For those of us old enough to remember and maybe those younger folks who have read the history, the XM9 trials of the early 1980’s were a huge political sideshow. They involved Congressional testimony, GAO investigations, accusations of favoritism and secret agreements, etc… Part of it was the replacement of the iconic M1911A1 with a European-designed weapon of a smaller caliber. In fact, it’s still a sore point with some (older) folks.
Fast forward to the replacement of the M9 by the M17/M18 handguns. There was a GAO protest by Glock, and a few debates here and there, but the process went largely without the heated atmosphere of the older XM9 trials. Even Congress seemed generally uninterested, and I don’t recall any extensive pro/con arguments from the Army.
So is this a sign that the current crop of politicians have taken less interest in these programs? Or have military handguns become more and more comparable?
In the 80s we went from the venerable 1911 which served four generations of warriors to a high capacity “wonder 9” design that will fit the hands of female non combatants and other girlie men. That is basically how I remember the trials being described.
Now we are simply going from a sorta heavy wonder 9 which doesn’t have the most magnificent trigger in the world to a striker fired wonder 9 that comes in several barbie gun sizes and currently a few coloe options, but stand by for a rainbow of candy coated flavors. This is SIG after all.
I just hope the damn thing works the first time we take it to war. If it performs like a Glock then fine, if the new trigger module / lego system regularly fails it will be a problem.
I wonder if Glock would have been more competitive if they had a grip angle more like a 1911. I carried a 1911 on uniform patrol for the last few years before I retired. The last time I was in the Firearms Simulator I had to use a Glock and I shot over the heads of most the bad guys (& in the past I usually did really well in the Simulator). I own a few Glocks but I don’t carry them.
Glock only underperformed in price. Sig basically is giving the military those pistols for free. If you read the protest Glock filed, it’s easy to infer that the Glock out performed the Sig in testing but that for the price the Sig was good enough. They didn’t even complete the testing as the SSA didn’t see how the Glock could overcome the extreme difference in price with superior performance. As long as the Sig met the baseline, it won.
Put your 1911 and Glock next to each other on a table, upside down, on their sights. You might be surprised how close they are in the angle of the front strap. Its easiest to see on a no-groove model, but you can see it with the other gens, also. The hump is what messes with people, and might go partway toward explaining the popularity of the 19x/G45. That and the chonky grip in the Gen 3s. If you have a Gen 4 or 5, you can see what I mean by that by adding the backstraps and seeing if your natural presentation changes. I was actually a little surprised at the effectiveness of those. But even with the backstraps, the Gen 4 still feels less chonky than the Gen 3. Either one simply requires practice, like any gun, and monogamy helps greatly. Aaron Cowan has a video on “Developing Point of Aim with the RDS Handgun” that can be illuminating for iron sights users, also.
Steyr, the M9 only fit hands Largo and up. The 1911 is actually much more friendly to small hands. The M9A1 helped that a bit (USMC). Pistols are, in fact for non-combatants, just as much as for machinegunnners. For either, their main use is to check the block on having a weapon while eating chow and buying dip. I doubt we’ll see much of the 320’s modularity, and after receiving them, I’ve gone from cautiously optimistic to distrustful. At least its lightweight.
I’ve been issued 1911’s, and they weren’t really the best option, despite being maintained by armorers that would know what they are doing. They are heavy and low-cap. And logistics support isn’t as easy as visiting the nearest S4 types and trading some smokes and a shiny coin for a couple mags and a can of ammo when your combo isn’t working right suddenly.
I really liked the M11/P228, and they basically had to pry my rattly example out of my hands when we got G19s. Pretty funny memory, actually.
As to the last question in the OP, I do think that the handguns attempting to get military contracts are much more comparable than in the 80s. There are some AMU types floating around here somewhere that probably know a lot more than me about this topic. I just train with whatever they hand me. It really doesn’t matter very often for wars.
I think the last handgun adoption process went “smoother” because:
-unlike the 1911 the M9 has never really been liked and didn’t have the cult following that the 1911 had/has. There are still people that are butt hurt that we got rid of the 1911. Sig or Glock probably should have won the M9 trials.
-given the lack of cult following people realized it was time to get rid of the beat to crap, abused, worn out M9. Even though the 1911 was in the same boat in the early 80s the lore around it made the M9 adoption process much harder.
There are plenty of articles describing the politicization of the Beretta trials and why they won the M9 contract. No one really wanted it. No one who had to carry it, anyway.
Regarding the 1911, the Marines still carry it. SMUs still have access to it. It ain’t going away anytime soon.
Yeah I know there was a lot of political behind the curtain bs with that process.
And I’m not sure the 1911 is used operationally by anyone right now. I know the D-boys and Force Recon used to use them but I THINK even Force quit using them, not sure MARSOC ever used them. And I believe Force were the last hold outs. (In recent years I haven’t seen anyone except Gen Miller carry a 1911.)
Yep, HK barely squeaked by with their P7M13 (increased to 13 to compete in a high capacity trial). Technically you could uncock, recock and that qualified as a double strike capacity. Only the Navy bought them, but the Navy also bought the SIG package.
Doing this from memory so if something is wrong, somebody will tell me, but as I recall performance between the Sig and Beretta were nearly identical. The Sig was actually cheaper, but the Beretta “package” was cheaper than the Sig “package” so Beretta won the contract.
Also I’m pretty sure the Navy requested a specific “navy model” P7M13 that featured a threaded barrel. This is why the MP5-N (Navy) has a three lug / threaded combo barrel so you can run three lug suppressors and a special threaded suppressor that also fit the P7M13 Navy handgun. Haven’t personally seen a suppressor mounted on a P7M13(N) but if they really did use the same suppressor that they used on the MP5-N / MP5k-PDW it would be a really big suppressor for a mid size handgun.
I still recall following the XM9 trials, pretty sure it was Soldier of Fortune, back in 1985 and at the end of the day my father and I bought SIG P-226s and that was my graduation present. I still have his 1985 date code Sig, I killed mine after about 25,000 rounds and SIG swapped it out for a CPO.
We’ve already had wide enough issues that a message was put out through at least the two star command, something about the rear sights popping off I think.
Yeah, we had the MEU(SOC) in recon, replaced by the Kimber CQB when ‘they’ dissolved recon and stood up MARSOC after Det 1 was a wild success. Those were supplanted by the Colt M45, which recon uses now. MARSOC switched from the M45 to the Glock 19. I loved the MEU(SOC) 1911. It had…character.
From my contacts still in that community, they may be switching to the SIG but have not as yet. I’d like to see them go to Glock, but it won’t happen.
That’s funny because all the different dudes from all the different units that I’ve meet or worked with and the one common denominator with all of them is a Glock 9mm, usually a 19. Granted some of the Glocks were more “baller” than others.
So we make fun of Glocks, because they are Glocks, but honestly if I had to do anything that might involved 5 or more days without maintenance and you added some craptastic environment (rain, sand, mud or all of the above) I would probably pack a Glock 19. I shoot my P226 and P7 a lot better (which makes them obvious CCW candidates) but zombie hunts in the mud and rain aren’t bullseye competitions. The only thing Glocks lack is suppressor simplicity.
Glocks require a LID and it would be nice if you could buy something functional that wouldn’t dwarf the G-19 in size. If anyone made a suppressor about the size of a SOCOM mini for a G19 they’d have a winner. But you’d still need to address issues like tall sights, etc. The G19 might be the perfect size, modern capacity handgun…we just don’t have a revolutionary suppressor that meets the same criteria.
About the only benefit of running a Glock suppressed is if you skip the LID it doesn’t kick out your brass if you need to do secret squirrel stuff.
The reason recon will either be Johnny-come-lately for G19 or go to the new issue SIG is because it’s still a Corps unit. They still have to go the Big Corps for funding and TO&E equipment. Granted, they do have some other, special-funded things. Maybe they will go to the Glock.