Durham68 wrote:The M9 and M16a2 are just too damn big. Must have been a pack of 6'+ soldiers testing those things.
WTH, over???
If you consider the M-16A2 "too big", Ruger makes a fine assault rifle in .22LR, called the 10/22.
Presumably at some point in your life, you've handled an M1903, an M1 Garand, and/or an M-14? Just for actual comparison?
The A2 was the first M-16 in a quarter-century of trying that wasn't an unmitigated POS out of the starting gate, finally correcting most of the serious deficiencies of the original design. (And to prove the point about bureaucracy designing a horse, adding in the wholly asinine three-round burst bastardization.)
All the subsequent M-4gery series did was admit, for the Army primarily, that any sort of serious riflery was considered an ancillary pursuit which was functionally optional for 99.998% of their troops. Given that, they should just adopt AK-47s, and be done with it.
On the OP topic, the general has finally noticed that the inmates run his asylum. Welcome to the Army, sir.
If he was serious, he'd simply eliminate the pistol top to bottom, make everyone carry the M-4, and spend the savings on ammo for actual training and qualification. Like any serious army would.
And with respect to the general's position, his math sucks balls.
"$17M on the credit card" would get "every soldier, sailor, airman, and Marine" a roughly $17.00 pistol, worth every penny you put into the gumball machine to buy it. I think next time he talks about numbers, he should either refer to someone who graduated sixth grade for subject-matter expertise, or else take off his shoes and get down to some serious calculating. He is an innumerate moron, and promoted far beyond any explanation of the Peter Principle, however right he may be about the endless regulations in weapons specs.
If he meant to imply he could, for that price, get a total of 34,000 actual sidearms, which may well be all that he needs, he has a bare chance of being right.
When he suggests appointing a weapons board composed of the editorial board of
Guns & Ammo, and any 25 combat arms sergeant majors from the Army and Marines, along with a MCPO from the Seal teams, and supervised by a single chief warrant officer from Ordnance, and who shall collectively and by majority vote have thirty days in seclusion to carte blanche test and select the next service sidearm for the next 30 years, based on utility, functionality, durability, reliability, accuracy, and cost, you'll know he's serious.
We'd also have new pistol before the first of May this year.
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"