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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: 2) by EvilSS on Tuesday January 24 2017, @05:54AM
At the core of his desperate firefight was a murderous attacker who simply would not go down, even though he was shot 14 times with .45-cal. ammunition — six of those hits in supposedly fatal locations.
https://www.policeone.com/police-heroes/articles/6199620-Why-one-cop-carries-145-rounds-of-ammo-on-the-job/ [policeone.com]
"Stopping power" is a myth, and 75 year old anecdotes really don't mean anything today. Oh, and those .40 S&W bullets you also mention? Yea, crap. The FBI (who essentially created the damn things) is going back to 9mm because they have found modern 9mm has better penetration and higher accuracy. Turns out shot placement counts a hell of a lot more than bullet size. "Stopping power" is a myth perpetuated by paper-assassins at gun ranges https://loadoutroom.com/12077/fbi-going-9mm-comes-science/ [loadoutroom.com]
(Score: 1, Troll) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday January 24 2017, @06:45AM
Cool story and all - but it's tough to credit this story as accurate. I'm not gonna call the cop a liar, but - maybe he's stretching things some? 14 rounds, all of them in fatal areas of the body? Hmmmmm - if all of that be true, then I have to wonder at his choice of ammunition. Did he load his own "wadcutters"? Was he using some steel jacket bullet? Strange, is all I can say for certain. Even if we accept that the man was loaded down with 14 lead bullets, subtract those last three to the head, and that means 11 hits prior. I really want to know more, before I accept the story as written.