So what's the next US infantry rifle going to look like? What improvements will finally make the M-4 platform get abandoned?
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Nothing until something new comes around and revolutionizes small arms.
The AR is fine and 5.56 is here to stay.
I honestly don't think this is going away until we see serious materials improvement or man portable coil guns become feasible.
The technology has plateaued.
>>30069683
But why not slowly phase to 6.5, 6.8, or 300BLK? Aren't all of those superior rounds?
>>30069695
What materials improvement would we need to see?
>>30069648
Similar. Maybe look like a bullpup because we finally developed man portable guass/laser weapons.
>>30070197
What benefits would a bullpup bring?
>>30070203
Balance. If you read the rest of my post you'd realize I was talking about a gauss or laser weapon being the next big thing. IIRC there was some man portable laser cannon that worked like shit and it looked like a bullpup. Figure that's the new direction. Won't work like a traditional firearm so they could go with a bullpup style design in order to have better balance.
>>30070239
Wouldn't a laser weapon be too prone to getting the lens scuffed or dirty, degrading performance?
>>30069648
The AR platform will never be abandoned until we abandon 5.56mm. You will see iterative improvements that are backwards compatible with existing rifles.
>>30069710
6.5 or 6.8 are arguably better, but only but incredibly small amounts. Not nearly enough to justify throwing out out huge stockpiles of 5.56mm and all of our current rifles and lightmachineguns. 300blk is a meme round which is very good at a very specific thing, not a good replacement for a service round where soldiers are rolling with suppressors anyway.
>>30070239
>>30071912
