In 1955, the US Army was holding trials for a battle rifle to replace their M1 Garands with a new weapon capable of fully automatic fire and being magazine fed. The new weapon was intended to either fully or partially replace the M1 Carbine, Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR), and M3 Submachine gun as well. The US Army was against any reduction in power in their new weapon despite arguments that the full power round was not suitable for automatic fire. Through the Army's dominant position, a slightly shorter cartridge with similar power to the current .30-06 rifle round became the standard 7.62x51mm NATO round. Springfield Armory and Fabrique Nationale both entered rifle designs based on fairly conventional engineering and the Spingfield M14 was selected. This rifle replaced the Garand, but wa