The fact remains that 7.62mm is too heavy and too high power to be practical for the engagement ranges that most soldiers will find themselves fighting at. Folks have known this since WWII (at the latest) and that's why 7.62 x 39mm and other "intermediate" rounds were developed.
Yes, if most engagements were at 300m +, then 7.62mm L would be the way to go, no question. But for fights at less than 200m- and that's most fights nowadays- it's just too much round for the job. And if you want to have the full auto fire option, forget about 7.62mm L.
I'm not saying that 5.56mm (or 5.45mm) is a particularly good round- there are probably better- but the 7.62mm L is not the be-all, end-all of assault rifle bullets.
There's a reason why a lot folks insist on the distinction between "battle" and "assault" rifles. They're different classes of firearms, due, for the most part, to the size and power of the cartridge they fire. Nearly everything that I've heard and/or read states that accurate full-auto fire is almost impossible with a 7.62mm L rifle. I mean, nearly every Western GPMG uses the same round and they all have bi-pods/tri-pods.
I'm just getting kind of tired of the 7.62mm L love-fest going on here. If it was so ideal, why isn't more widely used in modern assault rifles? And don't get going on politics or the evil U.S.A. military-industrial complex.
I'll put it in the non-fiction recommendations thread but if this sort of thing interests you, you should read The Gun (by Chivers). It's a history of the AK-47 series with a good long preface (the first third of the book) on the history and development of the fully automatic gun. There's also a lot about the development of the M-16 rifle and, although the author tries to avoid getting drawn into the whole 7.62mm S vs. 5.56mm round debate, there is some interesting stuff about that as well (including top-secret comparison testing on cadavers surreptitiously imported from India).
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