Berlin Crisis, 1961: The Beginning of The End of The M14
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In 1957, the T44E4 rifle was formally adopted by the United States Armed Forces as the United States Rifle, 7.62mm, M14, but this only marked the beginning of the rifle’s troubles. After numerous delays and production crises – including the rejection in December of 1960 of 1,784 of H&R receivers (about ten percent of the receivers that had been made up to that time) that could not withstand the pressure of firing due to a steel mix-up – Robert McNamara made a famous speech on the rifle program in June of 1961, stating: “I think it is a disgrace the way the project was handled. I don’t mean particularly by the Army, but I mean by the nation. This is a relatively simple job, building a rifle, compared to building a satellite or a lunar lander or a missile system.” At that time, there existed a grand total of only 133,386 M14 rifles, despite the type having been adopted four years prior.
It was in this same month, in a climate of adversity towards the laborious US rifle program that the Berlin Crisis broke out. Occurring on the forefront of the fight against Communism, the crisis and eventual construction of the Berlin Wall put on public display a significant amount of military material and equipment. Among these, journalists would notice US soldiers carrying the old M1 Garand rifles, which further blackened the eye of the M14 as a weapon unsuitable for production, much less nuclear-era warfare:
Once these images, which many considered outright damning of the US rifle program, surfaced, the Army took immediate action to send newly-made M14 rifles to Germany, even publishing a photo in Stripes magazine documenting the “changing of the guard” from the old M1 to the new rifle:
This controversy was perhaps fomented by Allied troops being present with new 7.62mm NATO rifles:
However, it wasn’t just US troops who stood off with World War II era weapons. Many of the East German border guards and troops carried antiquated WWII-era submachine guns and rifles, or early post-war carbines, as the menacing select-fire AK assault rifle had not yet shown up in quantity:
The Berlin Crisis of 1961 and the initial absence of the M14 rifle would herald the end of the M14 program. Two years later, Robert McNamara would enact the immediate cessation of M14 rifle production, the temporary procurement of the M16 rifle, and the SPIW program, which was to take three years. Despite McNamara’s opinion that the M16 was an off-the-shelf and temporary solution to the US rifle procurement problem, it proved to be neither. The troubles experienced by the M16 rifles and their users in Vietnam, which were caused by poor ammunition specifications, tainted powder, a lack of chrome-lining of the barrel to resist tropical conditions, and the lack of weapon-specific training and cleaning kits, have since come to overshadow those problems that dogged the M14 rifle program. Paradoxically, the M16 family of weapons proved to be far from a temporary fixture of US Army procurement, and new M4A1 Carbines – the M16’s short-barreled, modular descendant – continue to be procured for the US Armed Forces.
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Nathaniel is a history enthusiast and firearms hobbyist whose primary interest lies in military small arms technological developments beginning with the smokeless powder era. He can be reached via email at nathaniel.f@staff.thefirearmblog.com.
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Ahh Berlin. A great city. My oldest was born in the Army Hospital. If you like History Alex look up a book called Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era [Steven Emerson] There is a LOT of interesting stuff about the US Mission relating to the Tripartite Pack and the US activities out of Postdam. It can be hard to find but will worth it.
We were issued M-14s when we got to Okinawa in the 60s. We constantly complained to the Sgt. about the weight, the ungainliness, how heavy the ammo was, the stock was forever warping in the humidity, having to clean the darn thing, jumping with it was so uncomfortable, it was not suited for jungle warfare etc. Yeah, right.