10-13-2011, 07:00 PM
That's two separate weapons representing a capability split in each of them. The soldiers want both capabilities in one, not a SAW back in the arms room, with an empty-mag IAR in-hand. Reading these things without a raw contextual foundation will make them basically a foreign language. You have to live, train, and fight with these tools for significant periods of your life to know what to look for, and what questions to ask, as well as how to sift through the BS.
You got me on the Campaign hat, but I think you get my point. The only way we'll get a real deal test of any value with this stuff is if a group of guys with enough experience carrying and fighting with these tools conducts them in a private capacity, with the truth and the best system as the only motives, without millions of taxpayer money wetting the palates of foreign and established small arms companies. There also needs to be an engineer connect to the soldier perspective, versus a paper design approach to problems from a desk-driven position. The military should facilitate a program with contractors so that select soldiers transfer into employment with defense contractors, carrying their institutional knowledge with them into the development of products that address real problems from their experience base. All the parts are there, just no dots really being connected.
You got me on the Campaign hat, but I think you get my point. The only way we'll get a real deal test of any value with this stuff is if a group of guys with enough experience carrying and fighting with these tools conducts them in a private capacity, with the truth and the best system as the only motives, without millions of taxpayer money wetting the palates of foreign and established small arms companies. There also needs to be an engineer connect to the soldier perspective, versus a paper design approach to problems from a desk-driven position. The military should facilitate a program with contractors so that select soldiers transfer into employment with defense contractors, carrying their institutional knowledge with them into the development of products that address real problems from their experience base. All the parts are there, just no dots really being connected.