New Army "Caliber Configuration Study"

[JASmith]

Michael,

Many thanks for the paper -- I have downloaded it and taken a quick glance. It looks to be a good read.

I have struggled with the 'last war' syndrome since 1975 when I first got seriously involved in weapons R&D.

There are several conflicting issues that need to be worked more or less simultaneously:

1. The last war is really the one we know, but not necessarily understand, the most about.
   
2. Regardless of potential future threats, those evident in the last few wars remain important.
   
3. Example for (2) above is the large world-wide stockpile of certain classes of weapons.
   
4. Another example is that there is only one nation capable of taking us into the stone age in under an hour, so we must continue to maintain that level of deterrence even though more friendly relations allow a reduction in scale.
   
5. The existing weapons will remain a threat for a long time, and until more serious threats emerge, will define minimum performance for new weapons to counter them.
   
6. Folks do indeed work diligently to project new and emerging threats, but tend to get little traction until our noses get rubbed in it.
   

The 7.62x54 is an excellent example. It has been around for longer than the 30-06 but still is used by a large number of our actual and potential adversaries.

While the 7.62x51 NATO has similar ballistics, it is our cartridge and weapon system, so we will not justify a new program to beat it. We are, however, likely to insist that a new item be no worse than it in any of several areas so long as the new concept effectively counters present and future adversarial threats.

I expect to see a few blanks in my personal knowledge base filled in as I read through the paper in detail.

Thanks again!