Guns, guns, guns
Posted by Skyler Frink
The musket revolutionized the battlefield when it was unveiled. The rifled barrel, which allowed muskets to fire with some degree of accuracy, also altered the battles of the future. After the rifled barrel it was repeating weapons, which could be fired more than once before reloading, that shaped the wars of the day. As warfare carried on, so did the technology behind the weapons that soldiers carried onto the battlefield. Why is it, then, that new guns seem to have stopped being released?
Is it that we have reached the pinnacle of technology with our guns? Have we run out of ways to fire more accurately, with more power or at greater distances?
I don't think so.
The lack of new guns represents a change in how war is fought. As surely as tanks made cavalry obsolete, placing men and women on the front lines is becoming less and less necessary thanks to modern advancements in technology.
No longer do we need to place soldiers directly in harm's way to secure a building. Rather than risk attack, an unmanned vehicle can be tossed into the room to acquire intelligence. Instead of sending soldiers on reconnaissance missions, we can take pictures with satellites or send an unmanned aerial vehicle to survey the area. Rifles are only useful when you have people who will be engaging the enemy directly, and technology is making it so direct contact is no longer a necessity.
On the ever-changing battlefields of today it's only a matter of time before infantry are not required to secure an area or win a battle. As the dangerous jobs are slowly pushed into the realm of unmanned vehicles, we will eventually see the dangers of direct combat be relegated to similar devices.
John Keller is editor-in-chief of Military & Aerospace Electronics magazine, which provides extensive coverage and analysis of enabling electronic and optoelectronic technologies in military, space, and commercial aviation applications. A member of the Military & Aerospace Electronics staff since the magazine's founding in 1989, Mr. Keller took over as chief editor in 1995.
