#SupportWeapons

In the rush to augment the infantry’s firepower with new advanced small arms technologies, we may be on the precipice of crippling their ability to fight wars. The push to equip the infantryman with more powerful rifles and machine guns risks reducing his mobility to critical levels, and “locking out” his capacity to carry powerful supporting arms. Although more potent basic infantry weapons are undeniably desirable, current attitudes towards their purpose – exemplified by the concept of “overmatch” – may compound problems that already have reached crisis levels.

Earlier this week, Business Insider released an article written by Christian Lowe entitled “ 6 weapons the US military should bring back from the dead“ with a very self-evident, but interesting premise. However, the weapons (all firearms, oddly) that the article outlines are very poor choices, so today I want to talk about why these choices are so poor, and maybe suggest some better alternatives of my own. Let’s take it point by point, quoting his text and following that with my responses:

The SlideFire stock is an idea that pushes the boundaries of what the ATF considers acceptable for a Title I firearm. Without diving into the world of the National Firearms Act, a Slide-Fire stock is the closest you can get to a fully automatic weapon of your very own. For the most part, these stocks are just a range toy: With no spring to automatically return the gun to the firing position, constant forward pressure is required to continuously activate the trigger. This makes them impractical as a serious weapon, but quite a lot of fun to shoot.

Mortars… a rifleman’s best friend (you know, outside of A-10s, artillery, Apache’s, Cobra’s, and other high-explosive weapons. Military.com takes a quick look at a few interesting facts on the systems, which are basically unchanged since their introduction.