The M1 Carbine is the standard by which all PDWs are measured.

[JASmith]

Why don’t we ask ourselves what has changed as we go about condemning our grandfathers’ “inept design practices”?

To be sure, the design, fabrication, and testing has vastly changed over the past century.

Nonetheless, the criteria set for the design continue to be constrained by a number of factors that few of us agree with.

For example, we could ask “Why does our military acquisition community seemingly cling to .30 caliber as the center of new thought?”. Also, “Why, when looking at alternatives to .30 cal., do the designs look more like a senior official’s idea of what makes sense, rather than the result of an unbiased parametric assessment?”

The list of damning questions can go on for a long time but the main point is that the only value in critiquing old designs is to develop insight into what advice to give the decision makers of today and the near future.

Anything less is merely an exercise in self aggrandizement.