When it gets past 2020...

[Marcello]

Originally Posted by Dion

Heck with a bunch of lasers on space orbiting platforms you could destroy entire amies, navies, airforces, even compleat counties with just a flick of the switch. First strike capabilties whould be so great I think WWIII would start for sure. That would kind of make the game obsolete wouldn't it?

No such thing. Orbital weapons have too many drawbacks for such a thing to be built, not in the next decades at any rate. Besides any tech that is going to enable an orbital platform to zap stuff on earth is going to make equally possible for the stuff on earth to zap the platform in orbit.

Realistically if you look at the big picture, in terms of budgetary constraints and geopolitical issues, as well as the R&D performance in the US and several others key manufacturers you quickly realize that nobody is going to field any great deal of wunderwaffen, at least in the ground forces.
There is neither the money nor the pressing need to field new tanks and similar items. Wars are being fought in third world countries against low end opponents while several negative economic trends are raising their ugly heads. That is not a recipe for quick military innovation across the board.
The US R&D effort reads like a litany of cancellations, from the Crusader to the EFV. What gets actually fielded are upgrades of existing systems or incremental designs like the Stryker. Or badly needed, relatively cheap stuff like MRAPs.