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thedrifter
07-12-05, 06:30 PM
July 18, 2005
Army may dump 9mm
Service looks to .45 caliber pistols in response to soldiers’ complaints
By Matthew Cox
Times staff writer


Soldiers have been saying it for two decades — get rid of the M9 and go back to a .45 caliber. Now, Army weapons developers want to do just that.
The 9mm pistol has long generated a steady stream of complaints about poor stopping power and other performance problems in combat.

That, combined with the ready availability of alternatives on the market, has convinced planners to start a search for a new service pistol, chambered for the more powerful .45-caliber round.

The Army adopted the M9 in 1985, ditching the M1911A1 .45 pistol after about 70 years.

The M9 — also in common use among Marines — was chosen not only because it fires the standardized NATO 9mm round, but also because more soldiers, especially those with smaller hands, found it easier to control than the .45.

But in a recent round of tests conducted by the Infantry Center at Fort Benning, Ga., soldiers preferred several commercial .45 automatic pistols over similar models chambered for 9mm and .40-caliber ammunition.

“The Infantry Center recently completed a caliber study … that showed soldiers could handle the new, larger-caliber pistols, including the .45s available from industry, as well as or better than the current M9,” said Col. Michael Smith, head of the Army’s Project Manager Soldier Weapons. PM Soldier Weapons ran the study.

“Soldiers didn’t have problems with the recoil or size,” Smith said, noting that current .45s have smaller frames with better buffer systems for smoother shooting.

There are about 180,000 M9s in use in the Army today. The service is no longer buying the Beretta-made pistol, but it is buying spare parts to rebuild the pistols as they wear out.

While not every soldier carries a sidearm, the M9 is widely used by commissioned and noncommissioned officers, as well as by some junior enlisted soldiers in conventional and special-operations forces.

Soldiers have long complained about shortcomings of the M9, ranging from reliability to lack of stopping power, Smith said.

The M9’s lighter round gives soldiers 15 rounds to a magazine, compared with the seven-round capacity of the M1911A1. But the quantity comes at a cost of knockdown power.

The Army first adopted the M1911 for its greater stopping power after the .38-caliber service revolver often failed to put down determined Moro warriors during the Philippine Insurrection at the turn of the last century.

But many soldiers still say bigger is better in combat when it comes to pistol ammo.

“Reports from [Iraq and Afghanistan] have shown some issues with lethality and reliability,” Smith said.

The Army has worked to improve the magazines to help with M9 feeding problems, but soldiers remain unsatisfied with the weapon, he said.

The Army is working to refine requirements needed in a new .45 pistol and plans to invite commercial pistol makers to compete in an open competition, Smith said, adding that the goal is to release a request-for-proposal sometime later this summer.

“We are confident that industry can provide a commercial off-the-shelf solution under a full and open competition,” Smith said. “We will go directly into testing and don’t anticipate making modifications to the pistol.”

The effort could gain even more momentum by becoming a joint effort with U.S. Special Operations Command, which is also looking for a new .45.

Teaming up could accelerate the effort. The command’s weapons requirement documents can be approved much faster than those for the conventional force.

“It would save anywhere from three to six months,” Smith said.

Army weapons developers have not determined whether the new pistol would operate like the M9, which allows shooters to fire either in double-action, which allows the shooter to pull the trigger with the hammer in the down position, or single-action mode. They also are considering a double-action-only model.

A double-action-only operation eliminates the need for a decocking device — which lets the soldier drop the hammer safely while a round is in the chamber when the shooting is over — because the hammer remains in the down position after each shot.

“Double-action-only pistols are inherently safe because the hammer is never cocked, so if you drop it, it won’t go off,” said Maj. Glenn Dean, chief of Small Arms Division at Benning.

Soldiers said they wanted to make sure the new pistol had a safety switch. Other requirements for the new pistol include iron sights designed for shooting in low-light conditions, high-capacity magazines and a rail system for mounting accessories such as lights or laser aiming devices.

The decision to return to .45-caliber ammo was an unexpected twist of fate.

“Frankly, we didn’t think the .45 would be a viable solution,” Dean said. The large caliber had a reputation of kicking severely when fired, making it hard for small-handed soldiers to handle the weapon.

Last summer, Dean’s office scoured the commercial pistol market for off-the-shelf options for a Soldier Enhancement Program known as Future Handgun System.

Benning officials narrowed the choices down to 14 pistols, in a mix of 9mm, .40 and .45 calibers, so small-arms officials could study how individual features such as calibers and safety devices performed, Dean said.

Ten soldiers — male and female, officer and enlisted — participated in two weeks of shooting tests.

“What we basically learned was accuracy across the range of pistols was the same,” Dean said. “There was a general preference for a .45.”

Matthew Cox covers the Army.

Ellie

MOUNTAINWILLIAM
07-12-05, 07:57 PM
Hey, you have to remember that the good ol' 45 was developed to stop the Moros, another bunch of muslim extremists that wrapped themselves in layers of cloth.

It stopped them then, it will stop them now.

The military should also consider going back to 30 cal. too. We don't need to be supplying our adversary's with munitions.

R.Linde
07-12-05, 11:47 PM
So long to the Euro BB guns!!!