I’m still stuck on him suggesting a submachine gun for police use, especially having also criticized submachine guns as promoting inaccuracy.
I’m going to posit that he was probably focused on range. He’s right that a PPD is not exactly what you want for taking 300 meter shots with. Suggesting that it would be suitable for police would be from the mindset that police operate entirely at close range.
This ignores that volume of (reasonably accurate) fire trumps mechanical precision accuracy at long range in infantry fights, and is wrong but his wrongness isn’t unique. The cult of accuracy / cult of the rifleman is a line of thinking that pops up throughout history.
Wasnt it exactly that type of thinking that delayed the adoption of the M16 as well, even though test units liked even the shoddy prototypes they were given.
I don’t believe the initial Army issued M16 was well received, owing to a lot of Ordnance Department meddling that did actually create a bad rifle. The XM16E1 quickly solved many of the issues, but by then the reputation of the rifle was stained.
Before that however, off the shelf AR-15s had caught the eye of both U.S. advisors in very early Vietnam involvement, and in local soldiers in Vietnam.
There were a lot more dimensions to the drama, but the push between traditionalists and more radical small arms thinking was at play. If you want to follow the drama do a search on “SPIW” and “Project Salvo” regarding thoughts on volume of fire.
The M14 at the time had the advantage of being perceived as more tried and true, as an evolution of the M1 Garand. It was even supposed to use much of the same tooling as the M1 to save money (this turned out to be a lie and cost a lot of money and time).
But that is all off the top of my head in an noncredible community, so ya know, double check sources.
