The M14 is pretty heavy, is very expensive to produce, and the 7.62mm NATO cartridge has too strong a recoil impulse to allow any control at all during full-auto fire in an infantry rifle-sized weapon. The open-top receiver allows mud and sand into the action. It's good points are that in semi-auto fire, its a rifleman's rifle, a dream to shoot, and very accurate. It's rugged and reliable. It has excellent long-range and penetration of light-to-medium-cover capabilities.
The AKM remains the best compromise, being supremely reliable, reasonably light, having a cartridge that offers reasonable controlability and good stopping power and penetration, and being very cheap to produce with the most outdated machine tooling. It's downside is that the ergonomics stink (the safety being the real problem), the AK-47 milled receiver variant is way too heavy, and it has limited long-range capability.
The answer may be to incorporate the best features of all these weapons into a new rifle with a new cartridge. The Russian 7.62x39mm cartridge that the AK uses enhances reliability greatly because of its tapering case. US military ballistic testing has identified the ~105 grain 6mm projectile at ~2900 fps as the best ballistic 'sweet spot', similar to a .243 Winchester round with heavy bullets. Advances in smokeless propellants, such as those used in Hornady's Light Magnum ammo, offer higher velocities in the same round with the same case pressures, compared to standard IMR powder. So a tapering case cartridge, maybe slightly larger than the 7.62/5.45x39mm ComBloc case, using the new high-tech powders and a 105 grain 6mm bullet at 2900 fps would be the round for a new rifle. It would offer a lot less recoil, would be shorter and lighter, and yet would offer similar long-range, stopping power and penetration performance as compared to the 7.62mm NATO. Like the .243 Winchester it's ballistically identical to, it would be a deer round, not a varmit round like the 5.56mm NATO round. Caseless ammo technology just isn't ready yet, so the conventional brass case is still the way to go.
The new rifle would use the tested & proven gas system of the AK-47. It would be embodied in a rifle using modern materials, but incorporating the loose tolerances of the AK. The milled aircraft aluminum upper receiver (a la M16) and polymer lower receiver (a la Glock) setup used on the new Armalite AR-180b may be the right choice. Also, a bullpup design like many current battle rifle designs offers a standard-length barrel with a short overall length, a great asset in close quarters while retaining long-range capability. Some kind of simple recoil buffering system and/or a very efficient muzzle brake would help controlability in full-auto fire, as would the bullpup configuration.
As for the under-barrel grenade launcher, the 20mm pump-action unit on the OICW may be reliable and effective without all the electronics junk. It should be set up as a modular system where the grenade launcher and electronics are add-ons that meld well with the basic weapon, and all systems can still work if the electonics fail. That is the opposite of the OICW approach, where the technogadgets, the programmible-fuse grenades, electronics, optics and 'secure' computer battlefield network were the primary goal of the design, with a chopped 5.56mm carbine tacked on almost as an afterthought. The basic rifle should be a rifle before anything else, reliable, effective and capable in its own right.
Those are my ideas on this subject. Comments?
Those are my ideas on this subject. Comments?
I agree that the rifle and grenade launcher should both be individually suitable, stand-alone weapons in their own right. I think the Brits may well have been onto something with their original EM-2 .280/30 [7mm] bullpup rifle design of the 1950s. Redesign it for bottom or other ambidextrous-use ejection, ambidex controls, and with more corrosion-resistant materials, and I think you'd really have something.
As for the grenade launcher, during WWII the Germans developed an explosive grenade cartridge for their hand-fired 27mm leuchtpistole and the Argentines have a high-explosive 12-gauge shotgun shell, said to be just right either for halting automobiles at roadblocks or for determining the lengths at which manufacturers of ballistic protective vests will honor their products' guarantees. The Russians seem to have found their 30mm underbarrel grenade launchers to be as suitable as the larger-bore American versions, so there's certainly some indication that it's at least possible.
But where's the belt or drum-fed 20mm version for vehicles, if it's such a useful design? That would seem to be the eventual replacement for the existing Mk13 vehicular and ground mounted automatic grenade launchers, if the ammunition works as advertised.
-archy-/-
The only armies that still use the AKM are those that can't afford something better. The Russians have a vested interest, so they don't count. AK's are fine and dandy, but they are resoundingly inaccurate at range and don't offer good mounting options for optics and other gadgets.
Give the average decent rifleman an AK and an AR, have him shoot a series of targets from 50-500m as quickly as possible, and 99% of the time the AR will get better hits, faster.
You can argue about terminal ballistics of the 556mm, but nobody's really listening anymore, certainly not the dead bad guys that were on the wrong end of 556mm rifles.
Otherwise, what you've described sounds a lot like the HK G36, a fine rifle. Still not even close to the OICW, and arguably no better than the M16 series. Much easier to clean though - no small improvement.