.280 British

In the early 50s, the British attempted to introduce the .280 British intermediate round, alongside the EM-2 bullpup assault rifle and Taden light machine gun. Apparently there was some interest on the Continent and in the Commonwealth, but in the end, the project was canned as the Americans absolutely refused to go with anything smaller .30-06 and the British government decided that standardizing ammunition within NATO was more important than introducing some neat guns.

Nevertheless, the eventual selection of 7.62x51mm ammunition was not without its opponents - mostly those saying that it was too powerful for the kind of mid-range, rapid-fire suppression tactics foreseen on the "modern" battlefield, not to mention heavy...and those opponents were shown to be mostly correct as the US adopted the 5.56 AR-15 family as their main assault rifles a scant decade after the introduction of 7.62.

What would it take for the British to run ahead with the .280 anyway (probably known ITTL as 7mm)? If they do, it's very likely the FN will join the bandwagon (OTL they were pretty enthused about it), and of course that cements the 7mm's role as an important round in the grand scheme of things. Would a more ascendant/less obviously falling apart Empire/Commonwealth do it? Would a greater French role? Can a British-French-Belgian bloc force the introduction of the .280 instead of or alongside the .308 Winchester? Is the only possible influence an internal American one, causing the Americans to somehow reduce their complaints and agree to standardize on the British round? Somehow, I get a feeling that American jingoism may prevent a willingness to use any kind of foreign-origin round, regardless of actual concerns (e.g., even if 7.62 is decided to be too strong, they'll instead prefer to standardize on a 6.5mm round based on the .270 Winchester or something.
 
What would it take for the British to run ahead with the .280 anyway (probably known ITTL as 7mm)? If they do, it's very likely the FN will join the bandwagon (OTL they were pretty enthused about it), and of course that cements the 7mm's role as an important round in the grand scheme of things. Would a more ascendant/less obviously falling apart Empire/Commonwealth do it? Would a greater French role? Can a British-French-Belgian bloc force the introduction of the .280 instead of or alongside the .308 Winchester? Is the only possible influence an internal American one, causing the Americans to somehow reduce their complaints and agree to standardize on the British round? Somehow, I get a feeling that American jingoism may prevent a willingness to use any kind of foreign-origin round, regardless of actual concerns (e.g., even if 7.62 is decided to be too strong, they'll instead prefer to standardize on a 6.5mm round based on the .270 Winchester or something.

The .280 really faced an uphill battle when it came to general acceptance. The only way that you are going to see it being adopted is if there isn't an American dominated NATO. The US Military was so engrained in it's ".30-06 is king" philosophy that they effectively made their new cartridge (the 7.62x51) a virtual copy of the M2 ball, .30-06. When you are dealing with that kind of thinking, you aren't going to make a hell of a lot of progress.

Even if the UK decided to say shove it to the US, they are going to have their own problems. The adoption of the .280 would mean that the rest of the commonwealth would be forced to adopt it. The UK might have some difficulty convincing South Africa, Australia, and India to abolish their well established .303 production lines in order to produce this new, whiz-bang cartridge. That will be an expensive undertaking. Also, it will leave millions of surplus .303 rounds, which will have effectively no use, since a firearm in a completely different caliber is going to be adopted.

Furthermore, there is the problem of the firearm itself. The EM2 is a lovely little weapon, but it may be overly complex and expensive for some commonwealth countries to produce. Not to mention that it's reliabilty in adverse conditions, like sand or excessive mostiure, has not been proven. This is where the Belgians could prove useful, developing a .280 caliber, more inexpensive, FAL-type rifle. This rifle would certainly see adoption among the belgians and other european nations, but it may seem like the better alternative to the EM2 to some commonwealth nations.

Finally, I don't see the French ever adopting the .280. They stuck with their own round, the 7.5x54 up until the 1980s.
 
FN made a .280 FAL already. It was even tested in the US as the T-1 (I think).

The US Army issue was that they had 100's of millions of .30-06 already in existence and were reluctant to throw that away - same as the Commonwealth and .303.

The US continued using the .30-06 well after the 7.62 NATO was adopted, though. We kept the M1 Garand in service up until 1967. Same with the M1919 and it's various encarnations. The Brits transition over to the 7.62x51 fairly quickly, going so far to convert many .303 weapons to 7.62.
 
Top