Conv-Army Wants a Harder-Hitting Pistol

Army Wants a Harder-Hitting Pistol

July 2014

From: Frank Rogers

Dated: July 5, 2015

Subject: Army Wants a Harder-Hitting Pistol

Received from a nephew who was TN NG in Iraq. His interest is any kind of firearms.
Frank

----- Original Message ----- From: Tyler Rogers
I've personally shot thousands of rounds out of over 100 different brands, designs, and action type of handguns. In my opinion, for overall preformance you cannot go wrong with glock. For stopping power go with the .45. But that's just me.
Tyler

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From: Ken Kalish

Dated: July 4, 2015

Subject: Army Wants a Harder-Hitting Pistol

Where have we heard this before?
This is a pretty old argument. Something like ignoring history and making the same mistakes. The 1911 was brought in when troops learned the .38 couldn’t stop crazed Moro warriors in the Philippines. I know from personal experience that a person decked with a .45 isn’t going to be rejoining the fight any time soon in any role other than as something behind which one can shelter in a firefight. Getting shot with anything hurts worse than slamming your hand in the door of a 1952 Ford. However, it isn’t pain that stops an aggressor. The internal shock generated by that .45 “fist” can liquefy or destroy organs it doesn’t even touch.
Don’t get me started on that damn .223 round. If they were effective in anything other than close combat, the 7.62/55 round would have died out long ago. I remember how amazed newbies were when they learned how fast they could go through a magazine with the M-16 on Auto. It’s almost a two-man weapon--one to shoot and one to carry a thousand rounds to support the shooter. Maybe a three-man; one to shoot, one to carry ammo, and one to shoot the folks the shooter shot.
Ken

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From: John Thomas

Dated: July 4, 2015

Subject: Army Wants a Harder-Hitting Pistol

I remember Dad's comments about how ineffective the 30cal carbine was in the Philippines. The M1 was the stopper.
John

From: Randy Kafka

Dated: July 3, 2015

Subject: Army Wants a Harder-Hitting Pistol

[NB: Randy forwarded the following message written by Matthew Cox who can be reached at Matthew.Cox@monster.com.]
The U.S. Army is moving forward to replace the Cold War-era M9 9mm pistol with a more powerful handgun that also meets the needs of the other services.
As the lead agent for small arms, the Army will hold an industry day July 29 to talk to gun makers about the joint, Modular Handgun System or MHS.
The MHS would replace the Army's inventory of more than 200,000 outdated M9 pistols and several thousand M11 9mm pistols with one that has greater accuracy, lethality, reliability and durability, according to Daryl Easlick, a project officer with the Army's Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Ga.
"It's a total system replacement -- new gun, new ammo, new holster, everything," Easlick said.
The Army began working with the small arms industry on MHS in early 2013, but the effort has been in the works for more than five years. If successful, it would result in the Defense Department buying more than 400,000 new pistols during a period of significant defense-spending reductions.
Army weapons officials maintain that combat troops need a more effective pistol and ammunition. But experts from the law-enforcement and competitive shooting worlds argue that tactical pistol ammunition -- no matter the caliber -- is incapable of stopping a determined adversary without multiple shots in most cases.
One of the major goals of the MHS effort is to adopt a pistol chambered for a more potent round than the current 9mm, weapons officials said. The U.S. military replaced the .45 caliber 1911 pistol with the M9 in 1985 and began using the 9mm NATO round at that time.
Soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have complained that the 9mm round is not powerful enough to be effective in combat.
"The 9mm doesn't score high with soldier feedback," said Easlick, explaining that the Army, and the other services, want a round that will have better terminal effects -- or cause more damage -- when it hits enemy combatants. "We have to do better than our current 9mm."
The MHS will be an open-caliber competition that will evaluate larger rounds such as .357 Sig, .40 S&W and .45 ACP.
The FBI and several major police departments recently decided to return to using the 9mm round after finding that .40 caliber ammunition was causing excessive wear on its service pistols. The heavier bullet and greater recoil over time resulted in frame damage to well respected makes such as Glock and Beretta, according to Ernest Langdon, a shooting instructor and respected competitive pistol shooter who has worked for gun makers such as Beretta, Smith & Wesson, and Sig Sauer.
"Most of the guns in .40 caliber on the market right now were actually designed to be 9mm originally and then turned into .40 calibers later," Langdon told Military.com.
Langdon served 12 years in the Marine Corps where he was the chief instructor of the Second Marine Division Scout Sniper School and the High Risk Personnel Course. He's been a competitive pistol shooter for 15 years where he has won competitions in the International Defensive Pistol Association and two World Speed Shooting titles.
Larger calibers, such as .40 S&W, have significantly more recoil than the 9mm making them much harder for the average shooter to shoot accurately, he said.
"I don't think anybody would argue that shot placement is the most important for terminal ballistics," Langdon said. "Even though you say a .45 is better than a 9mm, it's still a pistol caliber. Chances are if it is a determined adversary, they are going to have to be shot multiple times regardless of the caliber."
Many law-enforcement shooting incidents have shown this to be reality, he said.
"I talked to a Chicago cop that shot a guy eight times with a .45 to kill him and that was a 230 grain Hydra-Shok," Langdon said. "And that guy now carries a 9mm …he realized that handgun bullets suck. "You have to shoot people a lot with a handgun."
Langdon has trained numerous personnel from all branches of the U.S. military, FBI, Secret Service and other federal agencies as well as state and local law enforcement.
As part of the joint requirement process for MHS, Army weapons officials did a "very thorough cost-benefit analysis" that showed supported the effort, Easlick said.
"We have got an old fleet of M9s right now; it's costing us more to replace and repair M9s than it would cost to go get a new handgun," he said.
The Army spent years on an effort to search for a replacement for its M4 carbine, but ended up adopting the improved M4A1 version used by special operations forces.
Beretta officials maintain that the company has offered to upgrade M9 many times.
"We have submitted numerous changes or product improvements that really address a lot of the shortcomings that are either perceived or real," said Gabe Bailey, Business development manager for Beretta's military division.
The Marine Corps adopted the M9A1 in 2006 that features a rail for attaching lights or lasers, checkering on the front and back of the grip and a beveled magazine well for smoother magazine changes.
Some of the improvements Beretta offered included an enhanced sight system, changing the angle of the slide-mounted safety to avoid inadvertent safety activation and a threaded barrel, Bailey said.
Army officials, however, say the M9 does not meet the MHS requirement.
"The M9 doesn't meet it for a multitude of reasons," Easlick said. "It's got reliability issues; the open slide design allows contaminates in. The slide-mounted safety doesn't do well when you are trying to clear a stoppage -- you inadvertently de-cock and safe the weapon system."

From: Forrest Brandt

Dated: July 4, 2015

Subject: Army Wants a Harder-Hitting Pistol

And let us not forget that the 7.62 M-14 - M-60 rounds were NATO rounds, i.e. when US troops were working with other NATO forces they all had the same basic ammunition. No need to create multiple re-supply lines. That represents a huge savings in cost, personnel and time. It's the same reason the army took the time and expense to go to the single fuel system for all vehicles and generators.
This was done at no small cost and in years to organize at all levels of command--all of which was done away with to bring in a weapon that was "outside" the single round wisdom, went through its real testing in combat, had jamming and maintenance problems that resulted in unnecessary combat deaths. Has led us to a series of weapons, such as the SAW, which have had the same "teeth cutting" issues.
As Colonel Hackworth argued, lots of people in high places, military and civilian, wanted the M-16 system despite the fact that it was/remains inferior to other, less expensive, more reliable weapons all of which fire the 7.62 round.

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