[HorseSoldier]

Having researched a bit on the Garand action, it seems that they are a bit sensitive to load/propellant type and bullet weight. I think they work well when converted to .308, which is what I would assume would be the case, but .30-06 is a pretty common civillian round here in the States.

The US Navy maintained some Garands in 7.62x51 after the adoption of the M14 for general service rifle use. No idea if any of them were anywhere still in the inventory by the time frame of the Twilight War, since the USN had long since moved on to the M14 then M16 for ship security rifles and such.

Might have been in a warehouse somewhere. The 308 conversions, as far as I know, were pretty good shooters, but would be subsceptible to the same potential issue as far as shooting non-USGI ammo. The Garand action, in any format, is just subsceptible to damage if subjected to different pressure curves than it was designed for. (Not a hard fix to implement via after market stuff, and it was fixed on the M14 if I remember right, it's just that Garand was designing a rifle to fire mountains of USGI ball ammo, not huge range of hunting loads available for 30-06.) If you're running on mountains of 147 grain M80 ball MG ammo, no worries, but if you're running slow/heavy or light/fast hunting loads, same potential problem.

I would argue that this is more to do with terrain and situation, for example, as has been found in Afghanistan, the current 5.56mm round doesn't have the power required for some engagements due to the distances involved.

There's a high degree of false economy in that. The problem is 99% the acquire-positive ID-score the hit cycle of the equation. In 1% of the time it might be about terminal ballistics, but you've got to actually make the hit in the first place which is where the system is breaking down with boring consistency.

The situation has not been enhanced in any way by NATO's adoption of SS109, a round that is inherently prone to poor accuracy. US M855 is probably a 3 MOA round on a good day, and is waiverable for wartime use up to 6 MOA for the last few years. At 100 meters who cares, but even 3 MOA at 600 meters makes hitting a 19" wide human torso statistically random even if the shooter does everything right. At 6 MOA point of aim/impact at that range are almost plus-minus one meter. No wonder people think you need something magical to win at 5-600 meters when they're stuck with ammo that has WW2 B17 raid CEPs built into it.

(By comparison, having spent a lot of time on ranges with an M4A1, ACOG, and cases of Mk 262, I know for a fact that with good ammo an M4 can make hits out to the acquisition limits of the ACOG on steel chest plates all day long with modest shooter skill. This doesn't translate into battlefield performance, of course, since incoming rounds do horrible things for accuracy, but still indicates where a big part of the problem is.)

A lot of people in decision making positions are pushing DMRs these days as an inadequate solution not only to a flawed bullet design (though that has been addressed recently for general use, less recently with 262 for precision use) but also to hide the lack of real fire support (indirect, timely CAS) for troops in contact at nuisance fire range, where Afghans prefer to fight, largely ineffectually, since when they close the range they get killed. For political reasons we don't let people drop artillery and mortars on the enemy in ways we did in previous wars, even though that is an excellent way to kill bad guys at longer ranges.

For example, during the Boer Wars in South Africa there were many accounts of what we today would consider extreme range shooting. In some cases these were marksmen (not snipers) and in other cases they were normal infantrymen, but they were shooting over iron sights.

See previous comment about weapons losing effectiveness when opponents start actually using cover and concealment rather than advancing in open order skirmish lines asking to be shot.

Again, speak for yourself. My unit was essentially foot mobile and only rarely travelled by vehicle. Everything we needed was carried on our backs for up to several weeks - you didn't pack it, you went without.

But if you had a contact and burned through available ammunition, resupply would have been trucked in, flown in, or whatever. Even light IRL infantry operate in a much cozier web of support than would be typical for even well equipped units in T2K.