Pre-WWI Lee-Enfield Replacement?

There wasn't a change during the war because there was a war going on. People weren't about to start chopping and changing their main infantry weapon when every gun produced was needed at the front. That's the reason why the P13 Enfield got shelved and eventually redesigned into the .303 firing P14, and it's why the French stuck with Lebel despite the fact that they planned on changing over to the self loading Meunier rifle and 7.92mm starting in 1913.

Also Britain couldn't switch over to cavalry carbines as the SMLE was specifically designed to replace both long infantry rifles and short cavalry rifles. Had the war gone on any longer countries apart from Germany and Italy would probably have introduced SMG counterparts, the French had an SLR firing shortened rounds IIRC, but the war didn't go on longer so most countries stuck with what they were set up to churn out, much like tanks in WW2.

I know there was a chronic rifle shortage in Britain (hence why winchester had to build so many of them)... but it would have still behooved them to staff study the fighting they where doing (even as early neuve chapelle, certainly no later than Verdun and the Somme) and say you know what, almost all of our small arms engagements are at 75 yards or less and frequently at less than 20 in cramped quarters, it might be a good idea to pilot a battalion or two with a shorter weapon

this was kind of the same attitude that kept the 84mm piece in service even though it was inferior in every way to the french 75 and the german 77mm pieces...the stuborness or unwillingness to adapt to lessons that should have been learned also lead to the continued production of shrapnel shells long after the french and germans had discovered only he rounds could inflict the damaged needed, and that field guns where useless (since trenches where behind reverse slopes you needed high angle howitzers)
 
There was a possible cartridge that could have resulted in a automatic rifle from 1906. The .30 Remington had the ballistics and even shares the same reloading data with the .30-30 Winchester in a rimless package. Its also was the parent cartridge of the 6.8mm SPC. Want a good POD, have John Browning sometime around 1910 continue work beyond the Remington Model 8 resulting in something like a down scaled BAR. Unable to interest the U.S. Army in the pattern he looks to FN who put it into production for the Belgian Army. From here it comes to the attention of the British Army at the start of the first world war where it comes into use. One British general seeing the effectiveness of this rifle orders the pattern into production ironically from Winchester in 1916.

It may be a bit convoluted, but so what.
 
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