The job of the rifleman is to be precise. It is more the job of the machine gunner to lay down suppressive fire. Sure, a rifleman can help lay down suppressive fire but it is not his job.
That's not the case. It's "fire superiority".
Rapid fire is probably the most important single phase of the military rifle shooting in war.......The storm of the fire with which the trained regulars of the British Army halted the advance of the overwhelming German divisions in the August retreat of 1914, made the Germans believe the British had their front stiff with machine guns instead of being scantily supplied. The British trained their regulars with the heavy stress of rapid fire. (the Lee was capable of firing two shots to the Mauser's one, and the British Contemptibles fired even faster then this proportion when matters became hot
CPT Edward C. Crossman, "Military and Sporting Rifle Shooting". 1932
Our Army was so impressed that after 1917 British non-coms were brought to this country as instructors in Rapid Fire techniques. This need for rapid fire was what got the search for a self loading rifle program started, and now, all modern army's have adapted automatic rifles of one sort of the other.
We all have our opinions on rifles and ammo, but none can dispute the need for rapid/automatic fire to gain fire superiority. The lighter the rifle/ammo, the more ammo you can carry to gain this fire superiority.
Yes you need the means of precission fire, (there fore the SDM program) but you also need rapid fire, like you need mortors, artillary, etc etc..........its all part of the combined arms concept.
I'm aware wars are differant. Vietnam is differant then Iraq (except for urban battles from Tet '68) for example.
BUT: War per se, proves the fact that History Repeats itself. Urban combat in Europe closely resembes the urban battles in Iraq. The later portions of the Korean war resembles Afgan as does the 10th Mountain Division campaines in Italy. Vietnam resembes the Jungle fighting in the SP during WWII. Precision rifle shooting in combat has its place, but it was the massive "rapid fire" from both rifles and machine guns that keep the troops in the trenches in WWI.
We all, who study the art of Sniping, like to use Stalingrad as the prime example of our art, but in reality, the Russin sniper tactics were that they were left in pockets as the Russians retreated. These snipers would direct artillary on the German positions which caused more damage then the sniper rifle. It wasn't until the Russians outfitted whole units with intermediate round "assualt rifles" (and mass artillary) that pushed the Germans out, and encircled them.