The demonstration of the new U.S. Army's T-65 cartridge at Aberdeen showed clearly that the T-65 round designed for use in the new U.S. automatic rifle possesses the same characteristics as the .30-'06 cartridge and is far superior to the British .280 cartridge on all accounts.

In a fact sheet on the new rifles put out by the Army, the issue of the U.S. vs. the British rifle was assumed as all but settled as far as the U.S. military forces are concerned. Said the Army: "The U.S. Army plans to retain caliber .30 for both its standard infantry rifles as well as for new rifles being developed.

"The Army is firmly opposed to the adoption of any less effective smaller cartridge for use in either its present riddle, or in the new weapons being developed. Any new rifle cartridge must have the wounding power, penetration performance, and ballistics at least equal to that in use today. Battle experience has proven beyond question the effectiveness of the present rifle and ammunition, and there have been no changes in combat tactics which would justify a reduction of rifle caliber and power."

Recently, President Harry Truman and Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill, conferring in Washington on military and economic problems, announced that NATO troops would be armed immediately with M-1 Garand rifles. Almost simultaneously the Pentagon announced that a million-dollar contract for manufacture of Garands has been placed with International Harvester.

Does that mean the British .280 and U.S. .30 caliber lightweight rifles are confined in limbo? Probably not. Military men of both nations are vitally interested in perfecting and adopting a lightweight automatic rifle for use by infantry. But neither Britain nor the U.S. is ready with its automatic rifle. Shortly after his re-election as prime minister, Churchill told the House of Commons that "It would not be possible to rearm the British forces with the .280 rifle on the scale of the millions required for a considerable number of years." At Aberdeen, Maryland, after the U.S. Army's demonstration of its new experimental automatic rifles and new .30 caliber cartridge, Colonel Studeler said that a decision as to which automatic rifle, the T-44 or the T-47, will be used to arm U.S. troops would be made up before this year is out, but that the rifle could not be put in the hands of the infantry for another year or longer. Meantime, the mass attacks of Chinese and North Korean hordes against U.N. troops are too fresh in memory for U.S. and British brass to think about any other type of shoulder weapon.