U.S. Military sidearm......

G

glockjeeper

New member
Who thinks the military messed up in adopting the M9 Beretta and getting rid of the Colt .45 M1911A1? I personally really like both of them, but know how we had to standardize with NATO by adopting the 9mm. But the excuse of easier training for new recruits is ridiculous in my book. They are military soldiers, U.S. at that, and should be trained better than anyone else because we are considered the best. I was in the Army for a few years and firmly believe that small arms training, while good, could definitly be better. Especially with handguns.
If we had the choice to stay with the .45 or go with the 9mm, not 9mm only, who thinks we should have kept the M1911A1? Granted now, the ones we had in stock were pretty shoddy, considering the last time any new ones were bought were at the end of WWII. What if we bought new ones, like the new Colt M1991A1?
 
Follow the money trail! From lots of things I've heard and read it wasn't only interest in standardizing the NATO round but it also came down to who would throw in what incentives. Unfortunately budgets don't always let our soldiers have the best.

That is not to say that I'm against the M9 as I am a proud owner of a limited edition and shoot it often.
 
sks, I have the special edition M9 too. Its my second one, I sold the last one. Luckily I was still able to get another one.
 
I own 20+ 1911 variants as well as some Berettas. I like both guns. I've just been collecting 1911s a lot longer. Both are fine guns, well made, and reliable when properly maintained. The biggest problem with the Beretta is the size of the grip. No one that I have come in contact with believes that it feels/handles as well as the 1911. I did a thesis on the JSSAP 1911 replacement program for college. I ended up purchasing a SIG P226 and a Beretta 92. Took them, along with several 1911 variants, to the local club and to the range for annual small arms quals with my Nasty Guard unit. Everyone who shot the guns said the 1911 felt/handled better. This included first time shooters, women, men, civilian, military (active and reserve component),and law enforcement. The double action first shot was also a detriment to accurate shooting for all but the most experienced/skilled shooters. The consensus was that if we had to go to 9mm, then it should have been a 1911 based gun. My 9mm Commanders were the most popular choices there, especially the LW. The double action first shot requirement is the only reason the 1911 could not meet the requirements IN MY OPINION. Mag capacity was mandated at 10 rounds minimum for the guns in the trials. Good aftermarket mags have been available for the 1911 that will give you that in 9mm for years. I believe that the Beretta has its place, just not in a soldier's holster. Double action? Our M-16s/M-4s don't have that. Why should a soldier, whos job is fighting, be hamstrung by that? Rules of engagement are very different for battlefield vs. law enforcement.
 
I read the articles of the JSSAP trials a long time ago. I wish I still had those articles too. The military looked at the LW Commander back as early as the late '40s and early '50s but it took a few decades later to get anywhere as you saw back in '85.
 
226 or 228 would have been best

IIRC the 226 matched or maybe even slightly bettered the 92... but, what was it, $10 or $15 kept it from being the "chosen" one????

1911A1 is a much better choice imo that any doublestack when it has to fit so many different hand sizes. If a single stack 1911 is to large, well...

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screw NATO ammo compatability :)
 
Ditto what Destructo6 posted.

bk40: The thing that got Beretta the contract was a willingness to build a factory in the U.S., something SIG did not want to do at that time.
 
It's all politics.

The Army doesn't think soldiers really "need" sidearms, hence the diminished training emphasis on them.
 
I agree with my friend bk40; we should have kicked in the
extra $10-$15 per unit, and bought the Sig P226/P228.:):D

Regards,
Ala Dan, N.R.A. Life Member
 
While I believe the Sig is a better weapon lets think about who would be paying the extra 10 to 15 dollars per unit. The answer is You and me the taxpayers. The military made a decent choice in sidearms for a couple of reasons
1. Ammo is available worldwide and is interchangable with all Nato Countries
2. Sidearm is limited in quanities issued so they took something cheaper.
It's hard enough for the Logistics guys to get ammo and parts etc. to front lines while bombs and arty rounds are being dropped on them. If the ammo dump goes up they can just go over to the Frenchies and say loan some 9mm and 5.56 I know you got so fork it over.
 
9mm was a given. So what about the rest of the specs.

Remember, these pistols are being handed to people who may have no interest in even handling a handgun, much less caring to become proficient with it. It had to be as idiot-proof as possible to prevent ADs. The thought of handing a cocked-and-locked pistol to this type of person was considered unacceptable. And I agree. Besides, as on the USS Cole, they don't even let the sailors insert the magazine in the pistol they distrust them so much, and in many cases, for good reason.

It's too bad they chose to substitute a hardware fix for a software problem.
 
I dont mind the fact thay they switched to the 9mm - or from the 1911 pattern. I really dont even mind the Berretta.
I just dont like them all together.
 
Random thoughts:

On several occasions I have taken an M9 out of the arms room, cleaned & lubed it according to the manual, gone to the range and had various malfuctions... and this with ball ammo! And I'm supposed to be confident that this thing will work in a *hostile* environment?

And lest you think operator error is involved... I kinda doubt it. After all, my heavily used (if not outright brutalized) Sig P228 works every single time with ANYTHING I can wedge into the magazine. Polymer-framed pistols like my old Glock 23 & 36 and new 20C are in theory more prone to limp-wristing problems yet they ALWAYS worked. I couldn't seem to FORCE them to fail... yet my M9s had nosedives, hang-ups on the feedramp, don't go fully into battery... even my supposedly "unreliable reclic 1911-pattern .45" doesn't do that!!!

I don't claim that this is representative of Berettas in general... or even M9s. But in my limited, personal experience with them over the past 5 years their reliability is questionable. This, combined with their excessive bulk (especially in the grip) and loooong DA trigger reach for smaller shoters makes them far from ideal for an Army with a wide variety of shapes and sizes to deal with. Most people with commercially-owned Berettas seem very happy with them, so maybe this is more a reflection on what the Army winds up with, which would hardly be unprecedented.

Remember, too, that an ideal military sidearm SHOULD be idiot-proof (or at least highly idiot-resistant) as a matter of course. To my way of thinking, a Glock 17 is alot more idiot-proof than a Beretta. It is mechanically simple, extremely durable and rugged, bone ugly, and requires hardly any brain cells to operate. You just chamber a round, point, and pull the trigger. You could probalby use piss on it instead of Break-Free CLP and it would still work.

*deposits $.02*

C.B.
 
M9

First, I'm not infantry, I've never been in combat, and I'm not pretending to be an expert in the use of combat weapons. I'm a Log guy: the fix, fuel, rearm stuff.
I used to be a big-time member of the We Shudda Kept The 45 Club. No longer, for a couple of reasons:

1. The folks who can't hit with a firearm can't hit with ANY firearm. I remember when the new M4 carbine came out; it was supposed to make everyone shoot Expert. Well, now I've seen the M4s and M16s shot side by side on the range, and, low and behold, the troopers taking 400 rounds to qual with the M16 still need 400 rounds. The only thing that's changed is the zero target.

2. I really have a hard time believing 9mm Ball is much worse than 45 ACP Ball. They're both absolutely lousy.

3. Everyone else in NATO is using 9mm. Then again, if you are down to begging the French for pistol ammo you might as well break out the opposing sides dictionary; it'll come in handy when they come to tour your hometown.

4. Why worry about the handgun issue anymore? The argument that war was won by soldiers killing the enemy on the field of battle is gone. I hate to say it, but if you think about it, it's true. We drop a bunch of bombs and declare victory, then add another peacekeeping rotation to the poor folks stationed in Germany. If the conflict or peacekeeping or whatever degrades to infantry combat, we call it a loss and retreat. Anyone remember Somalia? Has anyone noticed that since then, the US has done everything possible to make sure that ground troops don't have to fire a weapon? I'm not going to say this is right or wrong, but does it really matter what kind of handgun the troops fire on a range once a year?
 
FWIW, my main objection to the M9 is that it (like many other 9mm pistols) is simply too darn big. You don't need that size pistol for 9mm P. The Russians had the right idea with the Makarov and something of that size could be (and has been) made in 9mm with a locked breech. Good starting points would have been the French M35A or the little Llama .380, both of which are locked breech guns of a convenient size and weight.

Jim
 
Whoever got that contract would have been required to build them in the USA (the Berettas were built and assembled in Italy the first year, built there/assembled here the second year, built/assembled here third through fifth year of original contract and ever since/follow on contracts). SIG knew that, and wanted that contract bad. They had the initial low bid, but were underbid by Beretta on a subsequent bid when more parts were added. SIG kept same price, Beretta actually lowered their price with the extras. Insider info leaked in exchange for permission to build GLCM bases in Siciliy? Prove it. :)

Both are good guns, both finished the M9 trials as "technicaly acceptable" and both beat the other in different areas. We have both now. The M9 and M11 (SIG P228). The DoD contracted for about 100,000 more Berettas (way more than the total number of SIGs bought BTW) even after the original contract and all the problems (and lawsuits the govt lost BTW). The USN SEALs bought about 2500 SIG 226s _and_ 1500 Beretta 92s in 1999 BTW to replace older pistols. They seem to have gotten over "it", maybe we should too?

I was in from 78-98 and used/was issued various 22s, 38/357s, 9s and 45s. The M9 was the most reliable of the bunch (the SIG very close) under any/all conditions on avg. The base here has over 30,000 rounds through most of it's Berettas, has never broken a slide, never broken a locking block under 15,000 (and that is very rare). The contract only specified a service life of 5000 rounds BTW. Maybe some folks take better care of their equipment than others, or some production runs are better than others; I'm confused.

The SEALs were primarily using the 9mm Beretta over the then std issue 1911/45 for CT (counter terror) before the problems. You can spin the reason for that any way you like. :)

The 1911/45 may be better for some troops in some missions, but not most of the troops/missions who actually get pistols in the military (there are lots of them too: cops, security, pilots, aircrews, medics, etc). For them, the M9/M11 is a better tool IMO. The Glock, HK USP, sig pro, etc may be even better, but what would we do with the almost half million Berettas and SIGs we already got? :)

[Edited by BrokenArrow on 12-12-2000 at 02:49 PM]
 
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