US Army adopts the low recoil 7.62 NATO round with M14

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
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Deleted member 1487

Yes that is a good point. I suppose in practice in this fictional time line, rifle ammunition for combat use would probably be issued in stripper clips that are contained in bandoleers, while machine gun ammunition would probably be loaded in belts.
All militaries mark the different ammo with different colored paint on the tip to differentiate what type of cartridge it is.

My understanding is that part of the reason is that some Armies wanted to spend the money they had on other things such as anti tank weapons.
Maybe, but you don't think the US would subsidize their NATO allies buying M16s after Vietnam was over to boost US industry and standardize the alliance on one rifle?

I was under the impression that Australia, New Zealand, and the UK issued M16's / AR15's on occasion as well ?
Yes, as an SMG replacement and those were given by the US:
https://www.awm.gov.au/collection/C1163959
The M16A1 assault rifle was introduced into Australian Army service in 1967 as a section weapon for use by scouts and section commanders.

They seem to have preferred a sawed off FAL:
https://www.wearethemighty.com/gear-tech/australian-sawed-off-machine-gun?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog...nough-the-australian-btch-variant-of-the-slr/
 
Maybe, but you don't think the US would subsidize their NATO allies buying M16s after Vietnam was over to boost US industry and standardize the alliance on one rifle? /

Maybe although I suspect most NATO armies wouldn't be in a huge rush to devote time and money to retrain all their reservists, replace war reserves of 7.62mm Ammunition etc that such a change over would result in ? (I suspect there may not have been much enthusiasm for having both 5.56mm and 7.62mm "service rifles" in service at the same time for any length of time.)

If they were facing a war involving extensive use of light infantry I could see more enthusiasm for making the change. When they were facing a massed armour threat I suspect replacing functional 7.62x51 small arms was lower on the priority list than acquiring better weapons to deal with tanks.
 
Why did the FAL stay in service into the mid-1980s and the G3 into the 1990s then? It wasn't like the militaries that used them weren't flush with Cold War money or a United States interested in their NATO allies adopting their standard rifle/caliber for frontline infantry use. Then none of the major European militaries adopted the M16, they developed their own rifles for the 5.56. Also in terms of the MG in OP the US military journal the article is from say the low recoil round was tested and compatible with the M60.

Priorities, these are not bad weapons, just not ideal and the marginal improvement is not as valuable as new AT weapons, tanks F16, Trident, radios artillery etc.

The Brits and Aussies, NZ, South Korea, Israel all used it in some numbers. In the case of the brits from 66 onwards. The Canadians adopted it as C7 the Singaporeans as something else.

Interestingly the ones at issued it did so to specific forces with a need or in response ( Israel) to having massive issues with the FAL in 67.

The US is the only military with an anal retentive issue on the perkiest rifle on the block. Much more useful to spend time training.
 

Deleted member 1487

Maybe although I suspect most NATO armies wouldn't be in a huge rush to devote time and money to retrain all their reservists, replace war reserves of 7.62mm Ammunition etc that such a change over would result in ? (I suspect there may not have been much enthusiasm for having both 5.56mm and 7.62mm "service rifles" in service at the same time for any length of time.)

If they were facing a war involving extensive use of light infantry I could see more enthusiasm for making the change. When they were facing a massed armour threat I suspect replacing functional 7.62x51 small arms was lower on the priority list than acquiring better weapons to deal with tanks.
The British started developing the 4.85x49mm cartridge in the 1960s and of course a rifle around it, which later turned into the SA-80. In 1976 they agreed to standardize on the 5.56mm round and then it took until 1985 until the SA-80 was in service, though required a lot of work to make reliable.

Germany was working on the G11 rifle since the late 1960s, but the project was killed by the end of the Cold War, which led them to finally adopt the 5.56/G36.

France started development of the FAMAS in the 1960s.

All of them wanted a SCHV cartridge/rifle and chose to spend a lot more on developing their own rifles and in most cases their own cartridge rather than adopt the M16 and 5.56mm.

So they were all very interested in spending the money to have something to replace their existing battle rifles, but no one wanted the US rifle if they had the industrial/technological base to develop their own, while most didn't even want the 5.56 until the US made the case for standardization.

In the meantime they were apparently happy enough with their battle rifles to take 30+ years to develop their SCHV rifles.
 
The British started developing the 4.85x49mm cartridge in the 1960s and of course a rifle around it, which later turned into the SA-80. In 1976 they agreed to standardize on the 5.56mm round and then it took until 1985 until the SA-80 was in service, though required a lot of work to make reliable.

Germany was working on the G11 rifle since the late 1960s, but the project was killed by the end of the Cold War, which led them to finally adopt the 5.56/G36.

France started development of the FAMAS in the 1960s.

All of them wanted a SCHV cartridge/rifle and chose to spend a lot more on developing their own rifles and in most cases their own cartridge rather than adopt the M16 and 5.56mm.

So they were all very interested in spending the money to have something to replace their existing battle rifles, but no one wanted the US rifle if they had the industrial/technological base to develop their own, while most didn't even want the 5.56 until the US made the case for standardization.

In the meantime they were apparently happy enough with their battle rifles to take 30+ years to develop their SCHV rifles.
Yep... I basically agree..

That being said:

IMHO

In the case of the UK and France they were probably involved (or likely to be involved) in more light infantry type actions to have more justification than many other NATO nations to move away from a "battle rifle" in the Cold War era. In the case of the West Germans it doesn't seem unreasonable that they would have eventually wanted to replace their G3's. R and D efforts seem reasonable to be me in that context.

On the other hand the Canadians for example seemed okay with using FAL's until they were apparently considered obsolete and according to some accounts I have read many of them were close to worn out. As mentioned before in this thread they ended up producing the M16 under license.
 
I was under the impression that Australia, New Zealand, and the UK issued M16's / AR15's on occasion as well ?

That's true. The SAS liked the M16, and it was issued to some infantry units as well (anecdotally, often to the pointman in patrols, with an under-barrel shotgun. If he encountered something that needed fighting, immediate action was to unload a blast of buckshot and as much of the magazine as he could before turning and running like hell back through the patrol line. This was meant to buy a precious second or so and gain initiative for the patrol vs. whatever they ran into). However, my personal experience was that many units went from SMLE to SLR, and then to Steyr, without ever seeing an M16.
 
Why did the FAL stay in service into the mid-1980s and the G3 into the 1990s then?

Because a lot of nations can't afford replacing their entire arsenal of rifles very often. Take the Norwegian AG-3 that got phased out of army service the year I went in. They made 260000 of them, more than enough last the Army into the mid 2000s and that sort of cemented it as the rifle we were stuck with until they were all worn out.
 
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