Not to be confused with M16A3 or M16A1.
The M16A4 is an American Assault Rifle available in Phantom Forces. It is unlocked at rank 22 or could be purchased using credits.
History[]
After the Vietnam War, the United States was looking to fix the issues with the M16A1 in service at the time. The three-round burst was implemented due to the poor performance and waste of ammunition by soldiers. Other changes include replacing the triangular handguard with a ribbed circular one, adding a case deflector and improving the rear sight. This new rifle was designated as the M16A2. Later, in the 1990s, a version called the M16A2E4 was selected and given the designation M16A4.
Small improvements were made, such as the removable carry handle, with an accessory rail on top of the receiver, underneath the carry handle, for the ease of attaching the optical module. A quad rail handguard is also standardized to allow more modularity. This variant is still the standard service rifle with the U.S military, although they are gradually replacing it with the M4 rifles.
In-Game[]
General Information[]
The M16A4 has high maximum damage for an assault rifle and is capable of a three-shot kill (3SK)—a single burst—up to 55 studs. It has low recoil and high aiming stability, which are great for long-range combat. The M16A4 is very effective at medium to long-range, however, it has its place in close-quarters-combat (CQC). A single well-aimed burst can eliminate a target at full health.
Unlike other three-round burst modes on other weapons, the burst of the M16A4 has higher accuracy and remains very stable, even with continuous burst fire. The burst has a high rate of fire (RoF) that makes it effective at medium range. However, at longer ranges, using burst can be quite annoying since the burst doesn't have a limit to the recoil, unlike automatic weapons, despite the weapon's soft recoil. Therefore, it is the player's choice whether to full burst or switch to semi-auto, where it would be more useful at longer ranges.
Unlike a designated marksman rifle, however, this weapon is at most a 5SK to a target at long ranges and does not have the suppressive power of a DMR. This makes the M16A4 especially vulnerable beyond short-medium ranges against machine guns and range-oriented weapons, as the M16A4 cannot dump half a magazine into an enemy without excessive spam clicking; its semi-automatic mode relies heavily on sustained accuracy, which light machine guns excel at countering.
Usage & Tactics[]
The M16A4 can be considered one of the most versatile assault rifles in-game, being able to perform well up close and at longer distances. However, to perform well with this weapon, one will have to be able to perfect the burst, as well as knowing when to full burst and when to tap. Perfecting the burst has a high skill cap in general, therefore, using this AR takes a lot more skill when compared to other ARs. It does take some practice to get used to the lack of a fully-automatic fire mode, and some players will have to learn to constantly check their M16A4's fire mode to ensure that they do not go into a CQC situation with it switched on semi-auto, or vice versa, although when one perfects the burst, it becomes one of the fastest killing ARs in the game at long range.
With a high-zoom optical sight like the ACOG Scope attached, the weapon performs similarly to a DMR in semi-auto. The semi-auto mode on M16A4 is more useful than that of any other assault rifle. On semi-auto, the rifle has very little recoil. It can make multiple successful shots at long range without the player needing to compensate for the recoil to hit a target. The semi-auto mode is faster than most DMRs and has no delay like the SKS or MK11. Despite having lower damage than a DMR, this gun has a larger magazine capacity and high aiming stability, however, this position can be obtained by the SL-8. Obviously, the semi-auto mode is not recommended for use within close quarters, as the time to kill (TTK) is quite long, even with its ability to kill in three shots.
As this gun does not have much horizontal recoil, a Muzzle Brake may be an optimal choice for players who choose to stick to the mid-range. Otherwise, the Compensator is the default choice to ensure all recoil remains vertical. Optics that have low zooms such as the Mini Sight and the Reflex Sight is recommended in order to further reduce the visible camera recoil when one perfects the burst, along with the use of a Folding Grip. Green Lasers can further aid accuracy recovery when ADS, while providing some extra hip-firing capabilities.
Conclusion[]
The M16A4 is a flexible weapon, hitting hard in close quarters, with its burst mode performing very well at this range. In the hands of a beginner, this gun will not seem appealing with its burst mode, but in the hands of a master, this gun becomes extremely deadly at any range. At mid to long range, its low recoil helps to continuously lay down fire without being obstructed by recoil.
Pros & Cons[]
Pros:
- Good overall damage.
- High RoF.
- Straight recoil.
- Above-average muzzle velocity and penetration depth.
- Common ammunition type.
- Fast reloads.
Cons:
- Very high skill cap in order to be used efficiently.
- Burst fire is less effective at longer ranges and against prone targets.
- Shorter maximum range than other assault rifles.
- Has a small delay between bursts.
Trivia[]
- Prior to version 0.10.6, the M16A4 would fire a full burst each click. Presently, it always fires a full burst with a single click.
- The M16A4's ability to still fire a full burst after firing a partial burst is incorrect, as it uses a cam mechanism that does not reset upon premature release of the trigger, meaning that if one round is fired on burst, only 2 rounds will be fired the next time the trigger is pulled and so on.
- Along with the MK11 and the currently remodeled AR-patterned rifles, the selector switch is set to semi-auto and stays set to semi, even when manually switching fire modes.
- Only the M4A1, M4, Colt SMG 633 and Honey Badger still have their fire selectors set to safe.
- The bolt is closed after the last shot, it is not the case in real life where the bolt would lock open.
- In real life, when the bolt is open, the user can reload and press the bolt release button to chamber the round. The charging handle is used when reloading with the bolt closed.
- There is a bolt release animation, it was used for the tactical reload in-game. It is removed to make it closer to the real-life version.
- In the 2024 New Years update, the M16A4's animation was changed again, with the proper usage of the bolt release in the empty reload.
- The M16A4 is not a burst version of M16A3. Rather, it is a direct upgrade of the M16A2.
- The M16A3 is the full-auto version of M16A2, not the M16A4.
- Colt produces a full-auto version of the M16A4, product-coded as the R0901, which is for international purchases.[1]
- Therefore, the model in-game is the M16A4 R0905 variant which only comes with the burst trigger group.
- Prior to its remodel in version 7.1.0, both it and the M16A3 shared the same weapon model. After the update, the M16A4 now uses the M4A1's picatinny upper receiver and Knight's Armament M5 RAS hand guard covered in 4 inch, 9 inch and 11 inch Knight's Armament rail pads.
- There is currently a bug where the rifle's original sight will clip into any attached sights, this is caused by editing textures in slot 1 and 2 with an optic attached.
- This will only happen in the menu and will be corrected when the player deploys.
- Update 4.13.0 added a burst delay to the M4 and the M16A4, resulting in a waiting period between bursts, along with the position of the burst being "stored."
- This has been reverted as of Update 5.2.0.