actually my problems regarding the M16 and M4 have nothing to do with leathality, they have to do with the quality of rifles we in the IDF got. And as far as ammount of bullets per target, while there is no prescribed number, the way we train prettey much grantees that we fire at least 3 rounds before we even know if the target is down. its not tap-wait-tap-wait-tap-wait, its tap-tap-tap....

Yes so do US troops. We don't have a specific number of rounds we fire on a target. You keep pulling the trigger until the enemy drops.

As for quality of the rifles mine never jams up. I can't remember the last time I have had a malfunction. When you do have a malfunction it is either the rounds or the spring in the mag going bad. As long as you keep the rifle clean it in itself will not fail.

I know that with american weapons there seems to be much less trouble. I dont know if its IDF poor maintanance, poor cleaning, or simply that we recieved weapons already discarded by the US military. I fully admit I dont know the reason, but I have had endless troubles withthe M16 in the dessert, and it was surely not MY cleaning tthat was poor...

I might have given the rifles a little too much credit by saying they wont fail. I am lucky enough to be in a unit who doesn't get shafted like the rest of the guard so all of my gear is new, I have a new m4. If you have a m16 thats 15 or 20 years old it will fail every now and then but they aren't too bad. I remember being able to count on 2 hands how many failures I had with my m16a4 at basic and you put alot of rounds down range at infantry school. 90% of the time failures are due to the magizine though.

Sometimes if the rifle and the parts inside are too old it will become more prone to jamming. I've seen some old SAW that were kept clean enough to eat your food from but were malfunctioning because the parts were so worn out.
It's possible that the M-16s that Sherman came across were 30 years old.

Proper double taps as they relate to CQB are done in series. Not the double tap evaluate double tap some instructors teach. Double taps are meant to be fired until the target no longer presents a threat. The purpose of a double tap is to maximize your effect on target.

@13th, not possible, most of them WERE 30 years old, and sawed off by the IDF to make things worse.

They sawed off the M-16s??

Sawed off? That's pretty crazy. I know the full legth gas tube on the M16s are designed with a 20 inch barrel in mind. Perhaps sawing it off would cause the gas pressure to vent while it still requires that pressure in the tube to cycle the bolt properly. This would make it hyper sensative to lack of lube, or sand/dust and cause the weapon to cycle improperly. When you say sawed off, do you mean they cut them just in front of the front sight post?

They sawed off the M-16s??

Sawed off? That's pretty crazy. I know the full legth gas tube on the M16s are designed with a 20 inch barrel in mind. Perhaps sawing it off would cause the gas pressure to vent while it still requires that pressure in the tube to cycle the bolt properly. This would make it hyper sensative to lack of lube, or sand/dust and cause the weapon to cycle improperly. When you say sawed off, do you mean they cut them just in front of the front sight post?

What they did was take M16 or more accuratly vintage M16s, and cut them down to the length of the M4 or CAR-15, or in some cases the length of the shorty.
The IDF has both CAR-15 made in colt factories and what we call "Sawed" weapons, which are the result of this idiocy. If we were in europe or north america this might actually fly, but in the desert it is an absolute catastrophy. They jam very frequently. Its less of a problem now because infantry no longer has them at all, they now have either M4 or Tavor. The only combat units that carry them are armor and arty, which fire their rifles less frequently in combat. Still, I always thought that giving up the Galil SAR for the armor troops was silly. As a tanker you dont tap around much on foot, and the Galil has unmatched reliabilty in any conditions.