If you ask me, I think this pistol nonsense is just the latest example of a disturbing and counterproductive behavior coming out of the military procurement folks on all fronts;
-In the name of "simplicity," they devise some ginormous winner-take-all, all-or-nothing, high stakes contract competition that will decide the dominant player in the field for at least the foreseeable future
-The scope of the project being so enormous, the requirements for it are made extremely ambitious, often requiring technologies that don't even exist, yet
-The stakes are so high for the competitors, that loss for any of them is a near-existential consequence; if they don't go bankrupt from the lack of sales, the winner will be posed to dominate or buy them outright.
-The competitors are so intent on not losing, that the only solution is for them all to tear down and lobby against whoever happens to be the perceived front runner (see Game Theory and the last Republican presidential nomination
)
-Close government oversight prevents the competitors from aligning against the frontrunner (well, it's supposed to, and in most cases appears to work well enough to keep winners from being decided by a cartel)
-Because the lawsuits and accusations will
never cease, the government eventually relents and gives everyone a piece of the pie by allowing them all to subcontract for the nominal 'winner,' thus ensuring collusion (again, supposed to be prevent by laws and oversight, but having all major players working for each other simultaneously sounds like something that should be illegal on its face in the first place, regardless how many pots they all have their fingers in)
If the .mil
would simply allow lower level units to adopt what they want, on some sort of budget-constrained basis, new products could be introduced on limited 'pilot' scales as they become available, and internal 'market type' forces within the military would be more likely to promote the most successful products within the organization. Think about it; despite our modern data-mining super computers and smart warfare concepts, we're incapable of managing weapons logistics more complicated than what we had in the 60's?
Isn't this kinda what we've been doing with our special forces all along, and mostly with great success?
TCB