So what does drive small arms innovations?

[Nightcrawler]

Oh for crying out loud

I asked a perfectly reasonable research & development question, and you act as if I, personally, am responsible for stifling the development of firearms design. Did I say ANYthing that could be reasonably interpreted to be advocating Government prevention of private firearms development?

 

[Brian Gibbons]

In combat ...

There is lots of room for improvements. For military small arms, there is the developement of the 20mm / 5.56mm, combo guns (with smart bullets) giving the individual soldier a wider range of capabilities. For larger guns (ships) there is the need to develope faster and more powerful anti-anti-ship missile guns to defeat the newer generation of supersonic anti-ship missles. For aircraft, there is the need to develope guns with more range and "punch" than we currently have today without an increase in breech pressures and the associated weight gain of a heavier gun. For LE, there is the need for the continuous developement/improvement of safer SA only pistols and "politically correct" firearms such as bean bag guns, frangible bullets, tear gas guns and stuff like that ..

 

[Mr. Pub]

Have you seen the new FN F2000 assault weapon?

It ejects the spent cases out the front of the weapon.

http://www.global-defence.com/webpages/WSpart11.html

 

[Cosmoline]

NOT WAR, BUT POWDER

Think about it for a second. The names of the great weapons themselves reveal this truth. For example:

M1911 w/ .45 ACP
Mauser '98 w/ 8mm JS
Winchester '94 w/ .30-30
SMLE Mk 1 w/ .303 smokeless
Springfield 1903 w/ .30'06
etc.

Smokeless powder emerged in the mid-1880's with the 8mm Lebel. It first came to the US in the 1894 .30-30. I think it's safe to assume that it was a major driving force behind these weapons, along with the genius of men such as Browning and Mauser.

This is why the 1890's produced so many seminal small arms. The Mauser '98 alone established the basic action of nearly all modern bolt-actions.

IMHO, you won't see any drastic changes in small arms until a new system of generating pressure is developed. Caseless ammo is interesting, but hasn't worked too well so far. There are a lot of other cool ideas out there. Once one of them catches on, it will breed a whole new generation of small arms. Until then, all you will see are variations on a theme.

 

[Kaylee]

Hey y'all..

As to the original question, I suppose I should clarify my statement that Andrew refererred to. In a sense, arms evolution sounds very much biological evolution to me. Basically, yeah, you have your tinkerers, always trying to come up with something better, be it a little kludgy-fix (forward bolt assist on an AR), or a radically new concept (brass-cased cartriges in a self-loading action). So we're always getting this huge array of new stuff coming down the pike.

Both conflict and the marketplace (and legalisms!) then, seems to be, play the part of natural selection, clearing the field and letting the most successful designs proliferate. That's what I was referring to when I said necessity dictates the course of development -- bolt rifles (comparatively) sucked at the close-range firefights of the 30s-40s, little bullethoses worked, so the trend of development moved towards little and lots of firepower. And hence, the day-to-day weapons you see built and proliferating over the next century will be more dependent on the task required of them than any single technical innovation, I think.

(BTW, re the powder argument -- Great point, but I think I'd give the nod more to the metallic cased, self-contained cartridge than the propellent. That was what really started practical repeating arms, I'd say -- Colt 1973, for example, or the early Henrys and Winchesters. Both pretty much set the stage for designs lasting to this day, but were black powder weapons. Heck, wasn't the Nagant originally BP to?)

 

[Kermit]

Competition drives innovation just like most anything else. I want to be better than my competition...ie. he uses a stick, I use a bigger stick; he uses a pistol that jams, or rusts/ breaks or is in any other way unreliable, I want one that shoots where I want when I want, I win the gun fight Survival of the fittest