but I'll lay it out here. Many dicussions throughout the SWJ revolve around weapons. Everyone talks about the ideal round, ideal lethality, ideal caliber, firing rates, etc..... Finally someone brought up one of my biggest pet peeves (Thanks Coldstreamer). POSITIVE ID. At what distance with the naked eye can a soldier positively ID (PID) his threat in any environment? Yes, the environment makes a difference and I know all the associated factors. For arguements sake let's say open desert:

1. In local attire carrying an AK or RPG?

2. In local attire hiding an AK or RPG under his clothes?

3. In military uniform carrying an AK or RPG?

4. In military uniform with no weapon visable?

Aditionally lets use the same constraints with common current optics found within our force.

1. ACOG 4x power

2. M68 or EOTECH 0x power

3. Binos (showing my age by allowing the old M22) 7x50

4. Thermals (lightweight)

5. ELCAN M145 3.4x power

Staying in the daylight only realm, night becomes a completely different story.

I'm not talking capabilities with sniper teams and other specialties. Most discussions center around the "force" in general.

Additionally this changes based on the fight your in. Yes one can PID someone shooting from a much further distance or can they?

Based on being able to PID your target then what becomes the ideal weapon systems?

As far as anything 25mm, 40 mm or whatever the hell the next great idea fairy dreams up, maybe they should look at an effective way to train Soldiers on the weapon system. M203/M79 (yes they are still around) is the most underutilized weapon in the inventory. No one gets ammo to train with it and since this has been the case for too many years no one knows how to use it. I love seeing the deer in the headlight look when I ask why they do not have "hold off" markings taped onto their sling. Before we keep throwing new weapons, ammo, technology at the "force", we need to be able to ensure it can be effectively trained and therefore utilized to it's full capability.