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from the next-time-it-will-be-a-light-sabre dept.
The U.S. Army will likely replace its standard-issue sidearm with a Sig Sauer P320 pistol (with undisclosed modifications):
After a long and much-criticized search, the US Army has chosen Sig Sauer to produce its next generation of handgun, eventually replacing the current standard issue sidearm, the Beretta M9 pistol. "Following a thorough operational test, fielding of the modular handgun is expected to begin in 2017," the Army said in a statement announcing the decision Thursday.
The M9's three decades of service since 1985 has occasionally made it the subject of derision among members of the armed forces. "The joke that we had in the military was that sometimes the most effective use of an M9 is to simply throw it at your adversary," Sen. Joni Ernst, a former officer in the Iowa Army National Guard, said last week during the confirmation hearings for Ret. Marine Gen. James Mattis to be secretary of defense. [...] "The Army's effort to buy a new handgun has already taken 10 years and produced nothing but a more than 350-page requirements document micromanaging extremely small unimportant details," Senate Armed Services committee chairman John McCain wrote in a 2015 report on the program's problems.
The Army awarded Sig Sauer Inc. with a $580,217,000 contract. Also at Washington Post, Popular Mechanics, and RT.
More about the Modular Handgun System.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 24 2017, @03:49AM
As the parent AC poster, I agree with your civilian gun usage assessments, esp. use the gun you are most comfortable with that fits your hands and personal quirks best.
I never said I was a +P fan in general, just that it was an option for some to get more from the 9mm. (And hey, a .357 Magnum is not a large bullet, but it has so much gunpowder behind it that it is DEADLY. And painful to shoot, I might add.)
As for your remarks about what the troops need for protection in the field, the majority of them carry a rifle. A pistol is and always has been a last ditch, point blank weapon for them. Not hating on caliber choices; it just gets excessive publicity in my personal opinion for all but special forces and other elite troops.