Universal Love For The AK (Pew-Pew)

guns.com ^ | August 19, 2019 | Ben Philippi

[archy]

And the rifle could have been even better - IIRC, it was originally designed to chamber a British 7mm intermediate cartridge (somewhat similar to the 6.5mm Grendel or 6.8mm SPC), which would have made it a lot easier to control in full auto. But the U.S. military insisted on a NATO cartridge with .30-06 ballistics, so we got the 7.62x51 NATO instead (not that it matters to civilian shooters ;^)...

And then there's the British EM-2 type rifle, to be known as the Rifle No.9 Mk1, for which that Brit 7mm [.280] round was developed. Those names were better known than the *Janson rifle*, [Stephan Kenneth Janson was the Anglicized version of the Polish firearm designer Captain Kazimierz Januszewski].

Add in the ,280 Tade3n Gun which was planned to replace the Bren and Vickers guns then in service, and the Brits would have had about a 50-year jump on everyone else.

[Who is John Galt?]

...the Brits would have had about a 50-year jump on everyone else.

Here in the US, I guess we've had a tendency to "prepare for the previous war" (or however that bit of wisdom is worded). We had used the M1 carbine during the war, and you would think we might have recognized the value of a light weight automatic weapon (chambered for a better cartridge) - but no, we insisted on .30-06 ballistics, and a slightly updated variation of the Garand rifle.

I sometimes wonder if the US Navy is currently stuck in the same rut ("preparing for the previous war"). All of our billion-dollar aircraft carriers may be just 'sitting ducks', if the ChiComs get their ship-killing ballistic missiles operational...