Quote:
Originally Posted by CDAT
OK, I was just making sure. I find it interesting how different experiences people have. In all my deployments (03-4, 07-8, and 09-10) the old M2 (only the first deployment did I check the date stamp on it and it was a WWII era gun) was the most dependable with the M16/M4 a very close second. The Mk19 was the worst by far, it never got even a half a belt before it jammed up on us. Now I do have to say that keeping the M2 running was much more complex, and if you did not know what you were doing it could cause lots of issues, but having spent most of the first have of my time in armor before transferring to EOD I had a good grasp of the M2, but lots did not (there were lots of reports of issues, and in almost every case that I saw it was operator error).
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A number of years back I was responsible for the contract side of the care and feeding of M4s, M60s, and a lone M2 so that we could shock test some rail-mounted gribblies that my employer made. At one point I was responsible for sending the M2 back to Ohio Ordnance for repairs. One of their guys called me up and asked if they could send someone observe one of our shoots, because
they had never seen a gun fail that way before. I still don't know what caused it or what the actual damage was, but when the OEM has never seen someone break an M2 the way your guys did, it must have been impressive.