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The M16 has some major design flaws, but some good features as well. It vents gas into its own action with every shot, dirtying the rifle's most vital parts. It must use high-quality propellants, as cheap powder will foul the thin gas tube and jam the rifle. If a case sticks part-way out of the chamber, the recoil buffer will be protruding into the stock, preventing the opening of the action to clear the jam. With this type of jam, one must unscrew the front hinge pin screw to seperate the upper & lower receivers, not a happy prospect when you're under fire and/or at night. The forward assist is clumsy to use under stressful conditions. The rifle is sensitive to dirt, mud and sand, and must be constantly cleaned. The 5.56mm cartridge showed a clear lack of effectiveness in Afghanistan, regularly failing to stop the enemy with solid torso hits and lacking the ability to penetrate even light cover with any remaining energy. Its controlability in full-auto fire is very poor, which is why the complex and fragile burst mechanism was added (a bad technological solution to a training problem - proper fire control). The good features of the M16 is it's ergonomics (controls are all in the right place), accuracy, light weight and use of modern materials and manufacturing methods.

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offers reasonable controlability and good stopping power and penetration, and being very cheap to produce with the most outdated machine tooling.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?

I have a little experience with the M-14/M1A and only one experience with the AK design so I'll try to keep my comments to the M-16.
I believe that your comment about separating the upper and lower receivers is wrong. I"m not aware that they have changed from the front and rear push pins to a front screw design. Separating the upper and lower is a simple matter of pushing out the two pins.
As far as the M-16 needing high quality powder isn't correct. I have been loading for the AR for sometime and I get a lot of reloads from a company in Dallas. The problem in the '60's was that they used the wrong powder. I hear more warnings for loading the Garand and the M1A than I have ever heard for the 5.56
The comment that the gases flow into the parts of the M-16 is correct just as the residue flows into the gas chamber of the AK. I don't see that much of a difference. Both rifles should be cleaned after firing.
Using the forward assist is easy. It takes a hit with the firing hand to do. It is not recommended. I don't know many people who wish to jam a round into a chamber thinking that it will be easier once the round has been fired.
The control under full auto is the best of all of the assault weapons ever made. That is a fact. The military decided to remove the full auto mode because the troops were constantly running out of ammo.

There have been e mail reports of both the 5.56 and the 9MM. Although the e mail reports looked authentic, doubts have been raised over who created them. If you have a better link to the miltary that gave a report of the failure of the 5.56 or the 9MM I would appreciate a link.

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?

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 AKM remains the best compromise

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.