Something else to consider.

[tombogan03884]

This is only partly political, part of it deals with our current situation so bear with me please.
Those of you on FB may know that this AM I posted a Forgotten Weapons video about what a POS the L-85 bullpup was.
HK had to replace every part except the receiver, then go back and replace the receivers,
Finally they just replaced them with the HK AR clone.
Same with France.
They are relying for their defense needs the one country they have most often needed to fight against.
Because no matter how good their engineers and workers they are GUN engineers.
This is why Portsmouth (NH) Navy Yard stays open .
It's inefficient as hell but it preserves the tribal knowledge of the profession.
Japan understands this, they paid a huge amount for 2000 machine guns that took 20 to complete, but it kept that capability alive.
With out a civilian market we'd be in the same boat as England since we haven't had an Arsenal since the dumb ass democrats shut Springfield.
Here's the fly in their ointment though.
If liberals shut down gun and ammo factories where will they get the replacements and ammo they should need ?
They don't know how to fix the ones they've got or make new ones.
Mean while we've been doing this stuff right along, both for work, as well as hobby.
What people don't understand is that before WW II Armies didn't go to companies and say "We want XY and Z (there were a couple that did exactly that, but not the US )
Instead, an inventor would come up with some thing like the Maxim gun , or the Hotchkiss gun, and then work like hell to sell it, usually on 4 continents before any one showed interest.
Even since WW II the US may have had fancy sh!t like SPIW, and "Adaptive Combat rifle" , But for 55 or so years they have been fighting with the results of Gene Stoners home made hunting rifle.

[alfsauve]

An interesting point about maintaining the skill and knowledge base.

COBOL (a computer language of which I was an expert) programmers are in short supply and the current unemployment situation has brought that to light as labor department attempt to improve their decades old systems.


As far as not knowing we need something until after someone else invents it:   The AR was pretty much the same.  Stoner's idea for a lighter, more "space age" rifle was before the DoD knew they wanted it.   He had to try and sell them on the idea. 

[tombogan03884]

As far as not knowing we need something until after someone else invents it:   The AR was pretty much the same.  Stoner's idea for a lighter, more "space age" rifle was before the DoD knew they wanted it.   He had to try and sell them on the idea. 

Exactly. The Army only adopted it as a stopgap between the failed M - 14 and the future "SPIW" program weapon they were going to get "soon".