The NATO standard pistol is worthless
More proof that the Beretta M9 automatic pistol that is the standard issue to American troops, firing NATO-standard 9mm ball round, is almost as much of a threat to our own troops as to the fedayeen enemy:

In another incident, one of my guys got hit (luckily, in the plate of the vest he was wearing) with a 9X19 pistol round at close range. He immediately returned fire with his M9 (issue 9X19 hardball) and hit the guy five times close to the body midline. All hits were above the waist: one in neck. The bad guy was still able to close the distance, grab my guy, and try to choke him. MP came up and pumped two 12ga rounds (00Bk) into the bad guy him at pointblank range. That finally ended the fight.

For auto combat pistols there is no peer of the .45-caliber ACP (Automatic Colt Pistol) for knockdown power. There is only one handgun superior to it, the .357-magnum, but this is a revolver round and the Army gave up issuing revolvers about 100 years ago; handling them is too unwieldy in battle.

In fact, the .45 Colt was developed to replace the .38-caliber revolver used by US soldiers fighting the Moros, tribesmen in the Philippines who rebelled against US rule (and Spanish rule before that). The .38 couldn't be relied on to put the Moros down; they would go into battle well fortified with homemade booze and local drugs. Some American soldiers were killed after pumping all six shots of the cylinder into a Moro, who was so anesthetized he couldn't feel the pain and so lean muscled that the weak .38 round often would not penetrate deep enough to drop him. And of course, reloading a revolver then - before speedloaders were invented - was a lengthy task.

Hence the .45 Colt, M1911 (later product improved and redesignated M1911A1), was introduced. As combat sidearms go, it was spectacularly successful. I was issued one myself when I was on active duty and carried one until I was assigned to 3d Battalion, 27th Field Artillery in 1987. That was when I was issued the M9.

IMO, the M9 has only two advantages over the M1911A1. It's lighter and repoints quicker after a shot because its recoil is less. Which sort of indicates the problem - its recoil is less because its throwing a lighter load, using less propellant. And that means less knockdown power.

I used to tell my troops that they would not need their weapons until they needed them real bad. This is urgently true with a handgun because that means the enemy is very close. Pistols are practically a principal weapon in urban fighting because they can be pointed more quickly than any other firearm. Close range gunfighters require maximum lethality to be standing at the end of the fight.

The 9mm just does not cut it. The Army should buy new .45 pistols (there being many models more modern than the old M1911A1) and re-adopt it as the standard sidearm.

by Donald Sensing, 12/31/2003 05:08:41 PM. Permalink |