US Military sidearm

[Noreaster]

I'd like to hear your thoughts on the US Military sticking with Beretta. The future handgun program has been dropped, (though the Airforce was stilling pushing.) The Army & Marines just purchased, within the year, a new batch of M9 Berettas. The M9s in current use were badly worn out and needed refurb or replace. I heared a rumor about better ammo (possible the Federal EFMJ,) which would be nice. I think the boys would have been much better off with a new pistol, polymer (less lubrication needed,) and one constant trigger pull. I believe the M9 is a good firearm with proper lube and up keep with parts and replacement but the reports from the field haven't been good. Appears the military is using handguns much more than in the past.

[coyotejoe]

It does seem like they are determined to stick with the M9, although I don't know why. They have a lot invested in the 9mm bore size, what with subguns and such. Any transition over to a different operating system, like say a Glock, would involve retraining and could lead to accidents with troops unfamiliar with guns having no manual safety. I personally think the M9 grip is too large for the many female soldiers in today's military but I've never understood the military mind in regards to small arms adoption.

[Dances with Geoducks]

Im glad I retired as they brought those in.

The 1911 is a superior firearm

[Noreaster]

When I was in I was issued a 45 when I was a 60 gunner. We actually had the Berettas in the armory but they weren't being issued yet. Range day I was issued a Remington Rand 45 from WWII. I had it in the flap holster on my web gear. I rolled around on the M60 range all day and had to rush over to pistol qual with a Seargent late in the afternoon. I got there and had to shake the dirt out of the Remington, (no magazine in when I was rolling around in the dirt.) The gun shot without a hitch and I put all my rounds into a hole the size of a coffee container at 50 feet. How is that for service life of a handgun!!! 45 years old and still works.

[Tom C.]

When I was in the Marine Corps in the ‘70s, all the handguns dated from WWII. The 1911s were pretty badly worn and the S&W Model 10s issued to aircrew could be pretty badly worn, too. I got “shot” on the range when a Model 10 fired next to me by a helo guy shaved a piece of jacket due to timing issues with a badly worn Model 10. The 1911s were badly worn, had the usual poor GI trigger and miniscule sights with well worn recoil springs that permitted solid contact when the slide recoiled. It made it feel like you had a truck flat spring in your hand and hit it with a hammer. The sting of the vibration was worse than the actual recoil.

Problem is, in much of the military a handgun is a secondary weapon at best. Only the Special Ops operators seem to use the handgun as a primary weapon. My understanding is they tend to prefer.45 caliber and the 1911 platform. Fortunately, in the last hundred years since the 1911 was designed, there has been a lot of progress in things like sights, triggers, grip safeties, etc. that make a great design really terrific and timeless, at least IMO.

[williamlayton]

For the war we were anticipating to fight the 9mm made a lot of sense.
Our Allies all carried the 9mm.
We had experienced, in WWll, the desireability of more common weapons, from a logistics standpoint and had witnessed the problems of logistics from armies with diverse calibers.
It made logistics sense.
Baretta won the competition by a number of different reasons--not all which were related to caliber or design. Availability and common design were a good reason.
The .45 is the best caliber and the Colt design was a good one---maybe not the best from a sevieabilty reasoning. The Baretta is agrueable the easier to field strip.
If we were one army, idependant, it would still reign supreme--it is an American caliber. We are not, then or now, one army independant.
We also must remember it is a last stop weapon and not the primary means of defense.
Blessings

[teddy12b]

Pistols are always going to be a secondary weapon.  I'll take any kind of a rifle over a pistol, but I'd still like to have a pistol.  Having gone into rooms with a full sized M16 I would have gladly used a pistol for getting around close quarters instead of that long rifle.  The government doesn't have the money right now to spend it on a secondary weapon. 

The biggest advantage of the Beretta is the higher capacity.  If they adopted a 45 that held close to the 15 round capacity of the M9 I think they would have a great combination.  The very least they could do is find a way to use better ammunition.  The 9mm with ball ammo is one thing, but the same caliber with a 124gr JHP is a different animal all together.

I've owned both a 1911 & a M9.  Both are great guns with their advantages and disadvantages.

[Noreaster]

There are allot of servicemen out there asking for better sidearms. I agree a pistol is a long second in the realm of military weapons, but there is a need. The cost of one bombing run would probably pay for new pistols. The general consensious seems to be a polymer gun with one trigger pull and a larger caliber.

First big problem with the Berettas was not having factory beretta mags (low bid for magazines???) Then the gun parts wore out and needed to be replaced, but they weren't, and of course the caliber. Needed or not a replacement would probably help moral and for that reason alone I would like to give them the best we can.

[SHOOTALL]

I believe a British officer when debating cal. for the British said "when a soilder needs a handgun he da-- well needs one that shoots a big bullet " or something like that.

[teddy12b]

I'd love to see the US go back to the 45, but I think it'd very likely that they would end up going to the 40.  I think it's the FBI round of choice and you can still get reasonably light guns with reasonably high capacities.  I agree that it's very important to listen to the guys using the guns, but at the same time engineers could come out with the perfect pistol and some guys would still just absolutely hate for some reason.  The military is too big to get everyone to agree on everything, especially weapons. 

[mcwoodduck]

A side arm is a side arm.
No matter what you pick someone will not be happy.
Pick the 45 and people will moan that the smaller soldiers are not able to use it.
Pick a small gun and people will moan about it being too small.
Pick a caliber and someone will moan about either no stoping power or limited about of ammo.
We had to pick a 9mm to meet and be compatible with NATO and at the time our most likely enemy was the Soviet Union.  And having everyone using the same rifle round, Machine gun round, and sub / handgun round makes sense in planning for WW III where there would be many allies.  Everyone in NATO was mifed at us as we demanded that they could accept any rifle they want as long as it A) shot 5.56 and B) accepted M-16 Mags, and they had spend millions on developing weapons and ammo that had to be changed and modified.

In WWII they came out with the M1 Carbine to replace the side arm for support troops.
Later the 5.7X28 and the small sub gun was developed to replace the handgun with the ability to get out of vehicles.
As people in general are not accurate with a handgun and is going to be used in the worse case to defend thier life rather than assault the enemy in the case of a crew weapon, downed pilot/ air crew, or support troop.
What else gets me is that the M-9 is not the only gun they accepted.
The Army also has the M-10 and M-11.  Sigs P-226 and P-228 for the MP's and CID guys.
The Navy has the M-9 as well as the Seals have about four different handguns from the Sig P226 to the H&K23 and a few inbetween.
But like anything changing equipment for a secondary line gun is going to cost Billions in equipment, ammo, training, test trails, and it is not as if the government will have 100,000 used M-9's that they will sell on the civilian market cheap.

[cybin]

9mm verse .45 is a worn out discussion. True the 9mm with a jacketed hollow point bullet does a good job--but--not allowed by geneva convention--the military is restricted to ball ammo. The .45 with ball does a better job.  A .45 that holds 14 or 15 rounds--has a huge hand grip--there is one out there--having a brain fart right now--can't think of the brand name. I'd have trouble holding it comfortably let alone a small person.

There is nothing that will please everybody. I don't care much for the 9mm, but understand why it has been chosen, but then I don't care much for the 5.56 either--I like the 7.62 x 39--and  I don't know much about the 6.8--but it sounds interesting. But as a country as in deep debt as ours is--I doubt that we can afford to change pistol calibers or rifle calibers at this time.

cybin

[COR]

As someone that served while the 9mm Beretta was being issued I have no opinion one way or the other as far as the caliber or platform go.  Their is no case where it is a primary weapon, even in Special Operations.  We could carry an M40A1 and a 9mm or an M16A2.  If it was "real" the M16A2 went every time.  I never took my 9mm out of the armory except for training. It's a sidearm and it is more about logistics to Uncle Sam than stopping power and ballistics.  All the "power" arguments in the world don't matter to the military.  If you had to draw your sidearm you are already in a bad situation.

[SHOOTALL]

I like the 45 better myself , part is its bigger , part it kicks more so it should hit harder , part is the weapons it comes in - 1911 , thompson etc and maybe i just got used to seeing it over the years beat the other side with the 9mm . That said when shooting IDPA or 3 gun matches I always did better with the 9mm or 40 S&W . One thing that is seldom mentioned is hitting your target where it hurts is more important than not hitting it well . I still feel a 40 something would be better though.

[teddy12b]

Their is no case where it is a primary weapon, even in Special Operations.

For the most part you're correct in this, but there are some exceptions.  We had guys that were in recovery vehicles and all they were issued was an M-9.  They weren't front line jobs, but they were close enough.  Officers don't usually get issued anything other than a pistol either. 

I agree this discussion has been beaten to death almost daily.

[SHOOTALL]

My brother was a medic and said all he was issued was a pistol.

[NickSS]

The caliber of the service pistol and rifle have been discussed ad nauseum for years and will probably go on for years to come.  There is no perfect rifle, pistol or cartridge that will satisfy everyone.  There is also no possible way that instances of failure will not occure on any weapon system or for that mater anything made by man.  This said I will say that I like and admire the 1911 colt in 45 Auto but I also do not think that it is the best pistol made today.  It is a dated design and based on personal experience it is not the most reliable handgun I have ever owned.  The Beretta M9 and the Sig M10 and M11 pistols are good reliable handguns and shoot an effective cartridge for military purposes.  Will is guantee one shot stops - No - but then neither does a 45 ACP.  In the scheme of military thinking small arms are not the primary weapons use to dominate a battlefield they are contributers but tanks, artillery and air power are the dominant weapons followed by machine guns and SAWs.  The infantry is there to support the heavy weapons.  A pistol is mostly used for last ditch defense mostly in special circumstances.  One of my uncles was a machine gunner in WWII and he carried a pistol for the entire war and never used it in combat.  He poured thousands of round of ammo through his Browning but zero through his pistol.  So how important is a handgun to the average GI??  Is in any wonder that the government is not very concerned with buying a new handgun?

[LouisianaMan]

Maybe there's not much to add, but I enjoy the topic :-)

Active Army officer 1981-2005. Assigned M1911A1 1983-90 (SN#1943589--great trigger & accurate!). M9 1996-98, 2001-02. All logistics units, not in combat. Personally, I liked both a lot, and have owned civilian versions of both. My military versions never jammed once in range use, nor did my two personally-owned M92FS. My privately-owned M1911A1 by Springfield Armory was a jam-o-matic, but likely due to something the previous owner did or perhaps something easily fixed, but I was stationed in Germany & had no way to get it sorted out.

Impressions:
1. Lots of .45s were seriously worn, although that was in large part a result of units not understanding how to get something done by Direct-Support maintenance. My unit learned the procedures, and got decent repair work done. Many in the military just don't know how to use the system, which can be slow & frustrating but it DOES work pretty well if you learn the paperwork. . . .If you don't, your stuff decays, whether pistols or tanks.

2. In the Ordnance & Artillery units I served with, about half the officers could hit targets with their .45, the rest were sorry with the pistol, OK with a rifle. No ammo was available for logistics enlisted soldiers to even shoot .45s, so they had no training with sidearms & weren't assigned them by tables of org/eqpt. In the Ordnance Officer Basic Course ('82), we fired about 2 mags for familiarization, whereas we qualified with M16A1. In OCS at Benning ('81), we never saw a sidearm--only rifles. (Mine was an XM16E1, no kidding.)

3. In log units with the M9, training with sidearms was equally abysmal. Target shooting once in a blue moon, and no good training available unless a self-taught pistol aficionado was in the unit. Recoil didn't scare shooters as much as the .45, but unfamiliarity was just a shame. Grip size too large for many.

4. My time in Germany was in nuclear ammo, serving on joint US-German warhead storage sites. We (US officers) carried .45s and had no prospects of resupply while in nuclear support of 2nd German Corps Artillery. Period. Wouldn't have gotten 5.56mm for our rifles either. As far as main-force logistics went, the idea of NATO units giving each other ammo was an absolute non-starter anyway. Any division or corps unable to obtain pistol ammo would have been so "broke" that pistol ammo would have been the least of its problems. I never learned this officially, but can only conclude that "ammo interchangeability" only mattered in strategic logistics, i.e. long-term war in which US might have been asked to supply bulk ammo to allied forces straight from our factories. . .but so little of ANY of our ammo types was truly interchangeable, it would make your head spin. I'm talking arty, mortars, rockets, mines, grenades, tank ammo, etc. NO WAY a German division would have ever gotten tactical ammo resupply from American ordnance ammo units, or vice versa.

How does all that translate to sidearm ammo selection? If it were so important, we never would have gotten NATO to adopt 7.62mm for rifle & MG, and then changed our own rifle to 5.56mm. I agree with others--no way that anybody is likely to care too much about sidearms at the macro level of procurement, and only special units train with them in worthwhile fashion. Sadly, for the rest of the Army, sidearms are primarily important only insofar as the danger exists of losing your career if they get lost or an accident happens. More effort expended on preventing those things than on training with the weapons. I'm sure that's SOMEWHAT different in Iraq, where sidearms are far more important than ever in NATO, WWII, Vietnam, etc. How much different now, I don't know.

Nonetheless, when s.o. needs a pistol, they indeed need it badly. Spec Ops units get some choice, regular units make do with what's available. I just hope that small-unit leaders in places where the troops really have to use sidearms for combat are resourced with time & ammo to train their people and/or let them practice. As poorly-trained as my units were with sidearms, the caliber or make/model were really the least of our problems.

[blhof]

I had an M9 for the 1st Gulf War as an AF medic, as a gun nut of sorts I bought my own and got a lot of practice, regularly qualifying expert.  I still have it and when my son was 14 he could field strip it and properly clean it as well as shoot quite well with it.  He was issued one when he did a tour in Iraq after demonstrating that he knew the basics of the gun, he hadn't qualified in the US prior to going, because he was a medic, but the Army was in control of the weapons distribution for the base he was on and he noticed that when they went on emergency runs that some had sidearms, when he inquired, they sent him to the combat arms trainer, where he demonstrated his proficiency; he got issued an M9 that he never had to use.

[LouisianaMan]

blhof,

Glad to hear your son was armed while serving in Iraq--too many bad images of what the BGs did to anybody they captured. Also glad to hear that his outfit used judgment in letting him take a weapon that he was obviously competent to handle, but not officially "qualified" with. You remember peacetime Army rules about stuff like that, I'm sure  :-)

Although I was XO of a Main Support Battalion with a medical company (peacetime--Fort Hood), I can't remember for the life of me whether our medics were armed, and with what. I have read many references to our combat medics in the Pacific in WWII carrying weapons, because it was understood that the Japanese would treat them like any other combatant.

Recent events seem to warrant me mentioning that Fort Hood wasn't a combat zone when I was there 1996-98, unlike recent months with jihadis in our own Army. Back then, it was a big deal to drive by the Luby's in Killeen where that psycho crashed his vehicle into the restaurant and cold-bloodedly shot dozens.

[eye shot]

In the army I carryed a .45 it must have seen it's better days because you couldn't hit a barn door with it. At the range the gent next to me was shooting a 1911 at 300yds. aiming half way up the mountain and not hitting the boiler plate. I tried my 9 and could hit it six out of eight shots holding just above the birm it was on. The 9 is definatly better at distance. A LEO said the Poly guns wear out quicker than a good metal gun.

[S.B.]

 

The biggest advantage of the Beretta is the higher capacity.  If they adopted a 45 that held close to the 15 round capacity of the M9 I think they would have a great combination.  The very least they could do is find a way to use better ammunition.  The 9mm with ball ammo is one thing, but the same caliber with a 124gr JHP is a different animal all together.

Then we'd have a great caliber with a grip like a banana(only term I can think of for high capacity guns). If funds are available training is good and paramount to accuracy.
Steve

[teddy12b]

 

The biggest advantage of the Beretta is the higher capacity.  If they adopted a 45 that held close to the 15 round capacity of the M9 I think they would have a great combination.  The very least they could do is find a way to use better ammunition.  The 9mm with ball ammo is one thing, but the same caliber with a 124gr JHP is a different animal all together.

Then we'd have a great caliber with a grip like a banana(only term I can think of for high capacity guns). If funds are available training is good and paramount to accuracy.
Steve

The xd's and glock 45's don't have banana looking grips.

[MGMorden]

I don't think the .45 has ANY chance of making a comeback in this arena.  The cartridge has a lot of nostalgia involved with it due to the 1911 platform, but to be honest, while still fine and still as deadly as it ever was, from a practicality standpoint the 1911 is a dated design.

In reality, if we saw a replacement it would likely be .40 S&W or something else in the 10mm range.  .40 S&W delivers as much or more energy than a .45ACP, is smaller, and converts easily to metric units (10x22mm).  Truthfully though, I don't see 9mm going anywhere.  It's a pretty nice balance of size, ammo capacity, power, etc.  It's also what all of our allies use, and for the sake of standardization we're not likely to switch unless everyone does.

My personal opinion is that next time we buy pistols, it will probably be a striker fired, polymer, high capacity 9mm.  Not sure if the military would forgo the manual safety, but I'm sure that if a contract depended on it any major manufacturer would happily add a safety to their offerings. 

I'd say if they were buying now the most likely candidates would be Glock or S&W M&P.  Ruger MIGHT would have an outside chance with the SR9, but I doubt it.  If we were spending the money though, I'd certainly LIKE to see S&W or Ruger get the contract over a foreign company.

[S.B.]

[


The xd's and glock 45's don't have banana looking grips.
[/quote]
not looking feeling like a banana
Steve

[S.S.]

I agree with one of the posts above, the .45 will not be back as the standard
service round. I see the next step (whenever it happens) as going to something
even smaller such as the 5.7mm