The M4 Carbine (Weapon)

Utilizing the newest technical, ballistic, and tactical analysis obtainable, this e book defines the explanation why the M4/M4A1 achieved its ascendancy, but in addition analyzes the query marks that grasp over the weapon’s future.

The M4 carbine has change into one of many defining army firearms of the late twentieth and early twenty first centuries. Developed as a fusion of the XM177E2 Colt Commando and the M16A2 assault rifle, the M4 provided a extra handy battlefield firearm than the full-length M16 variants, and the US Military adopted it as the usual infantry weapon within the Nineteen Nineties. At the moment, army and law-enforcement personnel of greater than 60 nations have adopted both the M4 or the M4A1 variant, each of which have been examined and confirmed in main fight operations worldwide.

This research describes the event course of intimately, from manufacturing of the primary XM4 prototypes in 1984 by quite a few modified varieties till it emerged into official use because the M4 in 1994. The M4 provided a weapon that was 1lb lighter and 6in shorter than the usual M16A2, but may nonetheless ship precision semi-auto and full-auto firepower as much as an efficient vary of 500m. Over time, its capabilities have been enhanced by the M4A1 modifications plus an intensive vary of tactical equipment, together with optical day/night time sights, laser/infrared designators, under-barrel grenade launchers and shotgun modules, foregrips, furnishings choices, mounting rails, and sound suppressors. Quite a few M4/M4A1 fight operations are investigated to disclose why the weapon has obtained such excessive ranges of approval by front-line fight troops, not solely in Afghanistan and Iraq, the place the M4/M4A1 has been intensively combat-tested, but in addition in contexts reminiscent of Colombia, India, Israel, and the Philippines. Profusely illustrated with pictures and artworks, and drawing its analysis from the newest declassified paperwork, this can be a full information to probably the most necessary and extensively distributed tactical infantry weapons of the final quarter-century.