I week before I signed into my new unit in Ft. Stewart, GA, our BN was in the field (mid September) doing NTC prep. Soldiers in our company were tasked with removing a roadblock/obstacle in NBC conditions. For some reason the BN commander was there watching and sure enough, due to the heat and humidity, two soldiers had heat stroke and dust offs had to be called for them.
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@MoramarthT Thank you for sharing that story. It would make an excellent diorama and strongly illustrates why tank designers constantly sought the capacity for all around defense.
@HeavyArty Thank you for that information. I also read some articles on chemical weapons. I suppose the next step is to read about battles where foot soldiers, armored vehicles, and chemical weapons all came together.
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Try wearing it for hours in the desert, the rubber gloves fill with sweat, the sweat from your body bathes you in a nice coating of black charcoal used in the suites, pretty miserable. and if you had a tankers mask there was no way to rehydrate, at least the M-17âs had a drinking adapter for the canteen.
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Heâs got a video about the gun itself too:
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Yes! We did PT and â organized athleticsâ; basketball, volleyball and soccer in MOPP gear when was in Germany also. It freakin sucked!
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Yup you were definitely marinating in your own sauce!
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I was tasked with running a gas chamber and unit level DECON in Korea so I was in the chamber in MOPP4 for about 10 hours straight that was a little rough.
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Shooting out both sides at once wouldnât have mattered - there are no two ports across from one another. The two left hand ports are noticeably farther forward than the right hand ports.
The only port that comes close to creating a problem is the forward left one due to the lower turret enclosure. The length of the M231 doesnât offer a significant advantage over a collapsible stock. Itâs negligible.
The other thing to consider is that soldiers didnât have to get behind it to fire it - they were after all observing tracers. The recoil was not an issue becasue the weapon was screwed into the port. And therein lies one of the reasons for the design change in the M231. It had to provide a seal in the port, which it did. The M16A1 did not, While the overpressurization inside the vehice in an NBC environment would keep nasty things from coming in through the ports, systems fail. Fuel runs out. Batteries drain. Who knows how long soldiers had to fight inside the vehicle? Hence the seal. The M231 was also designed to vent exhaust gasses thorough a hose, which was unwieldy, but apparantly not able to connect to an M16A1.
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Still, it would be a tight squeeze for a whole squad or fire unit that was supposed be in the M2 to install their rifles or remove them prior to dismount at more or less at the same time. If you mount the M16A1 at the front sight/bayonet lug the butt is well into the compartment and the trigger uncomfortably back from the hull side where the soldier was (supposedly) looking out the periscope watching tracers.
Ah, but Jakkoâs question was about adapting the firing ports to fit the M16A1. The M16A1 did not have a collapsing stock. A quick look on the web gives an OAL of 28.25 inches for the M231 and 38.81 for the M16A1. (The collapsing stock off the XM177E1 reduced the OAL by less than 3 inches anyway.) I might be wrong but I think the IFV was envisioned with the passengers firing their rifles from inside like the BMP, but our rifle was the M16A1. To get any real length reduction either the standard infantry rifle would have to change or there would need to be a dedicated FPW, which - ta-da - sets you on the XM231 path. For the effort and cost, starting up a production line to make 9mm Grease Guns (*) as dedicated FPWs might have been easier and actually somewhat functional.
(*) There were 9mm M3s along with 9mm conversion kits made during the war, so it was clearly possible and already engineered.
KL
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I wanted to see the difference in intrusion between mounting an M231 and an M16A1. Iâve got an M231 -10 TM and surprisingly it has nothing about mounting in the vehicle or aiming; I suppose thatâs in the Bradley TM because the M231 was part of the vehicle. If we say that everything to the rear of the mounting threads intrudes into the passenger compartment, it looks like 19-1/2 inches by scaling off photos.
Going on the baseline of using a standard M16A1 as an alternative, Iâll assume that the port mount is at the bayonet lug or the front of the front sight block. I measured 32-1/2 inches from there to the end of the butt. (Remember that the overall length of the M231 was only 28-1/4.)
I can imagine that hanging the weight of an M16A1 from the lug and sticking it out there to be knocked around and held onto when the vehicle bounces around would not have helped maintain weapon zero, either.
KL
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At that time the M3 was still in widespread use as a crew served weapon by M48 and M60 series tank crews, M88 crews, and some other special purpose units. So that would have made a lot of sense.
Ken
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Would Hollywood prefer to use the 5.56mm M231 compared to the 9mm Heckler and Koch MP5K or MP5?
I read that the H&K MP5 is only sold to military and law enforcement although there is a civilian version called the SP5 that isnât full auto. I would assume the MP5s are much more accurate than the M231, but the MP5K is a âSpray-and-pray room-broomâ without a foldable shoulder buttstock.
As for obtaining the M231 for any Hollywood action movie star, is it widely available, and would you take one with the super-high firing rate and add an extended magazine or 100-round drum CMAG?
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My thoughts were more that a firing port for an M16 would be likely to mount the weapon with more of it outboard than that. Clamping around the middle or even the rear end of the handguard somewhere instead of at the front, kind of thing. That would still leave the buttstock much longer than on the M231, true, but only by about 13 cm while the muzzle would stick out 15 cm or so more:
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So is this considered an SBR?
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Yes, the M231 Firing Port Weapon (FPW) is classified as a Short Barreled Rifle (SBR). It has a barrel length shorter than 16 inches, which, according to the National Firearms Act (NFA), defines it as an SBR. This means it requires registration with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and the payment of a tax stamp for legal ownership.
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Also not having a butt stock is it a AR Pistol?
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No, it is considered a modified M16 since it can only fire full auto.
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No, itâs fully automatic, so itâs legally a âmachinegunâ in the US. That takes precedence. Machineguns can have any stock, barrel, grip, or overall length combinations the manufacturer wants.
The SBR label would only be relevant if someone tried to make a semi-automatic visual replica of an M231 with the wire buttstock. Without it it might be classified as a pistol, but Iâm not sure.
KL
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Yeah, that leads to those problematic technical details that often derail good ideas.
- The hole would need to clear the sight block and sling loop, which is much larger than the handguard
- The rifle is almost always fitted with a sling, so how would that be handled?
- The handguard wasnât really designed to be clamped on. It might crush.
- The more of the weapon that sticks outside the port the more of it gets contaminated by NBC, which will be brought into the vehicle when dismounting.
- The more of the weapon that sticks out the more likely it will be damaged or knock off zero by brush and obstructions.
- The hand guard is open to the environment, so if the NBC boundary is at the rear of the handguard there is essentially a free path between the clean and the dirty sides. The overpressure system should keep the air flowing out, but yâknow how things work.
KL
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