The army is looking to use a new round that will improve the lethality of small arms, and ideally lessen the combat load of soldiers. They are pointing to a 68mm round that is a compromise between short- and medium-range lethality, such as those situations needed in clearing a house in urban terrain, and long-range accuracy wanted by snipers.
That is all well and good. The problem comes from the terminology used. The headline lists this new round as a potential “game changer.” I read so many articles that use this term it sounds like the game is changing every week or two. This tells me that this is more of a buzzword that is used for click-bait headlines and the emotion it conveys more than for its clinical accuracy.
In the historical context of firearms and bullets, a new round is hardly changing the game. At most, this round will be slightly more effective, or in military jargon, have better stopping power than the previous round. Those that fought in Somalia in the Black Hawk Down incident often complained that their rounds went straight through their combatants. Since many of the Somalis where high on drugs those through and through shots often didn’t kill them for hours. So a round with better stopping power would have helped, but it was still the same game.
Likewise, the U.S. changing the rounds would require their NATO allies to change rounds as well, to ensure interoperability and the same supply chain between the nations. This is somewhat burdensome and will take time, but still isn’t changing the game.
In fact, as analysts pointed out when they talked about a new future gun, modern weapons aren’t that different than the weapons fired by George Washington. They use a firing pin to fire a single bullet at a time. They do so with better range, speed, accuracy, and less misfires than the 18th century muskets, but they are still part of the same continuum of weapons.
The prototype of the future gun actually changes those mechanisms. It uses an electromagnetic pulse to fire one to four barrels depending on range and power needed. This helps to solve the problem between long-range accuracy and short-range stopping power. The new weapon is still in the prototype phase, but if successfully tested and mass produced then it may actually change the game.
This principle applies to missiles as well. Every week it seems there are new articles about game-changing technology ranging from carrier-killing missiles to hypersonic weapons. Those missiles might be really dangerous, make it more dangerous for U.S. forces to operate in regions (like the Taiwan strait), and could even provide a critical edge in the event of future conflict. This could possibly change U.S. strategy and force them to make costly adjustments, but just like the different sized bullet, it doesn’t change the game.
Just like new guns are simply better versions of weapons that have been around a long time, missiles are simply the newest version of technology that has been around for 70 years. Hitler thought his vengeance rockets would be the superweapon that saved Germany late in the war. They did inspire fear and caused a fair amount of damage late in the war, but the superweapon didn’t overcome their strategic disadvantage, and the U.S. quickly adapted new technologies.
Since that time they have developed multiple layers of sophisticated countermeasures. These include the combat air patrol, Aegis ships equipped with advanced targeting methods, close-in weapons systems, and sophisticated doctrine that seeks to destroy launch-and-guidance systems before they launch the missiles. They are continually upgrading these systems and looking for better ways to stop missiles. So again, these new missiles might be rather impressive (though we still don’t know for sure, until they are used in combat), yet that doesn’t change the game at all. It’s more of a continuation of the same game.
Game changer is a buzzword that replaces solid analysis and the emotion the term invokes becomes good click-bait, fearmongering articles that drive traffic or secure more funding. If we want to improve our discussion and analysis of current events we need to move beyond emotionally-charged buzzwords.
