I know nothing about these matters. I've read some stuff though.
During my tour of duty, the weapon was the M16A1. I disliked it on sight, even more when I fired it. The "boing" got to me in some weird way. OTOH, I liked the M60. Now I am told that I only liked the 60 because I never had to fire 3 to 5K rounds through it under duress, if I had, I would have learned new lessons about case/head separations, feed tray cover failures and so on. All I knew was it felt and fired like a proper rifle and fired a "real" round. I could squeeze off shots with it pretty well and controllably and during more than one "qualification" match I managed to qualify 28 out of 30 with a 30 rd belt on the M16 range. (that was a real no-no and I did pay for it later)
Enyway,
Janes little blurb on the M14 is to the effect that the M1 Garand needed an upgrade, or side grade, to comply with NATO, and the brass had decided that it was time to split the diff betwixt the Garand and the BAR and make them both into one. So they beefed up the M1, added selective fire, chambered it in 7.62NATO and ended up with a
reliable if clumsy weapon. Eventually it just flunked out as being uncontrollable under automatic fire. It was also heavy, and supposedly ineffective in the jungles of SE Asia.
Now, What I think would be sort of relevant would be a comparison of the kill ratio of the Pacific theatre WWII troop and the Garand to the SE Asia VN theatre troop and the M16.
I know folks say all kinds of things about the M16, best weapon ever devised to the worst piece of junk blah blah. I don't like it, but Mr Stoner knew a heck of a lot more about these things than I ever will and I certainly respect that.
I've never heard anyone complain much about their Garands aside from broadcasting when they run empty. In fact, folks I've talked to and known were quite fond of that weapon. Not much controversy there.
Anyone have any stats?