'm beginning to take a more skeptical eye to Richard Hallock's role in getting ARPA's Project Agile to field test the AR-15 in South Vietnam. Note that Hallock was later accused of "triple dipping" in his post-retirement consultancies with the US DOD, the Govt. of Iran, and US defense contractors during the 1970s. The DOD hired him to keep the Iranians from getting fleeced by the defense contractors, but then the Iranians hired him to consult on which weapons to buy. This allowed Hallock to then act as a gatekeeper for his own clients in the defense industry. Another reason for suspicion is the 1965 conviction of ARPA Deputy Director William H. Godel for embezzlement. This was related to his Project Agile activities in 1961. Following his arrest by the FBI in August 1964, Godel was forced out of ARPA and went to work for Cadillac Gage. He was soon accused of conflict of interest in trying to promote the Stoner 63 to the DOD. Godel resigned from Cadillac Gage after his December 1964 indictment.
  8. D.E. Watters
    Anyone a subscriber to Aviation Week? I'd love to see their articles mentioning ArmaLite. http://archive.aviationweek.com/search?QueryTerm=Armalite
  9. D.E. Watters
    I recently came across a 1956 transcript from the House Armed Services Committee's investigation of military aircraft pricing. Fairchild was questioned about the number of retired military officers on their payroll, including General Devers. If you remember your history, Devers was also assigned to ArmaLite to help scout opportunities for the AR-10. In the CGP book, Evans misrepresents Robert Enewold as an active duty USAF Colonel. George Sullivan's article on the AR-5 for the January 1957 issue of American Rifleman noted that Robert Enewold was retired from the USAF and was currently a gunsmith in Reno, NV. Enewold had previously worked at the USAF's Survival School with Burton Miller. Sullivan also credited Miller with creating the M4 Survival Rifle in 1949. Evans gets this wrong as well, claiming that the M4 was a WW2-era design that was replaced by the M6 Survival Weapon. It is my understanding that the M4 and M6 served concurrently, with their issue being more of a unit preference. You can find reports on DTIC showing the M4's issue as late the 1960s. In fact, there are more reports available referencing the M4 than the M6. A childhood friend even has a photo of his father posing with a M4 Survival Rifle during his Vietnam War-era service. Evans also glosses over the fact Miller was hired by ArmaLite after his retirement from the USAF. He wasn't a mere employee...he became a Vice President! I'd love to dig through Curtis LeMay's papers to check out his personal correspondence with Miller and Fairchild's Boutelle. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/service/mss/eadxmlmss/eadpdfmss/2014/ms014063.pdf While doing some additional digging, I happened to find this custom rifle that Miller had commissioned for LeMay. http://collections.centerofthewest.org/treasures/view/firearm_rifle_remington_arms_co_ilion_ny_wood_steel_lemay_general_curtis
  10. D.E. Watters
    I'd say that Pikula was harder on ArmaLite's management, and justifiably so. Was the Ordnance Corps playing dirty at times? Undoubtedly, but that doesn't explain why the early AR-10 prototypes would go on to fail in other tests, spectacularly so in Nicaragua. George Sullivan comes off as a snake-oil salesman with gimmicks like Sullalloy (standard 7075). He routinely tried to steal credit from his designers like Gene Stoner and Art Miller, and he didn't even have the decency to quit his day job at Lockheed. In later years, he even used Lockheed's corporate resources to try to market the AR-18. You get the impression that A-I and Colt felt that they had been misled into buying underdeveloped designs. Using Mel Johnson as their representative probably closed more doors to ArmaLite than it opened. Johnson had a notorious reputation for going off on test personnel when test weapons performed poorly. Stoner confirmed that such an incident occurred when the AR-10's sleeved barrel burst at Springfield. Frankly, I suspect that some cases of ill behavior by various test centers were acts of retaliation for Johnson's own antics. ArmaLite's public PR campaign, complete with shameless influence peddling between Richard Boutelle and Curtis LeMay, probably had some in Army Ordnance wondering if they were not going to see a repeat of the Garand v. Johnson dustup of the pre-WW2 era.
  11. D.E. Watters
    It is far more detailed than Sam Pikula's book. Ironically, the author notes that he wasn't able to find a copy of the Pikula book.
  12. D.E. Watters
    Tam has been gun blogging for ages. In more recent years, she has even broken out to dead tree gunzines like SWAT and Shooting Illustrated.
  13. D.E. Watters
    MADtv once ran a sketch proposing the most annoying movie ever, which would pair Chris Tucker with Rosie Perez.
  14. D.E. Watters
    More SAR articles by Kontis: https://www.smallarmsreview.com/articles.list.byauthor.cfm?art_author=George%20E.%20Kontis%20PE https://www.smallarmsreview.com/articles.list.byauthor.cfm?art_author=George%20E.%20Kontis,%20PE
  15. D.E. Watters
    Kontis devoted an entire SAR article on the topic: "How to Screw up a Gun." https://www.smallarmsreview.com/display.article.cfm?idarticles=1611
  16. D.E. Watters
    Speaking of the Vigilante: http://ww2.rediscov.com/springar/VFPCGI.exe?IDCFile=/spring/DETAILS.IDC,SPECIFIC=10839,DATABASE=78952048,
  17. D.E. Watters
    For a foreign analog in pest eradication, look at how the Australians dispatch their feral donkey population.
  18. D.E. Watters
    Spelling Tip Ordinance: a law or regulation Ordnance: weapons
  19. D.E. Watters
    I did some more digging for earlier changes to the November 2002 copy of TM 9-1005-313-10. Change 1 (April 15, 2005) has the first notice that the single port regulator is the only one authorized for the M240B and M240H. The original November 2002 edition makes no mention of a single port regulator.
  20. D.E. Watters
    A friend of mine in SC had two. One was in .308 Win, and the other was the uber rare .30-06 variant.
  21. D.E. Watters
    TM 9-1005-313-10 (Change 5 - May 8, 2009) indicates that only the single port regulator is authorized for the M240B, M240H, and M240L. Everything else is authorized the three port regulator.
  22. D.E. Watters
    PS Magazine #689 from April 2010 mentions that all M240B and M240H barrels will ultimately be equipped with single port regulator. A three port regulator can be retained until it fails inspection.
  23. D.E. Watters
    It sounds like older barrels are still in the system. I do remember seeing TACOM-Rock Island orders for M249 monobloc barrels coming in bulk. FN Manufacturing also has a single port gas regulator for the M240 family.
  24. D.E. Watters
    I suspect Ordnance was grasping upon the promise of a self-adjusting gas system. Manual gas adjustments are prone to abuse by squaddies who insist upon "turning it up to eleven" to get the highest possible cyclic rate, reliability and durability be damned. This is why the M240B and M249 in US service will no longer have barrels with adjustable gas blocks.
  25. D.E. Watters
    FWIW: The M21 SWS was a Vietnam-era project from the Army Marksmanship Unit. The USMC Scout-Snipers were rocking their Winchester Model 70 in .30-06 and then the Remington M40 in 7.62x51mm. The USMC didn't start their M14 DMR builds until the mid/late 1990s. The only other competitor for the USMC DMR solicitation was the HK MSG90A1. If I remember correctly, the M25 SWS was an unofficial USASOC program that started after the Army's adoption of the Remington M24 SWS.
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