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According to what I found the M16A3 is barely used anymore in the US military except for a few non-combat units. And I'm not talking about as a platform because remember, we're talking specifically about the M16A3 in Portal, not the IRL setup. Also, you have to remember that we're talking 20 years in the future. The US military is replacing their standard issue again this year so 20 years from now the M16 will be a relic. There's also a ton of lore that can be written around it. Global conflict at the scale in 2042 would almost certainly see factions scavenging weapons and supply lines and manufacturing being disrupted.
@Tis_StarBarf wrote:
According to what I found the M16A3 is barely used anymore in the US military except for a few non-combat units. And I'm not talking about as a platform because remember, we're talking specifically about the M16A3 in Portal, not the IRL setup. Also, you have to remember that we're talking 20 years in the future. The US military is replacing their standard issue again this year so 20 years from now the M16 will be a relic. There's also a ton of lore that can be written around it. Global conflict at the scale in 2042 would almost certainly see factions scavenging weapons and supply lines and manufacturing being disrupted.
@Tis_StarBarf when I was in a line unit the M-16s were normally in the headquarters company for the staff while the M-4s were issued to the combat positions. Undoubtedly the M-16s may have been later moved to higher echelon units such as division and corps during the GWOT but they're definitely still around in the inventory and would be in storage in case of a big war comes down the road even if they replaced them with M-4s later. In the world ending scenario we see in 2042 M-16s would definitely be back on the menu for whomever came across the warehouses. Regarding states like Russia they still have warehouses full of actual WWII equipment in storage just in case they need it again.
Edited for spelling