Is this even possible?

  • Possible, despite how unlikely this scenario was due to backroom politics. Also 45= knock down!

  • Hell no! Bill Clinton was correct in destroying M14s and the FN FAL will reign in the free world!

  • Hell yes, America, Patriotism, Apple Pie, FREEDOM!!!

  • Thanks, but no thanks Uncle Sam, I like to keep my 9mm Hipower.

  • America should have adopted the FN FAL and perhaps they would have kept Saigon from falling

  • M14 yes, M1911A1 no (We don't need a Forty Five Caliber cartridge with the Wild West in mind)

  • M14 no, M1911A1 yes (FN FAL would have won out)

  • I want no teenage drama queen, I want my M14!


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The 6mm and 7mm cartridges are too heavy for infantry rifles and too light for machine guns. Even cartridges like .280 British would basically lock you into a battle rifle rather than assault rifle platform. They also lack the battle sight range of SCHV and cause more recoil. Big muzzle brakes have no place on anything but race guns.

I mentioned .270 British which is a different cartridge to the .280 British. The .270 round had 2200 joules of energy and was similar in power to the 7.62x39 Soviet round with 2100 joules energy. I think it would qualify as an assault rifle round.
 

Deleted member 1487

No AR15 in 6.8 SPC in the mid 50s.
No, but there was a .270 Winchester (more powerful round) and .280 Remington.

I mentioned .270 British which is a different cartridge to the .280 British. The .270 round had 2200 joules of energy and was similar in power to the 7.62x39 Soviet round with 2100 joules energy. I think it would qualify as an assault rifle round.
It was intended as such.

The 6mm and 7mm cartridges are too heavy for infantry rifles and too light for machine guns. Even cartridges like .280 British would basically lock you into a battle rifle rather than assault rifle platform. They also lack the battle sight range of SCHV and cause more recoil. Big muzzle brakes have no place on anything but race guns.
For what? The .30-06 was the most powerful of the military cartridges and it did fine in a semi-auto rifle. The Swedes and Norwegians were fine with a 6.5mm cartridge for their MG use other than for HMGs, but then for those at least an 8.5-9mm magnum cartridge is needed.

Very good arguments have been made for a 6mm universal round to cover all infantry needs other than the HMG or very long range/anti-material sniper platform.

With something like the .270 British or 6.8mm SPC you have a round that is better at energy retention and penetration than a SCHV round, but anything between 6-7mm can be serviceable in that role. Its just a question of trade offs and what is deemed desirable by doctrine.

Right now the US army is developing a next generation weapon in 6.8mm:
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine....-68-mm-round-a-game-changer-for-ground-troops
 
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AR-10 instead of the M-14 might actually be more interesting than it seems... The implications of sticking with 7.62 longer probably aren't huge, and I suspect NATO will downsize at some point (5.56 is a long way from a forgone conlusion without a US push though) but all things being equal I really wonder if we don't end up with NATO adopting essentially the M-4 (as in a mid size cartridge AR-15 carbine) when intermediete cartridges become a thing.

OTOH if the AR-10 gets the M-16s reputation early on I wonder if the US might adopt some European rifle, perhaps a bullpup, coming out of Vietnam... I'm almost picturing the SA-80 as a joint program. Or somehow landing on the AUG...
 

Deleted member 1487

They are longer, heavier and more powerful than .30-06
The parent case is the .30-03, so yeah.

Edit:
Actually it is less powerful than the .30-06 with a 140 or less grain bullet. Not by that much, but enough to reduce recoil significantly, especially with a lighter bullet.

OTOH if the AR-10 gets the M-16s reputation early on I wonder if the US might adopt some European rifle, perhaps a bullpup, coming out of Vietnam... I'm almost picturing the SA-80 as a joint program. Or somehow landing on the AUG...
It kind of did in testing due to the burst composite prototype barrel. If anything the US would just fall back on the M14. Probably would just go with the FAL if they went with anything European, the US military has never liked bullpups.
 
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Deleted member 1487

Ok, if we play along with the premise, how early would the M14 have to be ready (assuming the quality control issues are resolved quickly) for other NATO countries to adopt it? The FAL was in service starting in 1953, so would it need to be ready at least around the same time with no QC issues? Or would it require a license agreement like FN was offering with the FAL?
 

marathag

Banned
Any chance we can change this to "What if NATO decided to adopt the AR-10"?

Failing that as least the M14 gets a decent muzzle brake? Apparently there are some good ones out there:
And not new, either. When Garand was working on the followup to the M1 during the war, each prototype had a larger brake than the previous.

And that all got tossed for the grenade launcher for the M14, that was hardly ever used.
 

Deleted member 1487

270 Win is 30-30 based, but loaded to far higher pressure.

The cartridge that should have been used was 250 Savage or 257 Roberts
The 6mm Remington looks good too, also uses same case as the .257 Roberts.

And not new, either. When Garand was working on the followup to the M1 during the war, each prototype had a larger brake than the previous.
Ironic that:
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/12/14/light-rifle-part-iv-m1-garand-learns-rock-roll/
The design of the rifle’s brake was absolutely essential to the concept, as otherwise the weapon would be totally uncontrollable in fully automatic mode.

Apparently they had a grenade launcher that fit over the muzzle brake, so I don't get what happened there.

This part though is highly interesting:
Thus, we have seen that at the end of World War II, or shortly thereafter, Ordnance had in its grasp no less than four rifles (T20E2, T22E3, and Winchester’s select-fire M1 and the Williams-designed G30R discussed in Part II) that offered what they were looking for in a next-generation infantry weapon. These rifles were chambered for standard .30 caliber ammunition, and any one of them could have been tested, adopted, and produced before the end of the 1940s. However, as we’ll see Ordnance would choose “perfect” over “good enough”, as a future installment will cover the fateful decision to abandon the .30 M2 caliber in favor of an entirely new round. This, combined with the collapse of another program, and the “life support” level of funding that the Garand improvement program would receive post-war, would cause a 12 year delay in fielding a weapon of this kind.

A proto-M14 might have been the way to go in TTL; keep the .30-06 and adopt one of the developed mid-1940s Garands.
 
270 Winchester (more powerful round) and .280 Remington.

They are longer, heavier and more powerful than .30-06
The parent case is the .30-03, so yeah.

Edit:
Actually it is less powerful than the .30-06 with a 140 or less grain bullet. Not by that much, but enough to reduce recoil significantly, especially with a lighter bullet.
for the context of an individual combat rifle, useful out to 600m, there really isn't a significant difference between the 3
they are all descent from the same parent cartridge, have the same oal, and as far as ballistics go, you're splitting hairs
270 Win is 30-30 based,
typo?
 

Deleted member 1487

for the context of an individual combat rifle, useful out to 600m, there really isn't a significant difference between the 3
they are all descent from the same parent cartridge, have the same oal, and as far as ballistics go, you're splitting hairs
A .270 bullet out of the same case will be quite bit flatter firing and high energy at 600m than the .30 caliber, especially if there is a long, nearly same weight bullet used (excellent sectional density). The 140 grain .270 is a lot more aerodynamic than a 150 grain M2 Ball .30 cal round.
 
270 Win is 30-30 based, but loaded to far higher pressure.
.270 Win is actually based on the .30-03 cartridge that M1903 Springfield rifles originally used, which is why it's sometimes possible to stuff a .270-06 in a .270 Winchester chamber. The .30-03 cartridge fired a 220 gr roundnose at about 2,300 fps, so the pressure difference compared to .270 Winchester is actually fairly small.
 
A .270 bullet out of the same case will be quite bit flatter firing and high energy at 600m than the .30 caliber, especially if there is a long, nearly same weight bullet used (excellent sectional density). The 140 grain .270 is a lot more aerodynamic than a 150 grain M2 Ball .30 cal round.
https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2018/10/sam-hoober/classic-caliber-comparison-270-vs-30-06/
Federal Ammunition ballistics for a 130-grain Nosler Partition in .270 Winchester attests that with a 100-yard zero, the bullet drops 2.9 inches at 200 yards and 10.8 inches at 300 yards. With a 200-yard zero, the .270 drops by 6.5 inches at 300 yards and 19.1 inches at 400 yards. By contrast, the 165-grain Partition in .30-06 drops by 3.6 inches at 200 yards and by 13.3 inches at 300 yards with a 100-yard zero. With a 200-yard zero, expected drop is 7.9 inches at 300 yards and 23 inches at 400 yards.

4 inches difference at 400 yards, using a 200 yard zero,
3 inches difference at 300 yards, using a 100 yard zero,

in the context of a hunting rifle that can be significant, not so much in the context of a military rifle, simply due to how many other factors you need to account for like the fact that you're buying several thousand/million firearms

and the round is still overkill for a man at 600m
 

Deleted member 1487

4 inches difference at 400 yards, using a 200 yard zero,
3 inches difference at 300 yards, using a 100 yard zero,

in the context of a hunting rifle that can be significant, not so much in the context of a military rifle, simply due to how many other factors you need to account for like the fact that you're buying several thousand/million firearms
Not insignificant if you're planning on having a universal caliber.

and the round is still overkill for a man at 600m
Better than underkill. Especially if you're planning on having a universal caliber, as NATO was up until the 1960s, which means use in sniper rifles and MGs, so 1000m is also a consideration if not even further in the case of MMGs (the Brits planned on at least 2km range for their .280 cartridge in the MMG role).

Though they were also planning on a lighter, more compact cartridge, so they would shorten it quite a bit if they were going to use it.
 
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