Big Army and the MHS??

[Redhat]

I can only speak for myself , not the whole Army, but I care quite a bit. Besides CAS, I've used the heck out of air mobility and ISR, and really appreciate us having air superiority/supremacy pretty much anywhere we go. I'm also fully supportive of bad guys getting blown up via precision strike and AI before they get a chance to play in the close fight. And having GPS and reliable SATCOM is a good thing too. The cyber stuff...well that's all voodoo magic that I don't understand anyway

However, trying to sell the F-35 as a substitute for the A-10 is more than a little disengenuous IMHO.

Anyway, we should probably steer this thread back to the MHS.

MHS? Well anything with improved capabilities/ergonomics sounds good to me...be interesting to see how it plays out. I do find the numbers interesting. Who in the Army actually carries a pistol anyway?

[Jeep]

Armored guys--tankers, cavalry guys--often do as their only weapon. So do MP's and some engineers and artillery guys. Infantry these days often carries a pistol as a back up weapon. The M9 is really too heavy for that use (A G19 would be far better) but the M9 is fine for pretty much everyone else.

[Dagga Boy]

MHS? Well anything with improved capabilities/ergonomics sounds good to me...be interesting to see how it plays out. I do find the numbers interesting. Who in the Army actually carries a pistol anyway?

This is why I am in the "who cares" camp. If we had an organization serious about being a martial organization where most of its members are armed at all times, it would be meaningful. If we can train cops,corrections people, security guards and others to regularly carry a pistol, yet are scared to death of armed soldiers.....sounds like we have a different issue than what pistol is used. Also, as long as they are having to load and unload administratively all the time for those who do carry, and stupidity like being in the field for extended periods with no magazine in the gun ( and wonder why they have reliability and wear issues) will continue to make this a mute issue.

Personally, I would like to see a majority of soldiers in combat type MOS's wearing a belt with UM84 type holster and magazine pouch most of the time. I think it would make our bases more secure and add a level of seriousness about what the military does. Will it require a learning curve, discipline, and training......yea. It is the military, isn't that what is supposed to be going on? Most military cultures in history have carried personal weapons when not in the field with battlefield weapons. I would like to see a return to that. If soldiers cannot be trained and trusted to regularly carry weapons......maybe we are doing something wrong.

[Jeep]

One thing that's helping to push this along is the cost to refurb a Beretta is higher than what they expect to buy the new pistol for. IF the numbers I heard mentioned were correct, and not fudged to help justify the project, then buying new pistols actually makes financial sense.

I have no doubt that this is being said, but I would need to see those numbers to believe them. I have seen too many government numbers like this that make absolutely no sense.

To give one example, I saw DOA boast about a new "green energy" project on some base that would save the Army a nice amount of cash. Now admittedly, this is "green energy" and those projects are really run by the political types and not career people so you can't expect them to be correct.

Still, the Army said that the project would save it X hundred thousand per year over the life of the project (the magic green energy devices were predicted to last only a certain number of years). Now the chance that any device will work at peak efficiency for years is approximately 0%, and that is what these calculations were based upon. But, if you accepted this nonsense as true and multiplied the X hundred thousand per year time the number of years it was (optimistically) expected to operate you still came to far less than the upfront cost to the Army.

Again, it is a "green energy" project so you can't expect much, but the press release gave you all the numbers you needed to show that its claims to save money were absolutely wrong and no one in the press seems to have done the math and realized that the Army was spending through the nose on the project and not saving anything.

You've probably seen the same thing.

Anyway, no way that refurbing a Beretta actually costs more than buying a new MHS pistol, magazines, holsters and the cost of new fam. fire training.

[GardoneVT]

I have no doubt that this is being said, but I would need to see those numbers to believe them. I have seen too many government numbers like this that make absolutely no sense.

In the specific case of the M9,it makes sense. The DoD guns are in baaaaaaad shape.

A civilian M9 sells retail ~$600. While a new frame and small parts themselves could add up to less then that, the guns won't assemble themselves.

Backing up for a moment- first the DoD has to determine which guns are busted , which guns can be fixed, and which M9s don't need work. That task right there eats up a pile of labor dollars.Even if the military doesn't pay hourly or overtime, bodies sifting M9 parts are bodies unable to do their regular jobs.

Then the guns which need work have to be transported and fixed.

Then they need to be tested for function afterwards. More bodies, more $$, more time.

Add it all up & marginal cost it , and buying a new gun at the logistical level our DoD plays at makes fiscal sense.

[Drifting Fate]

This is why I am in the "who cares" camp. If we had an organization serious about being a martial organization where most of its members are armed at all times, it would be meaningful. If we can train cops,corrections people, security guards and others to regularly carry a pistol, yet are scared to death of armed soldiers.....sounds like we have a different issue than what pistol is used. Also, as long as they are having to load and unload administratively all the time for those who do carry, and stupidity like being in the field for extended periods with no magazine in the gun ( and wonder why they have reliability and wear issues) will continue to make this a mute issue.

Personally, I would like to see a majority of soldiers in combat type MOS's wearing a belt with UM84 type holster and magazine pouch most of the time. I think it would make our bases more secure and add a level of seriousness about what the military does. Will it require a learning curve, discipline, and training......yea. It is the military, isn't that what is supposed to be going on? Most military cultures in history have carried personal weapons when not in the field with battlefield weapons. I would like to see a return to that. If soldiers cannot be trained and trusted to regularly carry weapons......maybe we are doing something wrong.

Agreed, but I think things went to PC hell when we went from the War Department to the Department of Defense, so this isn't a new problem.

[Jeep]

In the specific case of the M9,it makes sense. The DoD guns are in baaaaaaad shape.

A civilian M9 sells retail ~$600. While a new frame and small parts themselves could add up to less then that, the guns won't assemble themselves.

Backing up for a moment- first the DoD has to determine which guns are busted , which guns can be fixed, and which M9s don't need work. That task right there eats up a pile of labor dollars.Even if the military doesn't pay hourly or overtime, bodies sifting M9 parts are bodies unable to do their regular jobs.

Then the guns which need work have to be transported and fixed.

Then they need to be tested for function afterwards. More bodies, more $$, more time.

Add it all up & marginal cost it , and buying a new gun at the logistical level our DoD plays at makes fiscal sense.

Maybe (but see below), but there are a huge amount of similar admin tasks in fielding a new firearm and so you would need to cost those as well. The chance of them balancing out in favor of the new pistol is, to my mind, slight.

Then you get to the point I hint at above. Unless things have radically changed, in the Army the ordinance units are not exactly overworked. There is (or was) a lot of excess capacity there. (Back in the day we either needed to bribe them with coffee or bring an LTC or above to scare them to get them to do anything at all). Besides, I think you could do a refurbish contract with Beretta for a very good price if you let it keep the M9 contract.

[LSP972]

They could adopt a 9mm FMJ flat point and call it more lethal. Might be hokey but would be smarter than .40

IIRC, the original Parabellum cartridge used a truncated cone (flat point) bullet.

One wonders what reason (if any rational one exists) caused the Germans to drop that in favor of a round nose bullet?

And you got to wonder who is driving that bigger-caliber bus? Is 9mm ball really that ineffective? You hear it both ways from guys who have used the M9 in combat. I've seen quite a few 9mm ball bullets- mainly light ones- in the past few years that made one or two shot kills. But- and this is a BIG but- most of those came from corpses who were not expecting to get shot, judging from the incident reports. That can make a huge difference.

Adopting a new gun in .40 would only have one big drawback… the increased recoil would make the already-dismal general military training, such as it is, even less effective. The cartridge is already in the "system", supplying the Coasties and the JSOC units who use it.

But I cannot forget the Coast Guard Senior Chief who came to check out our range, prior to their borrowing it for annual quals when the range they normally used was closed for maintenance. This guy had been involved in firearms training for almost as long as I had, and told me that their ammo consumption rates had sky-rocketed since replacing their M9s with the P229; and it was all due to the troopies struggling with the .40 recoil.

I retired a year before we adopted the .40, so I have no first-hand knowledge… but from everything I've heard, qual score averages went down shortly afterward. I do know that a lot more of our guys chose the G17 this time around, instead of the G22.

.

[Dave J]

If soldiers cannot be trained and trusted to regularly carry weapons......maybe we are doing something wrong.

Word.

I have no doubt that this is being said, but I would need to see those numbers to believe them. I have seen too many government numbers like this that make absolutely no sense.

I hear you. Unfortunately, I don't know what assumptions were used to develop the cost estimate, but such things are easy to manipulate to support a desired outcome.

[Drifting Fate]

IIRC, the original Parabellum cartridge used a truncated cone (flat point) bullet.

One wonders what reason (if any rational one exists) caused the Germans to drop that in favor of a round nose bullet?

.

While I don't know the reason for going to ball rounds, period manufacturing and feed issues come to mind.

In the hunting world, the larger the meplat, the higher the considered lethality, though generally with much heavier, wider bullets. Still, one wonders if the concept carries over to defensive calibers.