sealordlawrence said:
AGAIN- NO BODY SAID IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE, just unlikely in the extreme in the short to medium term.
I’m not out to get you or anything but this is what you said:
sealordlawrence said:
XM-8 and OICW are dead in the water and will almost certainly never enter service. For the future of US small arms there are two programs to follow ... All the fancy computer guided air bursting blah blah blah has vanished under an avalanche of actual operational requirements.
And it’s not quite accurate. Which is why it’s best not to shoot from the hip.
The reality is more complex. The US militaries have a range of small arms projects underway, from reset and modest improvement of current weapons to finding some better small arms around the edges – special operations, automatic rifles, grenade launchers, NLW, etc. Also there is considerable work going on in relation to more significant improvements like lightweight ammunition and weapons and computer fused (not guided) air burst rounds. However with the huge US military commitments at the moment funding is tight and not everything can progress as much as they are needed.
I’m quite sure we will see XM307 weapons in service down to squad/section level and maybe even multi-shot grenade launcher attachments to individual weapons within 10-15 years. Because quite simply the technology is there and this is what the war fighters want. Troops in Afghanistan are quite literally calling for a weapon that combines the capabilities of a Mk 19 AGL and a M2HB HMG, which is the XM307. We need this kind of lethality on the battlefield.