jester I was thinking along the same lines as you as far as equipping lesser units.
If I was a U.S. soldier I would get my hands on an M14 ASAP. As there would be plenty of M80 ball floating around for MG's.
Both you and grae are correct the M1 can be either rebarreled or have a chamber insert used to convert it from .30-06 to 7.62x51mm. The navy converted many M1's with a chamber insert but eventually found it to be unsatisfactory because the insert would eventually eject out of the chamber with a spent round and you never new when. But it would be a cheap easy T2K solution to ammunition commonality. Eventually the Navy took jesters route and re barreled several thousand M1's before they could receive enough M14's to fill the racks. And for the real clever armorer the M1 can also be modified to accept M14-20 round magazines.
As for the AKM i'm sure it would be prevalent. I prefer it for down range effect to the 5.45X39mm but the 74 certainly is more accurate. I have seen several pictures of Spetnaz troops armed with the older AKM rather than the 74 or its even newer AK-100 series replacements.
I always love a good gun thread.
Brother in Arms
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