Unless . . . .if the tiny Detonics company (five total personel) has a good and appealing product and the military would license bigger companies to produce it.
SIG P220 would be just fine with me.
Are they offering some new design here? Lots of outfits make almost compact 1911s these days.
They must be well connected.
Active Duty ping.
Here’s a suggestion - 1911 .45
Never equaled, never exceeded.
I have an idea.Lets go back to the colt 45.
Hk45T in Version 3 configuration.
The compact version Hk45ct is already serving with the Navy SpecWar groups under the designation Mark 24 Mod 0. At least one went on the Neptune Spear operation to bag Usama Bin Laden.
Of course, the U.S. Army hates Navy ideas and will cheap out and go with the Smith & Wesson M&P gun, or something. I sure hope they don’t choose the FN FNX 45 Tactical.
Whatever they select, how the gun fits the hands of a 5’1” military policewoman will ultimately be the prime consideration even if she’s just going to get pregnant and leave the Army after 2 1/2 years active duty on a disability.
There’s a Millstadt in Illinois, near St. Louis, but I have never heard of Millstadt, Missouri.
I think this is stupid.
I am all for getting our troops the best handgun available, but...there are plenty of excellent, solid handguns out there, developed for the civilian and LEO market.
I simply cannot see why we have to go through this process again. I am all for developing a new infantry rifle, but this just seems like a crazy boondoggle with money we don’t have.
I am 100% OPPOSED to allowing our military to select another sidearm while we have this slime of an administration in charge.
If anyone thinks this will not be rife with politics, corruption and cronyism is fooling themselves.
MARSOC recently approved GLOCK 19 for use by its members. My concerns are lack of external safety on the GLOCK. However, apparently USMC isn’t. Certainly hope they can avoid “GLOCK leg...”. As many PD’s have discovered.
Here’s an idea. Choose a round then choose the platform to optimize it.
If you think of how many company or battallion level armorers there are, the need to keep inventory and parts to a reasonable level dictates standardization.
But on the other hand, there is no magic pistol that fills all roles superbly - there’s always a trade-off.
Most any modern pistol platform can be found in both 9mm and .45acp, so whatever caliber they decide on should be easily handled by the winner. So now all they have to do is come up with the out-of-the-box-no-tinkering-required reliability (on average) of a modern, polymer-frame, striker fired pistol, with the silky-smooth trigger of the average S&W revolver, the redundant safeties of the 1911 (to try and make it somewhat more idiot-safe and please the generals), and the low parts count and ease of maintenance of a Glock, then they might have a wonder-gun.
But that frankenpistol does not exist.
Not so. I was a civilian armourer in the early 1980s when the military Joint Services Small Arms Acquisition Program was ongoing, and in addition to performing initial acceptance of new production military small arms, we overhauled the old ones, which were then expected to become war reserve stocks or foreign military aid for our [hopefully!] allies.
Yep, the M1911 .45 auto pistol was very much in use, then undergoing trials to find a 9mm replacement, which in time proved to be the Italian M92 Beretta which entered US service as the M9 pistol in 1984-85.
But even then, many base security forces and guard detachments were equipped with a variety of leftover .38 revolvers, and military police investigators, military intelligence agents and couriers were using short-barreled .38 sixguns [and fiveguns!] The replacement for them was the Ruger Security-Six a fairly robust and reliable handgun that at least standardized holsters and support equipment. But the pressure of the military production contract meant that Ruger had to hire new employees, some with no experience at all [equal opportunity/ affirmative action clauses in the government hiring policies in the contracts] and about one new gun out of three failed to meet initial acceptance standards. Some had to have their cylinders opened with a shop mallet.
Next step: the spooks, general officers and special cops, got the SIG228 semiauto pistol, designated M11 by the Army, since the M9 was deemed too bulky for undercover use and wear, and resulted in some lowered range scores for small-handed female and Hispanic users. There have been other *special buys,* the most recent of which I'm aware is the Marine MEUSOC and Raider units getting their new M45 handguns, essentially a M1911A1 made of stainless steel.
What goes around, sometimes comes back around again. Especially when it works, and its replacement doesn't, or *sort of works.*
That's only two sets of needs and already it's nearly impossible to meet them both. We cheat on procurement a little by opening the options for the special operators, and I'd open them even further if I were making the decision. But even for them it simply isn't a primary weapon.
So do we arm sentries and the like with, say, a short-barreled .357 magnum revolver? Consider the training advantages (OTOH, consider the painfully slow reloads. Does this matter for a sentry?) I tend to doubt that would satisfy all the needs, but we won't know if we don't ask.