[yarddog]

You were the one who claimed it was the 9mm responsible for German loss.

Actually it is artillery which killed more soldiers in WWII than anything else.

Actually by the end of WWII the Russians were mostly using little .31 caliber sub-machine guns. They proved highly efficient apparently.

[Chainmail]

No, I somewhat facetiously said that it was the "same caliber that Germans lost two wars in a row with" which is exactly what I said to the Joint Service Small Arms Project in 1978 when they were muscling things towards the 9mm Para. They did lose two wars in a row, didn't they? How did the average German trooper come out in an MP-40 versus M1A1 Thompson fight?

Yes the Red Army did go to the 7.62 X 25 PPsH-41 SMG as their primary close infantry weapon but that was because it put out a huge mass of firepower in the hands of only slightly skilled troops. They also lost huge amounts of those troops but didn't really care how many they lost.

I would prefer that our troops - our kids - be given the best possible weapon systems in the best possible calibers - don't you?