A USMarine with the 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit’s maritime raid force fires an M1911 .45 caliber pistol at a range in Jordan during Eager Lion 2013. We Are The Mighty via US Marine Corps

For any trooper in combat, his most important piece of gear is his gun. And fortunately for the US military, American arms makers for years have been at the cutting edge of weaponology, merging technology with practicality, durability, and accuracy to field some of the best weapons in the world.

We all know that the choice of what to ultimately put in the hands of America’s warfighters is a trade-off among many factors — and there are strong opinions on all sides of the debate. Just strike up a conversation with a bar table full of gun nuts over the .45 ACP versus the 9 mm and let the fur fly.

But those of us "people of the gun" still hark back to some of the iconic weapons in US military history and like to think about how things might be different if the US were to bring some of them out of mothballs and hand them back to the troops fighting America's wars.

So here's our list of six weapons (largely) consigned to history that we would consider bringing back to the armory: