In the May 22 article "Bullet proof: Army study finds rounds from M-4 rifles not suited to Afghan warfare," there is a note of the M-14 used in Vietnam and how the weapon was not controllable in automatic fire. However, it has also been shown that your average shooter is not effective with 5.56 NATO rounds in fully automatic fire, either.

A good compromise of the power and range of the 7.62 mm round and the controllability of the 5.56 mm round would be a weapon of the current M-16 platform that fires a 7.62 mm round (such as a modernized version of the AR-10 or the HK-417). The men on the field would then not be required to learn an entirely new platform, due to the similarities to the M-16/M-4 they are already trained on and comfortable with.

Senior Airman Chad RobertsClovis, N.M.

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