Replies

I recall the article you posted in 2002 on this problem:

http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/810131/posts

Afghanistan vets criticize M-9 reliability, lethality

Veterans who’ve used this gun have complained to Washington. Retired Col. David Hackworth, an author and vocal critic of military policy, wrote an open letter to Congress in July (2002) calling for more reliable weapons to be issued to the military.

Hackworth said one Afghanistan veteran wrote him that, “I had to pump four rounds into an al-Qaeda who was coming at me before he dropped."

“Our issue M-9 pistol (Beretta M92F) is proving itself unreliable,” another wrote to Hackworth. “They are constantly breaking. To make matters worse, the 9 mm hardball round we use is a joke. It is categorically ineffective as a fight stopper, even at close range."

Some soldiers are coping by packing heftier .45-caliber pistols, similar to those used by generations of soldiers and Marines since before World War II. Such .45s remain in the U.S. military inventory, but the origin of those used in Afghanistan — military issue or privately owned — remains unclear.

What’s not unclear to several of those using the older weapon is its value. “It saved my life,” one Army Ranger told Hackworth. “I hit a number of enemy 30-40 yards away who went down immediately from my .45 rounds. With a Beretta, I wouldn’t have made it because of the far-too-light 9 mm bullet, play in the action and its limited range.”

I have nothing against the 9 mm, nor the Beretta M9 (Model 92). I just wonder what prompted the U S military establishment to scrap the Model of 1911A1 .45 ACP in favor of the Beretta. Some rumors say that it had to do with the U S keeping military bases in Italy. This sounds plausible; I also heard that we switched to the 9 mm in order to have NATO-compatible ammunition, but this sounds like BS since earlier we had persuaded NATO to adopt the 7.62 x 54 (.308 Win), then promptly switched to the 5.56 mm in the M 16 format and told Nato to go hell. It does seem like the Beretta decision was purely political; the other argument that doesn't hold is the one about how women in the military had trouble qualifying with the heavier recoil of the .45 ACP relative to the 9 mm. I don't buy that one either, since the double-stack magazined Beretta has a wider grip, making controllability with small hands more difficult.

The bigger issue is the one about the Beretta slides cracking just behind the locking wedge cutout; this one is more serious in my opinion and should prompt a little more discussion amongst the top brass. That said, I have not had any trouble with my Beretta Model 96 in .40 S and W, although I do not shoot the thing very often.