Since WW2 military technology has advanced massively, planes, tanks, ships, electronics, it's all completely different...

I doubt he'd go as far as saying it will win the war. The Garand didn't win the war just because the Germans half bolt actions.

It may not win the war, but it could mean the difference between him surviving it or going home in a box.

Yes him, but thats the crux of this, the overall influence is not that great, because small arms have not significantly advanced.

They have, you're retarded, this thread is dumb, we have it every week, SAGE.

No they haven't. A plastic wrapping and a sight rail is not much. It's not like going from 400mph firing bullets to 1600 mph and shooting someone with a missile 5 miles away.

I believe that if you are looking for a revolution on the level of changing from muzzleloaders to actual cartridge rifles... you are going to be disapointed.

Weapon development has always been a steady process. You cannot understand the M4 without the STG44, the STG44 without the rest of gas operated mechanisms, the gas operated mechanism do not make sense without the bolt action... and so on.

When you reach the first guy that thought about putting expllosive in an enclosed barrel and then something after the explosive to be propelled is when you stop.

Have in mind that small arms are very simple systems and all of their parts have to work with 95% reliability or they get scrapped. Sure you can give the space-tier guns to real operators,, but for the rest of the grunts you are already putting too much faith in them by not simply giving them a big stick, and the situation gets worse if you have to arm your local population to defend itself against the enemy.

Also, a small arms are precisly that: Small, you can add radars to fighter jets but you cannot do that with a gun that will now require a battery, the wiriing and the equipment and now will weight much more(that's why the use of plastic was such a big deal, now you can add stuff that was limited to people guarding positions), and also going by the things I stated, you also have to justify adding another point of failure to the gun so it better has to be a live or die kind of tool or weight the same as leaf.

And of course, add another simple factor. We only had proxy wars, the only advancements we have seen are in things for the special forces that actually see combat(SOPMOD) and in the private sector(also why China sells guns to the US, they get the indirect I+D of things they might not have thought about), which makes sense. Advancement happens only with the people that recognize the need and are able to produce a solution for that need, for example: Israel.

You can shoot people with missiles from 5 or more miles away. Your average 9mm travels at 900mph.

That's because small arms hardly make a noticeable difference in war, not because they haven't advanced. You could say the same shit about planes and ships too.

>planes now are pretty much the same as in WW2, you have a pilot, some wings for lift, an area that stores weapons, and some wheels for takeoff and landing. Where are the aircraft that look like UFO's and shoot photon torpedoes?

You're ignoring the advances in accuracy, ballistics, reliability, firepower, weight savings, ergonomics, and modularity that make military small arms today completely different and vastly more effective.

In general, small arms are overrated, so there is no reason to spend a lot of money on them. Modern wars are fought mostly by aviation, artillery, and armored vehicles. The only usage of infantry is to storm buildings, therefore close ranges, there super-advanced AR with thermals is equal to a rusty AK in terms of performance.

I think sure they might have not lost, but the performance drop would be significant with how much lesser ammo a soldier could carry, extra weight, etc.

The rifle has greatly changed, it's just that the changes are much more subtle.

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Tanks would be a better example considering the Renault FT more or less codified the design of tanks back in 1916. Traditional propeller planes were invented and made obsolete in 50 years.

I agree that small arms hardly make a noticably difference in war but I disagree with your plane analogy. A WW2 era prop fighter vs an F15 would be no contest at all.

It's just diminishing returns. There's only so much more performance you can wring out of a relatively simple piece of man portable kit that shoots bullets. 'Vastly more effective' is overkill. Modern small arms are nicer to use but if you armed a special forces team with MP44s they'd still get shit done, probably with similar effectiveness.

do you want the laws of physics to be changed? you have a small explosion it pushes a small piece of metal? what else could you do?

Well jet engines were undoubtedly the biggest evolution that aircraft underwent since WW2 which as a paradigm shift is probably closer to the transition to smokeless powder, but aside from that, I think the advances in optics are comparable to the advances in aircraft mounted radar.
>A WW2 era prop fighter vs an F15 would be no contest at all.
Consider a WW2 era "sniper rifle" like a p/u mosin and compare it to something like a Scar 17 in 6.5CM with an infrared or night vision scope. The nuggeteer would be outranged, out-accuracy'ed, have a much harder time spotting his enemy, he would have a heavier load to carry, he wouldn't be nearly as effective at close range because no full-auto, he wouldn't be able to carry as much ammo, if he got a hit, it wouldn't be as deadly at range because of the bc difference. The scar would just outperform the nugget (or SVT or whatever) in every metric. The optics would probably be the biggest single game changer though.

...

Firearm optics have made some pretty rapid advancements since WW2. Small arms aren’t just the operating system and cartridge, how it aims can be just as important.

we're running out of ways to make a small piece of metal go faster without a significant technological leap. Things like turbines or nuclear reactors or electronics didn't help what is essentially a small charge in a barrel pushing a lead slug out.

Don't you think we'll one day have a pistol sized firearm with the power of a .50 cal?

But your analogy still fails because both could still kill each other very easily, but a mustang couldn't even harm a F-15

This. Optics are everything. With Iron sights your space age modern rifle is hardly any better than AK-47

*laughing Simo Häyhä*

its probably been said already but small arms havent been that influential in militaries for atleast 250 yrs. its just not a priority to drastically change guns in the same that something like the transition to cartridges could.

i think there are some pretty big changes still though. first which has already been mentioned is the shift towards modularity as a feature and the use of optics. another is the switch to intermediate calibers. another thing is the universal switch to using external detachable magazines instead of clips and enblocs in rifles. another is the switch from detachable magazines for lmgs to belts and the complete ditch of the pancake style magazine. another would be the switch from revolvers and single stack autos to the wonder nine concept in handguns. another would be the gradual disinterest in submachine guns.

above all though the greatest change is in the manufacturing. you mentioned it yourself. the tech was there to make guns similar to rifles today but theirs no way they could at the same quality and mass we are today.

>small arms in militaries haven't been influential for atleast 250 yrs

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>lesser ammo a soldier could carry
Seriously. I don't think people get the difference between a double 5.56 mag pouch and a double 7.62 mag pouch. 7.62 mags are way bigger. Not just heavier, but bulkier and take up more space. And yeah, they're heavier. Kids always say "man up, do some pushups" but they're not even out there carrying that shit in the first place.

Wow look at this fucking simpleton. Modularity and material science is as big of a deal as smokeless powder and casings.

It's not just modularity as in the ability to mount a scope. Modularity like the ar18 being the heart of every single gun ever since. And yes ability to change the gun to the task is also a very important modularity thing. You can turn a standard rifle to a smg by swapping the upper. You can do good accurate shooting with the service rifle by putting a scope and better ammo. This simplifies logistics so much.

Also material science gives you lighter, better guns. You can make them faster, cheaper. Without sacrificing quality.

Guns are one of the few things that are actually built better now than in ye olden days. Some however planned obsolescence hasn't caught up as quickly.