Status of the Next Gen Squad Weapon (NGSW)?

[stanc]

That money could have been better spent on better triggers and more marksmanship training if they wanted too improve probability of kill per shot taken.

The Army wanted ability to defeat modern hard body armor at long range. Better triggers and more training won't improve penetration performance.

All this mess about the platform being outdated, is just that hogwash, the platform isn't out dated the ammo and caliber is outdated.

If they really wanted to upgrade, they would speak a bolt made from armet or a bigger bolt/barrel extention and upgrade too a grendel cased caliber and maintain 60k pressure they seem to like.

Do that and they retain their part comparability to most possible with existing weapons and give the war fighter then needed punch at extended ranges.

Upgrading existing small arms via caliber change seems like a non-starter. The only time I know of that the US Army adopted a completely new cartridge expressly to upgrade legacy weapons was 1865, when .58 Rimfire was used to convert a small number of muzzleloaders to breechloading, and even that was a temporary, stop-gap measure that served only briefly. The standard practice whenever a new caliber was adopted, has been to develop and field new rifles and machine guns, too.