****R : "Using your model here, we should be ditching the M-16 in favor
of a
high-tech rifle replacement (after all, you're not going to ask a
front-line infantry soldier to "strap one on", are you? They are 1960s
technology.), spending tons to develop the replacement for the M-1
Abrams tank (ditto an armor soldier), new Combat Engineer vehicles,
new nuclear ballistic missile subs, and on and on and on."
I'd definitely ditch the AR-15/M16 rifle (except for the specialized uses
for which it had been developed) in favor of something more intrinsically
reliable in dirty conditions and firing a more manstopping round than the
inadequate .223, which is great for busting varmints smaller and less
tough than feral cats but is illegal-and properly so-for deer in most
states. The FN-FAL or variants thereof or any of several other designs
would be FAR better, chambered for a cartridge of at least .243
ballistics.
The 7.62x39 has a lot of things to recommend it. Reliability is one.
Accuracy is not one, and neither is long range performance.
Our troops deserve a battle rifle that is at least adequate to reliably
and humanely dispatch feral cats ( a subject with which I have extensive
first hand experience-I won't shoot them with less than a .243 or bigger)
and is legal for whitetail deer on the reasonable basis of being able to
reliably down them. The .223 (5.56) fails this criterion and in addition
the M16 is not sufficiently reliable in dirty conditions either. Then
again, it wasn't Eugene Stoner's brief to make it so: it was intended for
Air Force ramp stormtroopers to guard nuclear armed alert bombers.
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