“What we need is a revolutionary break through, not some evolutionary development that brings modest performance gains over what we have now. -IMHO”
Agreed.
What we need is a man-portable (and useable), high energy pulse laser. No recoil, no windage. Point, click, ZZZzzzphths, clunk.
There are many ideas that are within the realm of feasibility we should explore. Things where like with the M16 43 years ago, or the M1 Garand when fielded, give us a significant performance advantage over other standard issued weapons.
Everything we are seeing proposed is more or less a reincarnation of some older concept. An improved M16. A new version of an AR18/180 or a new FN.......... The performance gains on these weapons is marginal over what we already have. While an AR18 surely is a slightly better design than the M16, it's not making me go in heat either.