Objective Individual Combat Weapon or OICW for short.

Is is really the weapon of the future, or, at $10,000 a pop, is it an overpriced hunk of steel that could be put to good use making a better weapon system for our nations armed forces?

We want to phase out the AR-15 family of weapons and that is fine, but what do infantry soldiers need? A rugged and I mean RUGGED, straight shooting iron, capable of rapid fire, short bursts, and single fire. We need a weapon that does not need to be babied in the field, one that can consume a large amount of ammo before cleaning. Furthermore, we need a light weapon. I do not think that the OICW meets alot of this criteria. It does not even have iron sights should the electronics fail. Keep the M-16, and spend the money on light tanks to complement the infantry for ground ops. Thats my read on it.

Electronic surveillance is the wave of the future. Look for a gun with a low-power EHF or SHF receiver that links it electronically with other guns in a unit (with one central signal booster, say in a larger transceiver/converter on board a troop transport or armored vehicle) to micromanage troop movements via satellite from as far away as the Pentagon or an area command like 5th fleet in the Middle East.

(NATO members have been using several versions of this technology a long time now aboard ships for air and surface combat movement. In the last 10-15 years, we've been expiramenting with combined Navy/Army/Marine missions--combat units on the ground already carry link equipment. The major difference is that ships and tanks can carry large antennas and transceivers that don't really fit in guns. They operate in HF, VHF, UHF and EHF frequencies, from 3 MHz to around 1500 MHz. The conversion to higher frequencies will allow for much smaller and lighter circuit components and antennas that can be mobile, like a cell-phone-controlled LCD screen right behind the sights.)