“My question is whether the limitation of only firing semi-auto would disqualify it from consideration as an acceptable assault rifle for military use in actual practice.”
My, non-expert, answer would be no. Being semi-auto only would not render a weapon useless for military use. It fact, it may actually make it more effective for the common soldier. The M16A2 is not trully a “full-auto.” In that mode the weapon will only fire a three round burst. The Army did this because “full auto” causes a lot of ammunition to be waisted. Plus, the weapon rapidly overheats on true full auto. When I originally was trained by the Army on the M16A1 (Vietnam era version), we had true “full auto.” I have been on a range and attempted to use the M16A1 in full auto. Didn’t work well, and the weapon overheated on me. I decided then, I would only use semi-auto if the situation called for me to bear military arms. Never happened during my time, and the Army has since gone to the M16A2 and other variants like the M4. I just checked with some Active Army folks and they tell me even the M4 is only “three round burst” on “full-auto.” I have heard the Marines have a version of the M16 that is a true full-auto.
I am NOT an expert on this.
I don’t understand why you are asking the question? What is your point?
It seems to me the terms “assault weapon” and “assault rifle” have been horribly abused. They say assault rifles are military weapons, but then describe weapons as “assault rifles” that seem to be dubious choices for something that would be considered a good candidate for a military battle weapon.
They put full auto back in the latest adopted versions of both the M-16 (A4) and M4 (A1) and removed the 3 round burst function. However, the version of the M-16A4 bought by the government is 3round burst for most units. The M-16A3 was also full auto, no burst. So our military’s gone back and forth on this.