Gun question: other assault rifles?

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Adm.Lee

I remember vaguely there was a fight within NATO about standardizing on the 7.62x51mm round, was there a later push for something smaller?

The Brits wanted to go with a 7mm or .280 round (139 grains at 2,550 fps) and developed the Enfield EM-2 around it. The U.S. had to be obstinate about it and refused to standardize on anything smaller than .30, thanks to Garand-induced caliber bigotry. Damn shame; the EM-2 was a couple of decades ahead of its time and I don't think wasn't anything fundamentally wrong with the .280's ballistics.

I'm wildly speculating here, but if that 7mm round had been adopted, we might never have seen 5.56 and 5.45 become military standards.

- C.