Dear General Scales

It is no longer 1969.

48 years is a long time to hold a grudge.

Some things you missed:

The M16A1 and its M193 ammunition stopped being the standard more than thirty years ago and was replaced with the M16A2 and M855.

The M16A2, where almost every part was revised, isn't even the standard today; that'd be the M4A1.

M855, even, is on its way out with the advent of M855A1.

In a nutshell, everything that was causing problems in 1969 has been revised and replaced.  The bore diameter didn't cause those three guys you constantly cite to die with broken rifles.

It's far more likely the lackluster quality control from the mighty UAW workforce at Colt had more to do with it than the design.

To former Major Ehrhart; the infantry half kilometer was "lost" to artillery.

Remember combined arms?

Well, the max effective range of the small arms overlaps the normal range of artillery.  So, yes, the infantry half kilometer demands a larger bore size, I suggest 60mm for starters.  Willard even posits that the reason we're having problems in Afghanistan is the enemy has figured out where our small arms peter out and won't close; because to close is to die.  If to close is to die, then it means our weapons do work.

Do Scales and Ehrhart think that the bad guys won't learn the max effective ranges of the new weapons?  "Primitive as they are, [they] have learned to keep out of rifle range."

The problem isn't our small arms, it's our tactics and strategy.

If they're still in contact, but out of our rifle range, then they're still in mortar range.

Again, combined arms!  Where are our mortars?  Where are the heavier tubes?  Our weapons were intended to have overlapping ranges, and as one range ended, another would pick up the job.  But we need the will to use them like they were intended.

Why yes, that will mean leveling the shitty little village the bad guys are hiding in.  Yes, that also means that the villagers will die too.  I don't care.  Maybe they'd start attacking the bad guys on sight out of desperation if they knew that those guys attracted death as surely as the sun comes up?

We're also not fighting the war like a war, we're not taking and holding more than stationary outposts.  We're not even patrolling enough to keep them from surrounding and attacking our outposts.

We're in a situation that's repeated several times in history.  If we kill 1,000 bad guys for every one of our guys, it's still a net-loss for us.  Our people are simply more precious than theirs, and we should start acting like it.