The American Military in Iraq

I apologize as well. The media is a sore spot for me, I'm afraid. However, I have talked to other veterans returned from Iraq, and their statements about the situation there pretty much echoed Jordan's. But enough of that.

The comments about the pistols don't surprise me. The 9mm was rejected way back when the M1911 .45 automatic was adopted by the military, and for precisely the reason stated: if it didn't instantly kill whoever you were shooting at, the 9mm round wouldn't stop a hamster! The 9mm Beretta replaced the .45 in the US Armed Forces mainly because many female personnel couldn't handle the .45, which is a heavy weapon with quite a kick. So the Beretta was adopted, instead of trying to come up with a .45 pistol that women could handle.

 

I believe the 9mm Beretta was adopted because of a NATO political deal to keep the NATO cartridges from being all US designs. We had NATO using the .30-06 and then standardized a 7.62mm (.308), then went to the 5.56mm and urged the other members to comply yet we still used a .45ACP while the rest of NATO used the 9mm. I think somewhere we made a deal that we would adopt the 9mm when we went to a new pistol.

What you mention about women not being comfortable with the M1911 is probably the reason we dropped it. The NATO deal is why it was adopted as 9mm. The deal with Beretta is they promised to built the M9 here in the US if we adopted it. Glock, S&W, Colt, Ruger, and other companies submitted designs that were as good or better than the Beretta. How we got it had to be political as well.

I would like to see NATO drop the 9mm and go to the .40S&W cartridge. Pratically all US and many Canadian police forces have dropped the 9mm in favor of it.

 

Anyone with any sense has dropped the 9mm. What I can't understand is why anyone still manufactures them. Or uses them, for that matter. :roll:

I'd rather see the US Armed Forces use an improved .45; no question about stopping power there. I know that a number of American police departments use Glock .45s, without the female officers having any problems with them that I'm aware of.