U.S. sending infantry into battle with ‘inferior small arms,’ says retired general

By Brian Seay

Maj. Gen. Scales appearing before Congress.
Retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales blames cumbersome acquisition protocols and bureaucracy writ large for failing to provide infantrymen with effective rifles.
Testifying before the Airland Subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee last month, the 35-year Army veteran outlined the flaws inherent in the M4 carbine and called for the development of a new rifle.
Scales lambasted the Army for decades of preventable infantrymen deaths as a result of the M4 and its predecessor, the M16, which is still widely used.
“Since the end of World War II the richest and most technologically advanced country in the world has sent its Soldiers and Marines into combat with inferior small arms. So inferior, fact [sic], that thousands have died needlessly,” Scales wrote in a statement for the committee.
“If the lives of so many depend on a rifle, why can’t the richest country in the world give it to them?” the statement says, noting that nearly 80 percent of all soldiers killed at the hands of the enemy are infantry.
Battlefield conditions often cause the rifles to jam, Scales said, recalling his time in Vietnam when his unit was overrun, and three of his soldiers were killed in June

Source: Guns.com