User blog comment:Echo 1/UNSC Weaponry seems unrealistic/@comment-26685181-20101108095016

From a technological standpoint, humanity have just got to the point where a LASER powerful enough to punch through a tank can be shoulder mounted, and even then it can only fire 4/5 shots before needing its battery recharged, is horrifically expensive, and is produced in small numbers. It may be extremely effective, but for the same price, how many badly-needed Warthogs, AR's, BR's, DMR's, etc could be produced? There's also the fact that LASER weaponry is actually pretty easy to deflect - reflective/refractive/diffractive hull coatings would scatter much of the energy in a LASER beam.

From a cultural standpoint, humanity may just be biased against anything resembling "Covie" weaponry, with some justification - even the MJOLNIR Mark VI uses a lot of Covenant-derived technology, such as its shields and fusion reactor, and I can only imagine how much has been adopted for human DEW's. The regular infantryman/rifleman may not be too thrilled about holding a piece of equipment like that used by the enemy. It's not a rational bias, because anything effective should be embraced, but it's a human bias, and quite fitting.

There's also the game production point of view, that the human faction needs to distinguish itself from the alien faction, and the developers do this by using radically different design philosophies - human ballistics, alien DEW's. I know I wasn't the only one who initially thought the Spartan Laser should have been a Covenant weapon, thematically.

Also, bullets kick ass!