Posted by Skyler Frink
The musket revolutionized the battlefield when it was unveiled. The rifled barrel, which allowed muskets to fire with some degree of accuracy, also altered the battles of the future. After the rifled barrel it was repeating weapons, which could be fired more than once before reloading, that shaped the wars of the day. As warfare carried on, so did the technology behind the weapons that soldiers carried onto the battlefield. Why is it, then, that new guns seem to have stopped being released?
Is it that we have reached the pinnacle of technology with our guns? Have we run out of ways to fire more accurately, with more power or at greater distances?
I don't think so.
The lack of new guns represents a change in how war is fought. As surely as tanks made cavalry obsolete, placing men and women on the front lines is becoming less and less necessary thanks to modern advancements in technology.
No longer do we need to place soldiers directly in harm's way to secure a building. Rather than risk attack, an unmanned vehicle can be tossed into the room to acquire intelligence. Instead of sending soldiers on reconnaissance missions, we can take pictures with satellites or send an unmanned aerial vehicle to survey the area. Rifles are only useful when you have people who will be engaging the enemy directly, and technology is making it so direct contact is no longer a necessity.
On the ever-changing battlefields of today it's only a matter of time before infantry are not required to secure an area or win a battle. As the dangerous jobs are slowly pushed into the realm of unmanned vehicles, we will eventually see the dangers of direct combat be relegated to similar devices.
Um, huh? No new guns? You mean you've just never heard of the FN SCAR, OICW, OCSW? You mean you've never heard of how the Barrett M82 revolutionized long-range sniping? Maybe *you* don't go looking for new guns and ammo, but others do, and the world is full of them.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Skyler! No need for putting the soldiers in harms way anymore!
ReplyDeleteYeah I'm with Anonymous, there are plenty of guns out there for the taking...all you have to do is look around. the reason I think you don't see new military arms is that the projects get canceled before they really get started. But they are out there.
ReplyDeletemi gran preocupacion es que los paises afectados por la primavera arabe tengan armas de destruccion masiva y hallan caido en manos de grupos terroristas que no deja de ser la gran pregunta del millon.en esta guerras internas los que participan tienen objetivos concretos y sus beneficios nada se improvisa y lo mas posible y perceptivamente es que si se han adueñado de algo que puede y va ser utilizados a sus objetivos antioccidentales o cooaleciones adscritos a la otan.ojo.
ReplyDeleteI believe the Barrett has been around for over 20 years, while the FN SCAR has been in actual service since 2009. The XM8 OICW was ultimately cancelled. The HK416 is fairly new as well, but the point of the blog is not that new models are not being released (though they have slowed drastically), but that there has been a shift in the focus of technology. When is the last time a new type of gun has been considered major step forward for the military? Probably the Barretta.
ReplyDeleteGuns are no longer what alter the battlefield, and it has been that way for some time. There was a time when getting the latest and greatest gun was how you dominated your opposition (the advent of machine guns, for example), but that time has long since passed.
New technologies that gather intelligence or allow us to perform missions without placing soldiers in danger (or drastically reduce that danger) are what the vast majority of the defense budget is being spent on, not guns.
Although potentially lethal video game toys with joy sticks and cross hairs may enthuse the current generation, you are dangerously foolish to advocate the substitution of these toys for properly employed firearms to produce success in theater. Of course your toys can generate targeting information yielding a 'kill them all' scenario, but nuclear and chemical weaponry has yet to achieve popular acceptance.
ReplyDelete'only a matter of time before infantry are not required to secure an area'
ReplyDeleteyea right! not even in my unborn grandchildren's life time. We will ALWAYS need an infantry. Not as large, agreed! But there is no replacement for 'boots on the ground'.
BJ Curtis hit the nail on the head - yes, new technology allows modern forces to search out, identify and track enemy forces, and to engage them at distance. But UAVs, robots etc have not yet advanced to the point where they can replace having an actual force on the ground that can if necessary, take and hold actual territory. Therefore, until that happens, you will need to have ground forces (infantry, tanks, helicopters etc) in order to do that, and chances are, such a force will have to directly engage enemy forces. The ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and the recent conflict in Libya has shown this . . . no matter how useful UAVs and air power have been (and they have been very useful), you still have to have forces on the ground (in Afghanistan its ISAF ground troops, in Libya it was the NTC forces) to go in and 'do the business'.
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