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Originally Posted by Gotthard Heinrici  Was it a successful design? did the troops in the field like it? |
Yep, it think most people would agree it was a success.
Its generally held to be the farther of the modern assult rifle and often misreported that the AK47 is a copy, (although I understand the mechanism is quite different). although the concept of a slightly lower power cartridge is now accepted as correct.
Its quite interesting, I was reading about it not long ago, but after the war the British where quite sure the main battle rifle cartridge had had its day and wanted a much smaller bullet with an intermediatte cartridge. and developed a rifle to use it (wich looked a lot like the SA80 god help us!) but the yanks would have none of it. After while the yanks realised the limeys where right after all. Change the M14 to single shot and brought out the M16.
It all goes round in circles, I read somewhere the US army is issueing .45" M1911 handguns again after the 9mm Brownings lacked stopping power in Somalia... Nothing New under the sun they say...
Kev