Will Glock be the next U.S. military handgun?
With the competition heating up on the Army’s Modular Handgun System bidding process, expected to garner as many as a half million new pistols to replace the military’ current stock of sidearms, the short list includes seems to include a certain polymer wonder from Austria.
In 2013, the U.S. Army requested bids for what they called their Modular Handgun System. This would be a commercially available off the shelf replacement for their current handguns, namely the Beretta 92F (adopted in 1986 as the M9) and the Sig-Sauer P-228 (adopted in 1990 as the M11). The former is used by all branches of the Department of Defense military (the Coast Guard uses P-229R pistols along with most of the rest of the Department of Homeland Security). Primarily investigators and military police use the M11.
What the Army wants to phase these guns out is an accurate handgun (at a range of 50-meters/164-feet, it has to have a 90% or better probability of hit on a 4 inch circle when fired from a test fixture). It needs an accessory rail and capability to have a threaded barrel to accept tactical lights, lasers, and sound suppressors as needed. It also should have enhanced ergonomics so that most females can handle it. Other requirements are an at least 35,000 round Service Life and the ability to provide up to 550,000 handguns with U.S.-based production after the third year of the contract.
Oh yeah, and it will likely not be a 9mm.
In an interview earlier this year with Army Times, Daryl Easlick, a project officer with the Army’s Maneuver Center of Excellence at Fort Benning, Ga, said that the legacy round, adopted in 1986, is somewhat dead in the water.
“The 9mm doesn’t score high with soldier feedback,” said Easlick, explaining that the Army, and the other services, want a round that will have better terminal effects — or cause more damage — when it hits enemy combatants. “We have to do better than our current 9mm.”
Since .40S&W doesn’t suppress well, and service life of guns chambered in that round is not seen as being as long as that of .45ACP caliber weapons, the new round may be the good old .45– which is still in service with Marine special ops units and the SOCCOM commando’s Mk.23 offensive handgun.
Why Glock is a contender? Read more in my article at Glock Forum.