Why does the U.S. keep pumping money into small arms programs

Because SF want fancy shit, and god forbid anybody be allowed to buy an off-the-shelf solution without ten years of tenders and trials.

>>34540030
Padding slush funds.

>>34540030
SOCOM was a mistake.

>>34540040
Fpbp

File: Springfield Armory early SPIW.jpg (57KB, 1024x423px) Image search: [Google]

57KB, 1024x423px

It's a tradition

>>34540067
is that 20mm or 40mm

File: CFM_01102 (Firearm Showcase_ The Winchester SPIW Flechette Rifles at the Cody Firearms Museum – HIGH RES PICS! - The Firearm BlogThe Firearm Blog).jpg (63KB, 1500x1000px) Image search: [Google]

63KB, 1500x1000px

>>34540067
The SPIW, ACR, OICW and all that shit were intended to be service rifles, SOCOM gets special treatment with stuff like the SCAR, the Mk 23 and whatever other weird shit contractors can convince JSOC they need. KAC SR-47, anybody?

File: Army_Combat_Uniform.jpg (481KB, 829x1200px) Image search: [Google]

481KB, 829x1200px

>>34540030
They get a handful of rifles because they need to try and justify a program that was going fail from the start. US military procurement is just a way to keep money changing hands in the military industrial complex. The few times it actually amounts to anything, it was rigged from the start.

>>34540090
40mm

File: rem[1].jpg (23KB, 608x199px) Image search: [Google]

23KB, 608x199px

>>34540030

Although the taxpayer still ends up footing the bill regardless, SOCOM cannot pass the charges onto the Army for weapons not currently in their inventory.

So while SOCOM could get M4s and M16s for "free" by taking it from the other services, any specialized weapon comes directly out of their budget.

Which is why the procurement levels are so low.

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2013/09/13/remington-wins-ussocom-psr-precision-sniper-rifle-contact/

Also SOCOM is a fickle bitch, and even if you win a contract and pass all their requirements they can pull the rug out from under you and blame you with the excuse of "limited funds" while covering their ass about their inability to pay and breaking the contract.

If you speak up about it, you risk future contracts. So cancellations like the PSR go quietly into the night.

>>34540030
Because it helps the companies and secures jobs.
>get government money to develop new gun
>special forces approved
>sells like crazy to civilians

>>34540030

Because the Military-Industrial Complex has an unlimited, insatiable appetite for tax dollars.

The guy on the gun maker side is gonna get tons of $$$, the guy running the program for getting the guns on the military side will most likely get $$$ either from the program funding or from the defense industry he's courting.

In other words, its a very lucrative business for all sides EXCEPT the taxpayers that ultimately foot the bill.

>>34540124
>The mandarin collar being up.
They pushed that so hard in the promos but only was used/useful for sandstorms and when you had armor on.

>>34540585
Then dont vote Republican

>>34541759
>implying dems arent warmongers too

>>34541765
They are, but remember when "KING NIGGER" dialed down the military spending?

File: vietnam-war-protests.jpg (592KB, 822x1000px) Image search: [Google]

592KB, 822x1000px

>>34541759
>>34541765
>implying Dems aren't warmongers ESPECIALLY

File: IMG_1535.jpg (165KB, 1024x976px) Image search: [Google]

165KB, 1024x976px

>>34540030
Tfw
>UCP
>the latest interest in a 7.62 rifle
>machine gun """"overmatch""""
>most body armor contracts
>most day packs and main packs
>the inability to decide on a true HMMWV replacement
>the inability to give infantry units a free-fire recoiless rifle type weapon
>suede boots
>most rifle optic systems
>the new """"dual purpose"""" grenade

Are bureaucratic memes made by R&D shekel extractors and """"leave their mark"""" with non improvements. This is all out of touch pentagon career officers and retired generals looking to make a buck.

>>34540097
The SPIW was definitely not intended as a general service rifle.

>>34541759
why would which way you vote affect how private businesses and a vast nonpolitical government agency interact? Not to mention the influence universities have on both through business and engineering degrees which are incredibly popular, as well as ROTC programs, which I actually know very little about.

>>34543339
>pentagon
>non political

>>34540030

>be ancient fudd with stars on my collar
>miss the good old days of sending farm boys to get slaughter by gooks
>lovingly fingerfuck your 1911A1 that daddy brought back from the Dubya Dubya Too every day
>subordinates report that troops think the glorious, perfect, flawless AT platform sucks
>wish you could send them all to get malaria and purple hearts in Cambodia
>get pressured to hold a contest and prove your favorite, bestest AT is still better than all these fancy guns these days
>smugly sit in office collecting paychecks and watching Band of Brothers
>reports come across your desk and a gun resembling a fish has statistics leagues ahead of your beloved AT
>simultaneously shit self and burst every blood vessel in your eyes
>forced to hold a press conference and say that the fish gun is going to replace the greatest gun ever made
>spend months seething in hatred and calling in five decades of favors
>fish gun contract quietly cut down
>promises are made to phase it out in return for some backroom rimjobs
>imagine that black phallus emerging from the bathroom stall hole is the barrel of the AR
>go to town with the national anthem playing in the back of your head

File: 1490703015178.jpg (26KB, 457x480px) Image search: [Google]

26KB, 457x480px

>>34544074

>>34543228
Yes it was, that was literally the point. To improve the hit probability of infantry using small-caliber high-RoF flechette weapons. It was just too unreliable, so the M16 was adopted instead, which in practice filled largely the same role.

>>34541759
Then the military contractors would just lobby the Dems, dood.

>>34544194
>Special Purpose Individual Weapon
>literally intended as a general service rifle

File: 1498022097488.gif (60KB, 434x434px) Image search: [Google]

60KB, 434x434px

>>34544074
>a fudd killed the XM8

>>34540030
Lobbyists.

>>34540030
Research. You want the gun industry fed on small projects and making iterative progress between massive breakthroughs.

Any really good gun would be bought by the thousands and then by the millions but DARPA wants to try them out first.

>>34541774
and then was in charge when we promised to give Israel 46 billion over the next ten years?