Looks like Sig is on a roll with the military...



Earlier this year, soldiers with the Army’s 101st Airborne Division were the first to receive the services’ new high-tech 9mm pistol engineered to give dismounted infantry a vastly increased ability to fight and close with an enemy in caves, tunnels, crawl spaces, houses and other close quarter combat scenarios.

Service weapons developers and soldiers say the new M17 and M18 pistol, designed as a next-generation handgun to follow the Army’s current M9 Beretta, is expected to substantially change combat tactics, techniques and strategies for dismounted soldiers on-the-move.

“You can close with the enemy in close quarter combat and engage the enemy with one hand. It is tough to do this with the M9,” Lt. Col. Martin O’Donnell, spokesman for the 101st Airborne, told reporters earlier this year.

The new pistol is built with a more ergonomic configuration to better accommodate the widest possible range of hand grip techniques for soldiers and enable rapid hand switching as needed in combat. The M17 is said by developers to bring much tighter dispersion, improved versatility and next-generation accuracy.

“With this weapon, you can change quickly from right hand to left hand. If you are shooting something that is not comfortable on your hand and can't get a comfortable grip, it is not as accurate,” Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Flynn, 101st Division Master Gunner, said earlier this year.

The new handguns are built with an external safety, self-illuminating sights for low-light conditions, an integrated rail for attaching enablers and an Army standard suppressor conversion kit to attach an acoustic/flash suppressor, service developers said.

“It increases target recognition and increases capability with night sights,” Lt. Col. Steven Power, Individual Weapons Product Manager, Soldier Weapons, told reporters earlier this year.

The Army is now acquiring thousands of full-size XM17 and compact XM18 versions of the new 9mm pistol. The XM17 fires 147 grain jacketed hollow point ammunition.

When it comes to fast-evolving tactics now used in close-quarter combat, something with which Army soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan now have more than a decade of experience, an ability to maneuver with increased lethality in caves, tunnels, crawl spaces, attics or buildings allows soldiers to access life-impacting firepower more effectively - especially in “tight quarters” situations where a longer, larger rifle may not be available for use.

Fast emerging targets and quick-changing circumstances, fundamental to close-quarter combat, naturally require rapid decision making and on-the spot flexibility amid military confrontation. Requirements and technical improvements with the M17 were specifically designed with this in mind, Army developers emphasized.

“This adds a whole new dynamic to close-quarter combat. A standard pistol cannot change grips or allow a soldier to switch from a right-handed shooter to a left-handed shooter. This is a great capability for us to put in play,” Flynn said.

Close quarter combat, while considered indispensable to successful counterinsurgency warfare, is also something of significant relevance to large-scale force-on-force, mechanized combat against a potential near-peer adversary. Urban warfare - from urban combat in WWII to house-to-house fighting in Hue City in Vietnam - is naturally a long-standing component of major war as well.

Power explained that the Army’s M17 acquisition effort unfolded on a massively accelerated timeframe, moving to contract within 10 months.

“We are dual arming the infantry at the position of team leader and above,” Power said.

The fast-tracked acquisition effort, which merged work from the Army Research Lab and the Army’s Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center, drew heavily from modeling and simulation to expedite development of the new weapon.

Prospects for the handgun have been well received across DoD; the Navy, Air Force and Marines are also receiving this pistol, according to a report from Military.com.

The Army has been closely coordinating with the Special Operations community regarding training and development of the new handgun, given the consistency with which close-quarter combat is utilized by SOF.

The M17 and M18 pistols are manufactured by Sig Sauer, who earned the $580 million contract to produce the weapons in January of this year.

Other competitors included Glock, FN America and Beretta USA.



https://www.foxnews.com/tech/a...change-modern-combat

Read this at the provided link a few minutes ago; always good to get "that one retarded thing" out of the way early in the day.

A shining example of why the current state of Army small arms procurement is crap.

“Next generation accuracy” and “access life impacting firepower more effectively”.....who writes this stuff?

Huh... Night sights "increase target recognition".

As in, they help you recognize your target more easily?

I guess the tritium used in the military contract sights is so powerful that it emits a green glow in a 50 yard radius around you, lighting up the environment and any potential targets.

That article is chock-full of stupid.

quote:

“We are dual arming the infantry at the position of team leader and above,” Power said.

One piece of useful info, holy crap that is going to be a lot of pistols!

Right now there are like a dozen or less pistols on an infantry company's MTOE. Team leader and above would be 40+ per company.

Kool Aid, Kool Aid, tastes great...

Attaching enablers?

quote:

Originally posted by Strambo:

One piece of useful info, holy crap that is going to be a lot of pistols!

....

[oprah]”YOU get a pistol, and YOU get a pistol, and YOU get a pistol! EVERYONE GETS A PISTOL!”[/oprah]

If a new 9mm handgun changes combat, then we are doing combat wrong.

quote:

Originally posted by jaaron11:
If a new 9mm handgun changes combat, then we are doing combat wrong.

That’s why they are changing it, duh!

That entire article, and all the quotes read like one giant marketing piece. Full of certainty and exclamation, that can only make higher-up admins and careerist box-checkers grin with envy.

There is no doubt that a handgun will fill a gap between bare hands and rifle. The deployed troops' desire to have a handgun in addition to a long gun is directly proportionate to the savagery of your enemy and the duplicity of your allies. I am all for strapping a pistol on every deployed member and a lot more on in-garrison troops. The money is there for ammo and training and as Secretary Mattis has said, he is focused on increasing the DoD's lethality.

quote:

Originally posted by cooger:
“Next generation accuracy” and “access life impacting firepower more effectively”.....who writes this stuff?

Some staff guy who writes a LOT of performance reports.

If I didn't know any better, the M9 Beretta was a flintlock pistol while the M17 is a Phased plasma pistol in the 40-watt range according to this article...

Hah! From the same writer's last eval of a subordinate: "SGT Snuffy displayed next-generation leadership and life-impacting guidance effectively to his Soldiers."

What is the spirit of the bayonet? To kill!

quote:

Originally posted by HayesGreener:
There is no doubt that a handgun will fill a gap between bare hands and rifle. The deployed troops' desire to have a handgun in addition to a long gun is directly proportionate to the savagery of your enemy and the duplicity of your allies. I am all for strapping a pistol on every deployed member and a lot more on in-garrison troops. The money is there for ammo and training and as Secretary Mattis has said, he is focused on increasing the DoD's lethality.

Agreed on all points. That said the armed services could have been less stingy with the M9 issuance in the first place.

I read that today and laughed. I couldn't even make it through the whole article. So much BS in there.

I knew someone here would post it and we'd have a field day with it lol

Will someone 'splain to me why you can't shoot the M9 , or 1911 for that matter, left handed?