Strategypage.com makes a muzzy post on the current Joint Combat Pistol program, including the claim that it is slated to replace the Beretta M9 for the DoD, and the odd statement that it will need to "have a rail up top".
Enthusiastically riffing off this bad info, respected gun nut Kim du Toit opines that they need to pick the 1911, ignoring the DA/SA requirement in the spec sheet. He even goes on at length about the "rail on top" requirement (which doesn't exist anywhere outside the Strategypage blurb.) Hell In A Handbasket and SayUncle, both stand-up guys and rabid gun enthusiasts, also take the "Replacing the Beretta" ball and run with it.
The pistol will replace the M9, but only for SOCOM. My money is currently with the USP45, whose dimensions, as it has been pointed out, are suspiciously similar to the max dimensions given in the RFP. With the company having spent a wad on a plant in Georgia, only to flush a ton of money down the failed OICW and XM8 programs, they are due to be thrown a bone by the DoD. (Throw in the G11 flop and the less-than-succesful SA-80 revamp, and HK is turning into a lederhosen-wearing version of Colt: A company with a positive gift for bad luck.)
Incidentally, the size of the proposed contract, at 645,000 pistols, should give a good idea of just how really amazingly bloatedly huge SOCOM has grown in the post-Transformation military. Heck, I think our local Cub Scout troop is attached to SOCOM. Kinda takes the "Special" right outta "Special Operations Command".
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8 comments:
Why not go for a Ruger semi-auto DA/SA in .45ACP - a number of them have Picatinny rails.
Les Jones has the whole contract specs here. While SOCOM is in charge of the procurement, it looks like this is going to be for all the services.
Brass
SOCOM is all the services.
If you have an official link indicating that this pistol is intended as a general, Armed Forces-wide replacement for the M9 and/or M11, it would be appreciated.
The 1911 is wonderfull weapon, but it is too fussy to field strip.
An allen wrench? And all those little parts? no way.
As an example - that won't be in the running - the Israli Military Industries Jericho 941 can be complete stripped with no tools. (I usually need a hard surface to force the pin out of the slide.) It isn't as accurate as a good 1911, but then it was designed for service in desert conditions, not for target shooting.
And it is accurate enough for all practical purposes.
And personally I like DA/SA better than I like carrying cocker and locked.
"An allen wrench?"
An allen wrench is not necessary to field strip, nor detail strip a GI 1911 to its smallest part.
A mil-spec 1911 can be completely disassembled using its own parts for tools (notice that the floorplate of the magazine has the same radius as the guide rod plug?)
Also, the 1911 is internally much simpler than the Jericho.
Soooo much myth surrounds the "complexity" of the 1911.
Re: SOCOM being overly bloated.
There are actually a whole lot of support types in SOCOM who aren't actually operator/trigger-puller/steely-eyed killer types-parachute riggers, mechanics, commo types, etc. I'm sure their numbers have gone up even more post-9/11 than the operators
Oh, I grok the concept of a required "teeth-to-tail" ratio, but it's still interesting to have watched what was started as a way to give SEAL teams and SFOD-Delta squadrons a common credit card number and PO box evolve into what is, de facto, a fifth branch of the US Armed Forces.
" Hell In A Handbasket and SayUncle, both stand-up guys and rabid gun enthusiasts, also take the "Replacing the Beretta" ball and run with it."
Oh, I wouldn't define myself as a rabid gun enthusiast. A rabid self defense enthusiast is more accurate. It's just that a fair percentage of my students are disabled or elderly, and a gun is the only realistic option.
James
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