Considering individual light weapons alone, this era is one where the shield is mightier than the spear.
Logically, large-caliber machine guns and sniper rifles are allocated to platoon-level firepower. According to the world's mainstream army firepower layout, infantry squads do not have heavy machine guns, nor do they possess large-caliber sniper rifles. This is the case for all conventional military forces worldwide.
For Special Forces, large-caliber sniper rifles are used more often, but heavy machine guns are still not gear that accompanies light infantry in combat.
All of the current mainstream light weapons are unable to penetrate Level IV body armor at close range. The standard for Level IV body armor is to withstand close-range fire from 7.62 NATO rounds. One should not even think about bullets with less power than 7.62 millimeters.
Therefore, the nature of combat has changed—it's completely different now.
