>61 y/o G3, 51 y/o MP5, 64y/o FAL still standard issue around

Because we need another world war to see the military-industrial complex shining again.

>>33139253
Maybe, but even during the Cold War there wasn't much in the way of small-arms development.

>>33139209
We're in another rut, like how for hundreds of years we didn't have anything, but flintlocks (and wheellocks if you're a richfag). Nothing major will probably change unless we get make an advance in caseless ammo or energy weapons.

We are still making advancements in materials and optics, though.

>>33139209
Because you only see what they want you to see, dingus.

>>33139360
this and infantry weapons are obsolete with new technologies.

>>33139209
>Why has there been virtually no small-arms innovations in the past 50 years, /k/?

Because ultimately having cutting edge small arms is less important that it was 100 years ago.

Crew served weapons- everything from LMGs upwards to vehicle mounted autocannons, mortars and artillery, guided bombs missiles etc. are vastly more effective in terms of their lethal potential vs. risk to the soldiers operating them.

Outside of special operations, service rifles are just garrisoning tools allowing troops to take and hold ground until more effective weapons can be brought to bear. They really just have to be reliable and durable for that role (fulfill a basic standard of acceptability compared to their peers).

Adopting a new design is ultimately a huge logistical expenditure, for something that really provides little meaningful benefit vs. updating an existing design.

>>33139209
>69 y/o AK-47 still Russian standard issue rifle
Uh, no. It was issued for a whole 2 years before the Type II AK came out.

>>33139426
>Because ultimately having cutting edge small arms is less important that it was 100 years ago.
100 years ago was 1917, it didn't matter that much then either. Grenades and Artillery were more important.

>>33139209
>>33139426
Mainly what this anon said.
The bureaucratic, logistical, cost issue of putting equipment into service is retarded.

Even the cost of making a new gun and caliber for a private company is very high but also the risk of failure on the public market may be even more of a deterrent.

The next development in small arms has to be in cartridges. ETC propellants, telescopic cases, possibly case-less, will be the next significant improvement.

>>33139209
Because there's basically nothing else that can be done with chemical based propellents, we've essentially reached the peak of technology based around cartridges 50 years ago and now all we can really do is incremental improvements like new sights, furniture, etc.

We need to move on to a new ammunition type (magnetic based, energy based, etc.) that offers a significant improvement over current firearms technology before we start seeing innovation again.

>>33139209
>Why has there been virtually no small-arms innovations in the past 50 years, /k/?
Guns have been a very mature technology for that long, that's why.
New guns are mostly just the same few actions dressed in different outfits.
>>33139426
And this.

>>33139292
>there wasn't much in the way of small-arms development.
Why would they use the recourses to develop new handguns?
There is no way they can be improved in a war changing way anymore. Today wars are won by other technoligies than handguns and the money went into the development and production of these hardware

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>>33139442
You're missing the point - it's the same sixty year old technology with some minor modifications.

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What would /k/ do if they could get their hands on a phased plasma rifle, or a railgun?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdjdpoqITXk

>>33139619
Are the batteries rechargeable?

>>33139619
Have a tragic boating accident.

>>33139426
>>33139467
>>33139506
>>33139540

>Small arms improvements are negligible in modern warfare
>Adopting new rifles is just an unnecessary and expensive cost

If these things are true, then why hasn't small arms innovations focused on creating a weapon with low manufacturing cost?
You would think plastics and modern manufacturing techniques would be able to seriously decrease the cost of newly-designed weapons, but few modern weapons are cheaper to make than an AK (and other guns from the same time period).

>>33139370
>infantry weapons are obsolete
The infantryman will never be obsolete. Ever. No matter how technologically advanced we get there will always be a need for basic fighting manpower.

>>33139681
holly shit if what was true? do you live in some sort parallel world ?

you are comparing incredibly crude, mass produced weapon that was made by almost slave labor

why shit is more expensive now ?
gee i wonder, inflation maybe ?
maybe we want nice shit on our guns, maybe we want them to be ergonomic and accurate ?

>>33139681
They do have low manufacturing costs.
Additionally the military has lots of money and spends lots of it too. 99% of which isn't spent on small arms.

>>33139681
>If these things are true, then why hasn't small arms innovations focused on creating a weapon with low manufacturing cost?

Because it doesn't make sense to replace guns that you already have, that work fine, with new designs just because they are cheap to manufacture.

Regardless, the cost of manufacturing a firearm is also the cost of designing it, setting up a factory to produce it, and on the buyers end, the cost of training troops to use it and armorers to service it. All of that is amortized over the length of the production run, and the profitability of that is weighed against the profitability of making something else (are you better off making 1 million guns that have a net profit of $5, or 500 000 guns that have a net profit of $15?).

Even presumably inexpensive things can have their cost of manufacturing massively inflated by shifting or conflicting demands. Every time the design has to be reworked by engineers to accommodate this or that demand of some special interest group, the cost of manufacturing increases and profit decreases. AFAIK CZ dropped out of the Modular Handgun System competition because they'd have to design a suppressor and ammunition to submit as well- which tells you something about the profitability of a contract like that.

Ultimately though it returns to the original point- that the military isn't going to buy something just because it's cheap. Nobody is going to take one for the team in the ensuing PR nightmare of adopting a piece of hardware that's worse that the thing it's replacing, no matter whether it actually matters or not.

>>33139574
There are plenty of modifications, some very much not little.

>>33139209
Until a major advancement in cartridge design I don't see small arms tech becoming any better. It's at the point of finishing returns now, especially with combined arms

>>33139749
>holly shit if what was true? do you live in some sort parallel world ?
wut

>you are comparing incredibly crude, mass produced weapon that was made by almost slave labor
Compared to... cheap (almost slave) Chinese labor?

>why shit is more expensive now ? gee i wonder, inflation maybe ?
Either you didn't understand me or you don't know how inflation works. It's cheaper to produce an AK/AR than it is to produce an ACR (in any currency).

>maybe we want nice shit on our guns, maybe we want them to be ergonomic and accurate ?
Stock from factory, all of those guns in OP come with nearly the same ergonomics they did 50 years ago.

...also calm down, faggot.

>>33139919
You make a good point, but for law enforcement & civilian markets, a reduction in cost is a major plus.

>>33139506
I keep telling someone to try making the bolt a cylinder and compressing a gas (or air) around the caseless cartridge before firing to reduce thermal transfer to the chamber.

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>tfw even the most advanced infantry rifle concept is nearly 50 years old
>TFW all modern service rifles have origins in concepts proposed 101 years ago
>Tfw the small arms plateau could have been stopped but cold war ended

Small arms are negligible produces of casulaties on the high intensity battlefield and in the war of mobility.

All modern small arms are about equally capable within their ranges, and represent the optimal combination of factors and considerations for infantry rifles.

>>33139209
Actually, with the advancements in manufacturing we're starting to hit a "what's old is new again" trend.

It's only a matter of time before we have modernized Lugers and C96es.

>>33139681
the US military pays about $500 for an M4 with an Aimpoint. that is a stupidly good deal.

>>33140096
it takes a long time to see that reduction in cost. the returns arent immediate

>>33139253
This. Necessity is the mother of invention.
We're overdue for a big war, hang on there anon.

>>33139209
Let's just face it, we've reached the pinnacle of smokeless powder firearms design. There's literally no meaningful way that we can improve upon what we already have.

>>33140180

They pay $673.10 per rifle.

Source: Federal Business Opertunity contract number W56HZV12D00560001

>>33140219
My buddy was only billed around $500 when his M4 was fucked (run over by Humvee). Does your cost include the RIS? Or maybe the Army didnt make him pay full?
Regardless its still a pretty decent deal.

>>33140096

Maybe so for police, since their budgets are too small to really have a lot of leverage- they're basically restricted to buying off the shelf.

In the civilian market, I think that most firearms are basically priced as durable, luxury goods. On one hand, import restrictions prevent overseas competition especially in the form of entry level range guns like Norinco sells in Canada. On the other hand, Beretta knows that people who love Die Hard will pay through the nose.

I wouldn't surprised if there is a 50% markup on the civilian market.

>>33140294

Assuming US, your buddy is spinning a yarn. They most definitely do not bill troops for lost or damaged equipment. $500 is probably the bare minimum one can build an AR for, when a lower or an upper is on sale. A few years ago you could build a very bare bones (not even a rear sight) AR with a 400mm barrel for $450+shipping and handling (kommandos from the c. 2010 class will remember I'm sure). This contract in particular specifies 70,000-100,000 rifles; the specifics are known only to the contractor and contracted, but the US has reached a point where it's actually more expedient and cheaper to have a new rifle than repair one very often. The contract probably yeilded 70,000-80,000 rifles and parts for service replacement. The optics are all bought separately, and the last figure I saw for a Trijicon ACOG put the cost at $960 per unit to the Army.

>>33140199
ugh....you guys go fight im tired and did my time. let me know when we have cool new gats ill be in the garage.

>>33140487
>Assuming US, your buddy is spinning a yarn. They most definitely do not bill troops for lost or damaged equipment.

Lucky you, in the Bong Army, break or lose anything and you're getting a big fat bill shoved in your face and probably a massive bollocking by your platoon sergeant

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>>33140541
>be inna firefight with ISIS
>get caught in an explosion
>my l95a2 is missing, but my friends and I are still alive
>evac from shithole we got blown up in
>get back to base
>"oi m8 u lose yor fooken rooty tooty point n shooty? that'll be abot 500 dollary doos"

>>33140541

If you signed for it and you can't produce the equipment without reasonable clause for its loss (JSP 336 Vol 12 Pt 1 Pam 1-1 sect 1 annex A) then yeah, the UK does do that.

Was it an M4, one of the LMT rifles, or an L85A2 that was ruined?

>>33140487
If its extremely negligent (as it was in his case),and it isnt that much in cost they most certainly do. We also had a guy break a window in basic get billed for that too.

http://www.armystudyguide.com/content/army_board_study_guide_topics/Supply_Economy/financial-liability-inves.shtml

>>33140600
>Get shot three times by son of a goat
>Safe thanks to modern 1st world body armor
>"oi m8, u broke yor shooty catchy? that'll be 500 sterling"

>>33140610
>Was it an M4, one of the LMT rifles, or an L85A2 that was ruined?

None, lad in my section lost his GSR and had to fork out £1000 for it

We have had a guy get a stoppage, fail to clear it properly and let the working parts go forward, rendering the rifle about as useful as my cock after 5 shots of jamaican rum, although iirc he didn't have to pay anything

>>33139681
Every gun made from a steel stamping was made too be cheap as holy fuck. It's setting up the stamping that's expensive but once you press start it's pennies per stamping.
>>33140112
I don't even understand how that would work. LSAT machine gun has a pivoting chamber that assists with air cooling.

>>33139209
Major innovations of firearms almost always follow major innovations in ammunition.

So the question of why there hasn't been firearms innovation for the past 60 years is that there hasn't been ammunition innovation in 60 years.

>>33139524
You could have said this at any time in history and have been equally wrong.

>>33139711
Not once we get terminator units running around.

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>>33139209
>>61 y/o G3, 51 y/o MP5, 64y/o FAL still standard issue around the world
In third world countries
>>69 y/o AK-47 still Russian standard issue rifle
No
>>53 y/o M16 still American standard issue rifle
No
>>Germany, France, others currently considering adopting M16 variant as their standard issue rifle
No
>>SCAR, ACR, G36, etc all re-hash of same basic 50 y/o design
And those are all re-hashes of other designs
>Why has there been virtually no small-arms innovations in the past 50 years, /k/?
Too expensive, unneeded, not really much possible.

>>33140112
Wouldn't any air pressure just go right down the barrel?

>>33139711
Keep drinking the coolaid, patriot.

>>33140898
> whiskey dick after 5 shots.

Of course he's british.

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Y'all sure to forget about Vector. There's a prototype 7.62mm and 5.56mm Vector in development since 2008..

>>33139209
Because it still works.

>>33139253
This. Hopefully best korea goes full retard and trump goes apeshit with our troops.

>>33139426
Wasn't this this partially the reason why PDWs came to be?
For some units assault rifle is clumsy and unnecessary but typical SMGs won't do it either because modern bodyarmors so then came bastard child of both.

>>33139209
>Why has there been virtually no small-arms innovations in the past 50 years, /k/?
There were many !

They just were not adopted.

>>33139922
you're missing the point

>>33145155
No, you're missing my point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mature_technology

>>33145155
>>33145238

I already tried...
>whoosh

>>33143774
t. someone who's never had jamaican rum

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>>33139209
Because it's taken us this long to get a reliable action, that is robust, light weight and yet is practical for use,
The next innovation for the last 30 years looks to have been in the optics, and attachable gizmos, which the real breakthrough being the rail

If you don't think that this small bit of metal has shaped the invention of the firearm in the last 20 years, your an idiot