Quote: "The whole point of this particular 'weapon' is to be dark. If it wasnt light it wouldnt be a very good weapon for special operations would it... "
Thats like saying, well the sky is blue so i'll just fill it with pure blue. There are subtle variations of colour in everything, what you have done is made it so dark that, in the real world, would do it's job just fine as being so bloody invisible that you'd lose your own c4 if the moon wasn't full that night.
For a game texture, you need to lighten it up a bit, start throwing in different shades of colour rather than just a black texture with the dodge tool used over it. In your reference pictures I see shades of green in the underlying colour itself, try adding a bit more depth. Strong Black and whites never work well in game textures, they either end up looking really flat or so dark you can't tell what they are. Texture this specific object with lighting built in, don't rely on the renderer to do that for you.
If you take a look at your reference pictures, you can clearly see the definition of the shape, even though it is black. In your render, I see a black smudge on a door, if I hadn't seen the pictures beforehand it would take me a lot longer to figure out what it is. Your model should be instantly recognisable before any scrutiny should take place.
If you feel the need to watermark your textures, make it a little more subtle, we can't crit something we can't see. Your name or logo in the corner would suffice.
