Being a “civvy” can someone explain how or why the mindset of “jack of all trades” with regard to military hardware can ever be considered a good idea.
Same way they (the Army) thought the UCP would be the end-all camo (despite it being horrible at most places) and the XM-8 a complete modular system providing a platform for a PDW through squad automatic style weapon; trying to get the best bang for the buck.
While not a bad approach in theory, some things just should be the specialized pieces of equipment they are and be done with it.
-on a personal rant and through nothing but my gut feeling, this "forever war," we are in has lined more pockets of more persons/companies than can be imagined. Pitch the right people the right project and you could make an insane amount of cash with little to nothing to show at the end.