Army demos corrected M4 rifles

From ABS-CBN (Aug 27): Army demos corrected M4 rifles



President Benigno S. Aquino III, assisted by Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, leads the ceremonial distribution of assault rifles to the Philippine Army and Philippine Navy Marine troops at the Armed Forces of the Philippines General Headquarters canopy at Camp General Emilio Aguinaldo in Quezon City on August 14, 2014. Photo by Robert Viñas

In a bid to show the public that their newly purchased weapons are now fit for combat use, the Philippine Army did a test firing on three of the Remington M4 rifles that were recently given back to the manufacturer because of defects.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) acquired 50,629 M4 rifles from Remington Outdoor Co., 44,186 of of which will go to the Army and 6,443 to the Marines.

Last August, President Aquino started a series of ceremonial turnovers of these rifles, personally handing over some of the guns to the soldiers as testament to proper use of government funds.

But as it turned out, the rifles that Aquino and some former AFP officials handed over had not yet passed the final inspection of the Technical Inspection and Acceptance Committee (TIAC).

Around the same time as the ceremonial handovers, the Army found that the rear sight on all the rifles were unstable. All 44,186 rifles had to be returned to Remington.

Col. Benjamin Hao, spokesman for the Army, was asked to respond to observations that the AFP put President Aquino in a bad light, because they made him symbolically give the soldiers weapons that turned out to be defective.

Hao said Aquino was just happily showing the people that he could provide them better weapons. But whether or not the AFP put Aquino in an embarrassing situation, Hao said he could not speak on that.

He, however, said that despite the earlier defects, the Army is happy that they have brand new weapons. The M4s are lighter and shorter than the M-16 rifles that the Army has been using for the past few decades. Hao said this will give more agility to their soldiers in combat.

The warehouse where some 50,000 M4 rifles were stored was opened to show none of the defective rifles had been issued to the field. All of the defective rear sights have been corrected, but all rifles still need to undergo ballistics test before being issued.

The Marines have already been issued 1,500 M4s.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/nation/08/27/15/army-demos-corrected-m4-rifles