Randy Shughart was the sniper who was carrying an M14. He was overrun and killed after running out of ammo at the super 6-4 crash site.
I guess we should all take mark bowden's word as gospel, instead of the 20 years of combat experience during gwot where 5.56 platforms have been out killing the **** out of tens of thousands of people worldwide while M14s sit in piles of junk on the floor of armories.
Theres also a passage in BHD where an M60 gunner putting rounds on a guy and he didnt immediately die. This is because surprise, unless you make a CNS hit, bullets dont usually kill people immediately. Thats why its common practice to shoot them to the ground, and then shoot them in the head if they need the extra killing.
Theres no magic bullet that is man portable and cost effective for training. Best to carry more ammo, and put alot of rounds in them when they need it.
M855A1 is supposedly a nasty round thats doing an outstandingly good job of killing bad guys, this 762 bullshit is coming from the Afghanistan war because guys want rifles to shoot back at dudes lobbing rounds at them with PKMs and DSHKs from extreme distance, when what they really should be doing is calling in air to actually effectively kill them. I get, it but these guys are forgetting the Iraq war where light weight and more ammo was the way to go.
762 really solves neither of these issues effectively, it will just make civilian book authors, internet commandos, and generals who sit in air conditioning watching the fight on a drone feed feel better about their big dick man-bullets, but the reality is its hits, and soldier's ability to maneuver on the enemythat count, not caliber size.