Just remember that the ones who make choices for the military are no less opinionated and uneducated than the members of gun forums.
Absolutely. One of the desired characteristics of military leaders is a "bite and hold" attitude. These guys expect to be put into a hopeless situation and they know they are going to either triumph, or be slaughtered, but in all instances, the organization expects them never to quit. This is part of the institution pathos.
Something that is common throughout all organizations is an absolute resistance to change, the larger the organization, the worse it is. The naive expect that they can diddle bop up to a massive Corporation with a disruptive technology, and be welcomed as a savior. Not so, they are more likely to end up as alligator food in the corporate pond. All large organizations have power centers run by egomaniac psychopaths, who like the characters in "Game of Thrones", have managed to back stab their way to the top. Core to that power center is some sort of a product or service. If the product goes away, so does all that power, money, position. Change is not welcome.
You can see this in the demise of Polaroid. Polaroid was an early leader in digital photography, had many of the early patents. But, digital technology was in its infancy, not a lot of cash flow early on, not a lot of power behind the idea. The real money, power, and position was held by the managers of film technology. Those guys absolutely stifled the digital technology groups in Polaroid, even though it meant the doom of the Corporation. These guys drank as much liquor at the Captain's bar as they could, before the Titanic went down. Might as well go in style, eh?
Organization inertia is real, even at the lower levels. I am absolutely certain the production engineers at Frankfort Arsenal were screaming about all the work involved in change over from 30-06 to 276 Pedersen. Change is anathema to a Production Engineer, just when they get the production line running well, you want change? Anyone suggesting change to the Production Engineers is also likely to end up in the alligator pond. And they would have been correct, they would have had to get off their duffs and do something. The status quo is just so easy, power centers built around the status quo, lots of advocacy for the status quo, you don't have to do anything but same old, same old. That's why, change is always in response to external stimuli. The Army would still be back with George Washington and the 69 caliber musket, if a troublesome character had not come up with the Minie ball.
Notice, in the Spanish American war, most of our troops were armed with single shot blackpowder rifles, against the Spanish who were armed with Mauser repeating rifles. The Army had many opportunities to buy magazine fed bolt action 45/70 rifles. The Navy armed itself with the Remington Lee 45/70 magazine fed bolt action in the 1880's, but Army did not want to change. The great battle of San Juan Hill, 760 Spanish soldiers armed with repeating Mausers faced 15,000 Americans, armed with Gatling guns, artillery, and single shot Trapdoors. (a few Krag's were around). The U.S. lost some 205 dead, 1,200 wounded; Spanish, some 215 dead, 376 wounded. Based on body count, the Spanish won. The American's were lucky the Spanish did not have the machine guns that Kitchener used against spear waving Africans in 1898.
Anyone remember the movie Zulu? The movie where the British had single shot rifles and massacred a massive amount of spear waving Zulu's? If the Spanish had machine guns at San Juan, they could have made a similiar movie, with their guys behind the barricades, and massive numbers of dead Americans out in front.
