Among the most traumatic experiences suffered by American soldiers in the Vietnam War was the jamming, in action, of their key weapon, the M16 rifle. It was the cause of thousands of battle mishaps.

William Hallahan's Misfire is an in-depth expose of nearly two centuries of failure by the U.S. Army Ordinance Corps in the arming of our infantry. Hallahan shows that the M16 was the last in a long sequence of faulty small-arms provided to American soldiers since Revolutionary times.

Hallahan tells the story of American small-arms weaponry from its colonial origins - with the establishment of our two great arsenals, the National Armories at Springfield, Massachusetts and Harper's Ferry, Virginia - up to the present.

Misfire is a story of politics as well as history. As Hallahan shows, the U.S. Army Ordinance Corps has been fixated for generations on accurate, deliberate firepower and the conservative use of ammunition, despite the fact that the prime innovations in arms technology have led to ever more rapid-firing and accurate weapons.