A few thoughts: /1/ I can't believe anybody is still putting sling butt mounts on the bottom. Garrison mentality over tactical use all the way! Geez, it's only been 30+ years, why do soldiers still have to improvise thiese sling mounts with rigger's tape and 550 cord etc? /2/ Ammo: you don't need hollow tips to be extremely deadly. Copy the Russian "poison bullets" (what Afghans called them when the 5.54 AKMs came in). This is a very well conceived "Geneva legal" rule beater with a hollow cavity in the tip, but no hollow tip. These bullets are designed to fly far and accurately, but then to upset on impact and spin 180* on impact. They even have steel "penetrator tips" in front of the lead "driver" for getting through body armor and helmets before they spin out. /3/ Calibers: something like .243, 6.5, 6.8 or 7mm seems to be indicated, considering that most of our fighting for the foreseeable future will be in open desert or MOUT, with troops dismounting from vehicles for short sharp engagements. The old advantage of .223 was that a troop in the jungle on a long patrol could carry double the bullets on him for the same weight/space as .308. This matters much less when the troops are jumping out of a vehicle to pursue the enemy. /4/ Bring back M-14s, now, lots of them! The USMC uses them in their accurized scoped "designated marksman" version. He is not a sniper, but much more than another rifleman! We have 100s of 1,000s of them in warehouses, the ammo is also in the system, they work great in the desert, they should be in every infantry squad in the desert and mountain wars. No new rifle, funding, etc. Just issue the orders and distribute them.
Just a few thoughts.
/4/ Bring back M-14s, now, lots of them! The USMC uses them in their accurized scoped "designated marksman" version. He is not a sniper, but much more than another rifleman! We have 100s of 1,000s of them in warehouses, the ammo is also in the system, they work great in the desert, they should be in every infantry squad in the desert and mountain wars. No new rifle, funding, etc. Just issue the orders and distribute them. We have less than 50,000 remaining in other than *Condition H* scrap in the national inventory, last time I checked. We've been passing them out to everyone from the Israelis, Colombians and Haitian customs guards, and the Marines had to cherrypick through Navy weapons to come up with enough rebuildable examples- 2000, I believe- for their recent DMR rifle program.