XM-7 NGSW rifle program apparently stalled?

[HCM]

Dismissal of value is not what I was trying to convey. I'm wondering if maybe our military tends to historically overemphasize the impact of the rifle on the battlefield. I don't know how anyone can look at the war in Ukraine and claim that the infantry are not valuable. I think that what the war has shown is that the existing calibers in the current military rifles and squad automatic weapons work just fine for the role they fill on a full spectrum, peer-to-peer battlefield.



Absolutely. I wasn't trying to claim we wouldn't need that. I was questioning if, in the specific context of a fight in the Pacific with China, NGSW is even relevant. My understanding of what that war would look like (at least initially) is that it would be ships, aircraft, submarines, and rocket artillery shooting each other from basically over the horizon. Not infantry slugging it out on he beachheads.

While they won’t do it alone, and the NGSW likely isn’t the best tool to do it, there will eventually be infantry slugging it out somewhere. I do agree that Ukraine has shown the ubiquity of helmets and plates does not make 5.56, 5.45 or 5.8 platforms invalid.. In fact, one could argue that they make fire superiority via volume more relevant rather than less.

Pronouncements of pushbutton warfare making infantry combat obsolete sound just like the arguments for not putting guns on US fighters in the late 50s and early 60s. We learned the hard way that was a fallacy in the skies over Vietnam.

[Joe in PNG]

Absolutely. I wasn't trying to claim we wouldn't need that. I was questioning if, in the specific context of a fight in the Pacific with China, NGSW is even relevant. My understanding of what that war would look like (at least initially) is that it would be ships, aircraft, submarines, and rocket artillery shooting each other from basically over the horizon. Not infantry slugging it out on he beachheads.

Ironic, considering that both Imperial Japan and the USA basically thought that's what the first Pacific war was going to look like. One, maybe two big naval battles and the war would be over.

[DamonL]

https://breakingdefense.com/2023/09/...racy-problems/

Apparently, they are correcting fumes and accuracy problems.

[DamonL]

More info.

https://soldiersystems.net/2023/09/2...squad-weapons/