The evolution of weapons has come a long way. Specifically speaking, the weapon for the main combat rifle, or equivalent, has come a long way.

Originally, users had a single shot, caseless round that required the user to put the projectile together and then load the weapon, through the front of the barrel. These weapons were one shot, prone to failure, and generally unreliable. If the powder became wet it wouldn't explode, and sometimes stray powder could ignite itself, firing the weapon before the desired time. Effectively reloading the weapon took a large amount of time, from 20 seconds to a minute, and was extremely tedious; if the right actions were not taken, the gun could fail to fire, and under stress and under time limits this often lead to failures.

The British were capable of creating a form of rifle that was capable of being reloaded rather quickly, easy to manufacture, and relatively reliable, although this weapon was limited to one shot use and was inaccurate, the weapons usually being equipped with extremely large or effective bayonets.

The next evolution of this rifle was the rifle, or basically a weapon with rifling, that was designed to impart spin to a projectile that was aerodynamically shaped. These weapons were considered to be more accurate and have a farther effective range, going from 75 to 150 yards, and in some cases being accurate out to 300 yards, although they were much slower to reload, taking up to a minute, and much harder to produce. Generally, mini balls were used instead, that while similar to the rifle, were vastly different.

Eventually, cartridge improvements were made, giving weapons pre-packaged cartridges, and using improved powder. These powders were not only more effective, allowing for increased velocity and power, and therefore increased range and accuracy, but also were quieter, could be fired when wet, and gave off less smoke, being capable of masking an individual that could be far out of sight of an individual, or simply hiding, increasing the stealth capability of rifles. They were also faster to reload, and many models sported repeating capabilities. Earlier rifles and weapons included revolving chambers and lever action devices. While not semi-automatic of automatic, these weapons were known as "auto loading", and could fire at much faster rate, incalculably increasing the rifles effect on the battlefield. This essentially invented an entirely new dimension of combat, were a user was not limited to one shot, but could fire off several rounds, a massive force multiplier equivalent to the power the machine gun provided on the battlefield.



Eventually, bolt action weapons were made (like the Springfield), and then semi-automatic (like the M1 Garand) and then finally fully automatic (like the M14). With the increased power strength (smokeless powder to cordite, to modern smokeless power, which is now 9 times as powerful as gunpowder, and now even smokeless powder which is roughly 15-30% more powerful than that). The pre-packaged identical cartridge gave rise to the reliable function of self-loading machine, which eventually lead to the high rate of fire and reliability of modern rifles. After wards, we changed the cartridge and the weapon and moved on.


Evolution
-One shot
-Manual (auto-loading)
-Semi-automatic
-Fully Automatic


The question is now what? What is the next evolution after this? My answer is the Automatic grenade launcher; that is, a weapon that no longer launches weapons that rely upon kinetic energy, but rely on much more powerful and reliable explosive materials to damage the individual.

Cannons were using these types of explosives over 200 years ago, and now the great evolution would be to be using these in automatic rifles at the infantry level. The force multiplier would be staggering, and would allow a user to effect a group of targets, tear through tanks and APC's, along with other types of armor, and use very small or weak bullets comparatively to deliver large amounts of damage.

Of course, there has to be an evolution to that. The answer would be smart bombs, that is bombs that are more accurate, self guiding or can be programmed to explode when wished so by the user. Weapons of a similar nature would include JDAM's or the 25mm grenades fired from the XM25.

The next evolution would be to improve the propulsion systems to allow them, like the explosive, not to rely upon the initial, kinetic energy, but a more reliable and powerful system. An idea would be rockets. Essentially, the next evolution would be weapons not only firing smart explosives, but rocket powered smart explosives, with greatly increased range and vastly reduced recoil.

This would also allow for a weapon to be guided, or otherwise controlled in flight, and capable of changing direction in mid flight. This means that the weapon would be used to track enemy targets, even possibly being self automated, such as with laser or radio guided weapons.

So the evolution for future infantry weapons, proposed by me, would be essentially-


Evolution
-Automatic Grenade Launchers
-Automatic "Smart" or Airbursting Grenades
-Automatic Rocket Launcher (smart bombs)
-Automatic Guided Rocket Launcher, essentially self targeting rockets