World War II legendary gun M1 Garland
In 1957, the M14 based on the M1 Garland rifle was born. Many of its structures and principles have inherited the M1 rifle, but you can choose between semi-automatic or fully automatic shooting methods; A detachable magazine with 20-30 rounds for ammunition, using 7.62×51mm full-power rifle ammunition. The U.S. military was very satisfied with this weapon, so it was soon put into service. However, within a few years, this weapon, which was placed in high hopes by the US military, was mocked mercilessly in actual combat.
The early version of the M14 can be seen in many designs in the same line as the M1 Garland.
In 1965, the main force of the US military directly interfered in the Vietnam War, and hundreds of thousands of M14 rifles began to undergo large-scale actual combat tests. However, the M14 rifle is obviously unacceptable in Vietnam: the gun uses full-power ammunition mainly for the Soviet army equipped with body armor, but the North Vietnamese soldiers hardly wear body armor, which makes the M14 stop effective and cause more injuries. It is a penetrating wound, which is not very lethal. Despite the high accuracy of the gun, the dense tropical rain forest in Vietnam obscured the view. The vast majority of infantry exchanges broke out within 100 meters. The high accuracy is useless. Finally, the hot and humid weather in Vietnam caused many stability problems in the M14. What's more terrible is that M14 also encountered its lifelong enemy-AK47.
The North Vietnamese armed forces supported by the Soviet Union and China are equipped with a large number of AK47 rifles and their derivative models. Because they can fire fully automatically, their firepower far exceeds the US M14. Although the M14 can also fire fully automatically, first of all its magazines generally only have 20 rounds, while the AK47 has 30 rounds; secondly, the M14 uses full-power bullets, which must be accompanied by large recoil, so the gun is fully automatic It is almost impossible to aim when shooting, and the AK47 uses a 7.62×39mm medium-power bullet, which has a much smaller recoil, and because the bullet is much lighter, the amount of ammunition carried by North Vietnamese soldiers has been higher than that of US soldiers for a long time. Therefore, M14 is not an AK47 opponent at all in the crossfire. The M14 hit by
AK47 has nothing to fight back.
is the so-called "throwing around the goods". Seeing that the American army holding the M14 was beaten by the AK47 in the hands of the North Vietnamese soldiers crying and crying. The M14 was directly retired in 1967, and only a small number of M14 and improved versions were retained in some troops. This rifle was retired after less than ten years of service, which is really surprising. It was replaced by the famous M16. Although the M16 has various problems, it corrected several pain points of the M14 and is still in service in the US military.
Although the M14 was beaten into the cold palace, even though the United States was wealthy, it could not bear to throw away hundreds of thousands of rifles. It happened that the U.S. Army was frightened by the North Vietnamese sniper equipped with the SVD sniper rifle, so the U.S. Army improved part of the M14. M21 sniper rifle, used to counter SVD. The M21 semi-automatic sniper rifle not only has the high precision of traditional sniper rifles, but also has the firepower advantage of semi-automatic rifles in sniper warfare, so it is quite popular among American snipers. The famous sniper Chuck Maweni used the semi-automatic feature of the M21 to complete the legendary battle of killing 16 North Vietnamese soldiers within 30 seconds. Afterwards, he pointed out that if he used a traditional bolt-action sniper rifle, it would be impossible to complete such a difficult task.
The improved M14 model
still active in the hands of the US military. When the war in Afghanistan and Iraq arrived, the US military found that these places were very dry and open, which just allowed the M14 to fill the gap between automatic rifles and sniper rifles, so the M14 was completely revitalized. , There have been many improved models such as M14EBR, MK14 and M39, which continue to be active in the US military. Now we can often see it in all kinds of news.
