I’m on the look out for a better sling.  Currently I’m using the Spec Ops Wolf Hook sling on my M-4, but I need something different.  Mind you, I’m not displeased with the hook, it’s cheap, it’s simple, and best of all, it doesn’t get in the way, but it requires me to wear my rack in order to use it, and there are a great many times where I’m just on the drill floor and I need to secure my weapon to my body without having to wear all the extra kit to use the sling.

Now my preference is for a single point sling. I’m not a big fan, at all, of those 2 and 3 point slings; there’s just too much webbing involved. They get cumbersome and they can be a pain in the ass to get in and out of.  No, what I’m looking for is something that I can secure my weapon to my body in the simplest, most hands free method possible (I only use the sling to “administratively” secure the weapon. I’m not real comfortable going on a mission with the weapon attached to me.  If I have to transition to my pistol I’m not worried about my rifle hitting the ground, I’ll deal with it later. I just don’t like the idea of being attached to the rifle.)

Now, one of the team leaders in my platoon had a real slick push button type of single point sling.  It was an elastic strap that went over the shoulder and attached via a simple push button mechanism attached to the buffer spring housing on the butt of the M-4.  Moreover, there was a hole on either side of the attachment point so you could sling the rifle left or right depending on your shooting style.  Unfortunately, he couldn’t remember where he got it, there were no identifying marks on the sling, and he just ETSed, so I may never find out what he had.

All this has left me surfing the internet looking for a replacement.  The Voodoo Tactical single point sling looked like it might have potential; it uses a claw style fastener to clip to the weapon, which, while not exactly what I’m looking for, is certainly simple and serviceable.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Voodoo offers it any more, as I can only find it for sale on eBay.

Read the rest of this story on Kit Up! hosted by Military.com.

– Eric Daniel

The Army is conducting yet another review of the camouflage pattern of its combat uniforms.  This makes it what, the third or fourth such review on the pattern du jour?  What I find interesting though, is not so much how much attention is being paid to the debate around the camouflage pattern, and whether or not we need one “one pattern works nowhere” uniform, or several regional/seasonal uniforms to maximize local effectiveness, but how little attention we are paying to camouflaging everything else but the uniform.

One of the first things that leaps out at you about the ACU pattern is its lack of black.  “Black is not a naturally occurring color” the Army says, and its use on the battlefield defeats the effectiveness of camouflage. Yet we’re all packing at least one piece of black equipment; our weapons.  As a scout looking for bad guys, one of the things you look for is black angular objects, which are universally man made, and on the battlefield usually mean weapons. 

So why do we still have black weapons?

I’m not talking about sending all our guns back to the factory to get some sort of high speed “realtree” pattern retro added, but rather just addressing the issue at the unit level and paint them some color other than black.  I searched and searched TRADOCs website looking for regulations regarding camouflaging equipment, and other than a circular detailing how to apply CARC paint and what pattern to use on the woodland camouflage pattern on tactical vehicles (which, by the way, still includes the color black), the only guidance I could get on the subject was to ensure that what ever camouflage you use does not interfere or degrade the performance of the equipment, which seems a no brainer to me.

So, having not found anything that expressly forbids painting weapons, I decided to do the foolish yet administratively correct thing and broach the subject with my food chain.

“No” was the answer I got.  The rational behind the decision was varied. 

“Let joes paint their weapons, and they’ll be tagging them with gang signs.”  Ok, a valid concern, so to mitigate that you limit their color options to, say, tan, and you have their team leader supervise them.  Better yet, let the team leader do all the painting. 

Read the rest of this post at Military.com’s KitUp!

– Eric Daniel

You know, it’s been said that the U.S. Army is the best equipped force in the world but I’m really more amazed by what we don’t have that other armies do than what we do have, or what we want to have that others don’t.

Take, for example, the four shot 25mm XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System currently in the works (the XM25 is itself an offshoot of the doomed XM29 OICW thingie).  It’s supposed to be effective out to 500 meters against point targets, will have a built in multi-spectrum electro-optical sight, and will have the ability to individually program the burst time on the launched projectiles so that they explode behind or over the target, thus defeating any frontal cover the target might have.

Sounds good on paper, and I’m sure there’s no other Army out there trying to develop a weapon specifically designed to attack a target behind cover, but the reality is, we haven’t got one of these either (yet, and I don’t see these getting issued soon either), and there are a lot of really simple weapons currently in service which could just as easily perform this mission. 

Rifle grenades:  What’s wrong with rifle grenades?  We, the American army, used the hell out of them in WWII and Korea, but they went away after that.  Were they not high tech enough, or was this one of those “no guns on jet fighters” decisions, where we decided that the types of wars we’d be fighting in the future would render these weapons obsolete?  There are any number of designs out there now that could immediately enter service with the US military as short range (<300m) anti-personnel, anti-tank (ok, anti-APC), dual purpose, individually fired munitions, yet we haven’t got any.

I understand that we have dedicated grenade launchers like the M203 now that can fill the role of the rifle grenade, but the 203 is an individually assigned weapon, and in the standard infantry squad there are only two (one per team) and in the Army’s table driven organizational scheme, if your unit isn’t authorized any (like mine) then you just go without.  With a rifle grenade, on the other hand, everyone in the unit has the capability of carrying one or two, and they can be fired by anyone (this capability would enable a commander to stockpile the grenades in a defensive position, or with a support by fire element, without disrupting unit organization by shifting grenadiers around.)

Shoulder fired weapons:  Next to the AK-47, the most common weapon carried by the insurgents is the RPG-7.  Introduced as a shoulder-fired anti-tank weapon in 1961, it is now the most prolific such weapon in the world.  What is the US equivalent?  The single shot AT-4 (M136.)  The US used to have a reloadable shoulder fired weapon, the M1-M20 series rocket launchers (a.k.a “Bazooka” and “Super Bazooka”) but the Bazooka was retired from service during the Vietnam war and replaced by the M72 LAW (tanks and the new ATGMs like the TOW and the Shillelagh would eliminate the need for a short ranged infantry based AT weapon) and later the AT4. 

While designed as anti-armor weapons, as the insurgents can attest to, they also serve admirably as “pocket” artillery, and what I wonder about is why we don’t use something similar. We have a number of similar weapons (the Marine Corps has the SMAW and the M3 Carl Gustav is in service with SOCOM forces) in our inventory.  The exclusivity of the M3 especially bothers me. Of a similar weight and size of the AT4, it presents a significantly greater capability in that you can reload it and you can fire a variety of munitions through it.  Again it would be a lot easier for an infantry platoon to carry a pair of M3s and 40 seven-pound HE projectiles than it would be to carry 40 AT4s.  Yet its use is limited to SOCOM, while the regular Army has to settle for the AT4.

Read the rest of this post at Military.com’s KitUp!…

– Eric Daniel

News flash folks The Army has decided to review the suitability and utility of the new ACU camouflage pattern for the fighting in Afghanistan (This is old news to the folk in the SF community They were granted an exemption a year ago to wear the old BDUs in place of the ACU in select theaters) and now theyre going to outfit two battalions with new camouflage uniforms. But theres nothing in the report that mentions correcting any of the more egregious faults with the construction of the ACU uniform itself.

While I was mulling over this tidbit, I came across an interesting photograph. It was a picture of some British soldiers returning from a patrol in Afghanistan. What caught my eye was the number of uniform violations I saw. Folks with their sleeves rolled up, some not wearing helmets, some with trousers bloused, some not, and the greatest infraction of them all, mixed uniforms!! Can you believe it!! There were soldiers, exposed to public scrutiny and ridicule, appearing in uniform items of different colors!!

Wow… The irony of it all though is, I know there are folk out there saying exactly that, and I think this is where the Army is really going to miss the boat on this whole uniform redesign thing; the issue isnt so much what color we make the uniform (though that is important), but just what exactly makes a combat uniform in the first place, and exactly how important uniformity (i.e. our fixation on wear and appearance) is in combat.

Firstly, let me say that I realize and fully endorse the idea that we need uniforms. Besides helping to tell friend from foe, the Geneva Convention also requires it. Secondly, I think Rumsfeld was right in that you fight with the army (or in this case the uniform) you have, not the one you want. Thirdly, with that having been said, I think the Army needs to practice what it preaches regarding unit esprit de corps and readiness a unit with high esprit de corps, cohesion, and morale will modify and personalize its equipment to meet individual and mission needs, which means taking the uniform you have and making it get the job done.

Why did those British soldiers look the way they did? Because someone in their food chain used their brain and made some tactical decisions regarding uniformity and mission accomplishment. The British dont have a one color works nowhere uniform like we do; they have a green one and a tan one. The problem is, they dont operate in an area thats uniformly green or tan, so in order to bust up their signature they mix the tops and bottoms. Im sure the decision to allow that was made at either the company or battalion (i.e. local) level, whereas for us (in the U.S. Army) such decisions are usually reserved for TRADOC.

Read the rest of this critique at KitUp!

– Eric Daniel

I Had an interesting experience the other day. My Guard unit went out for a three day jaunt into the wilds of Camp Pendleton to conduct some dismounted reconnaissance training. Now, granted, we were technically on base but since were a leg unit, we have to support ourselves; no barracks, no latrines, no water sources, etc. We were responsible for everything.

With this in mind, when I started to pack my kit, I had to pause for a minute to think about what I was going to do for some form of shelter. Thats when it dawned on me that the Army really hasnt advanced past the WWII era canvas shelter half when it comes to individual shelters. Yes, they have great and wonderful expanding and self-erecting medium sized tents, which weigh 300 pounds and fit nicely in the back of a 1.25-ton trailer, but theres nothing for the individual.

Now Ive heard all the arguments about this before, you cant use a tent in combat and you just need to use whats available to you in the field, namely, use brush and trees or dig out a shelter being the most often cited ones, but were not talking combat here, were talking bivouacking in the field. Moreover, on most bases where you conduct training, chopping up the flora or digging in the ground is strictly verboten, so those really arent options. The bottom line is, if youre going to be out in the field for longer than a couple of days in really crappy weather, itd be nice, tactical situation permitting of course, to have the ability to get out of the rain. Those gortex bivy sacks were issued now are nice for snow or a light drizzle, but in an out and out downpour you really cant get into it fast enough to prevent the sleeping bag from filling with water, and thats assuming that you jump in with all your wet clothes on. In those situations, youre probably better off just putting on your wet weather gear and trying to sleep through it.

So, I started doing a little research. There are a number of companies out there that make good, ultra light, 1-man tents. Unfortunately, most of those are alpine supply companies like MSR, The North Face, and Mountain Hardware and their products tend to be a bit, well, colorful (now this is not to say that these folk wouldnt make one of their tents in a different color fabric as a custom order job, but thats probably not a realistic option for the Joe looking to purchase one tent) and have a lot of parts. In fact, the only company I found that made an honest-to-God military style tent was Eureka, who makes both 1-man and 2-man systems, with a reversible woodland/desert camouflage pattern rain fly to boot (as an added bonus you can opt to just use the rain fly as a stand alone shelter if you dont need the additional wind protection.) The only downside to the Eureka tent is weight; the one man tent, complete, weighs just over 6 pounds, though it is certainly something you could spent your entire military career sleeping out of.

Another interesting option, and certainly one of significant weight savings, was to go the engineered tarp route. The folks over at Tarptent make some awesome, lightweight (18-oz. in the case of their 1-man shelter) shelters that are easy to set up, roomy, and keep the rain off of you, and the color is even reasonably tactical. In addition, they also provide, free of charge and publically available on their website, the plans to build your own first generation tarptent out of what ever material you choose.

So my solution? I snapped a couple of ponchos together, brought some bungees, 550 cord, and a handful of lightweight aluminum tent pins and lashed a lean-to to a tree limb and slept like a brick through two straight nights of continuous rain. Granted it got the job done but I was completely dependent upon that tree being there for me to tie off on. In the future I might have to look seriously into either some shock tubes I can erect to create a free standing dome for my ponchos one of those tarptents.

– Eric Daniel

Well, it looks as if the Army has again officially opened the can of worms that is the debate revolving around a replacement for the M16/M4.  With this go around however, the Army says all limitations are off.  They say theyre willing to consider any caliber, any operation system, and any configuration.

Given the Armys track record with sticking with the M16/M4 through thick and thin, as well as the Armys previous position that it would stick with the M4 until there was a revolutionary breakthrough in small arms technology (hand held death rays?) Im taking this most recent statement with a salt lick, but in as much as they are soliciting ideas, I might as well offer up mine.

On its face, it would seem that there are only three real issues to consider; how big (in caliber) how many (bullets in the magazine) and how to crank it (what operating system do you go with.)  Once you settle on those, putting them together is packaging. While there are any number of cartridges and operating systems that offer obvious advantages over the M16s feeble 5.56mm bullet and wretched gas carrier key operating system, if you wanted a truly revolutionary replacement for the M4, I would put my money on the H&K G11.

For those of you not in the know (not that I am, but I remember when it was developed) the H&K G11 rifle was developed as a replacement for the 7.62mm G3 battle rifle in the 1970s.  What the Germans wanted to develop was a weapon with a large ammunition capacity (50 rounds) low weight (< 10 pounds loaded) flat trajectory (no sight corrections at <300m) and a high degree of accuracy in 3-round burst mode.

To meet the burst accuracy requirement there were two ways to go, either fire projectiles simultaneously (shotgun shells or duplex rounds) or fire bullets very fast.  The shotgun shell method was dropped because the bullets which would do the job not only generated too much recoil to be effective, but their size put them outside the round capacity requirement, so H&K went with the shoot really, really fast approach.  This is where the G11 comes into its own as a revolutionary weapon.

H&K realized that the bigger the bullet, the more propellant it would require to drive it, and that propellant would be translated into not only recoil to be absorbed by the shooter but a loss of overall ammunition capacity in the magazine.  One solution was to use a smaller bullet.  The 4.73x33mm bullet developed for the G11 is smaller that the 5.56mm bullet currently used in the M16 but the high degree of accuracy with the G11 in burst mode makes the G11 as accurate firing 3 shots as the M16 firing one, so the combined effect on the target, with the G11, is greater.

The second issue was dealing with the recoil.  As has been documented since the invention of the first shoulder-fired automatic weapons, felt recoil will bring the weapon off target, thus rendering accurate, aimed automatic fire impossible at desirable ranges.  H&Ks solution was to eliminate the issue by having the weapon fire a 3-round burst so fast that the bullets were out of the barrel and going down range before the recoil reached the shooter.

Again, how H&K did this was pretty slick.  To speed up the firing process H&K eliminated several steps in the firing sequence, specifically locking, unlocking, extracting and ejecting, by going with a caseless ammunition, where the propellant, rather than held in a metal casing behind the bullet, is actually molded around it.  This eliminated the need for extracting and ejecting spent casings, as there were no cartridges to extract, since, when fired, the propellant body was consumed and the bullet launched out the barrel.  Using a caseless cartridge also enabled H&K to not only make lighter bullets (there was no weight wasted in metal casings) but also allowed them to pack more of the bullets into a given space (since the bullets are square, theres no wasted space in the magazine.)  The net result was a cyclic ROF of 2,000 RPM in 3-round burst mode (in single shot and full auto, the ROF is only 460 RPM.) An additional benefit with going with caseless ammunition was the elimination of additional openings for contamination.  Lacking an ejection port, the G11s chamber remains relatively sterile.

To eliminate the recoil issue H&K floated the barrel and action on a secondary recoil mechanism.  The effect here was that when the burst was fired, the body of the rifle would remain stationary against the firers shoulder, while the action and barrel recoiled down the secondary rail; by the time the action came completely out of battery, where the recoil would be felt by the shooter, the burst cycle would be complete (a recoil spring pushes the action back into battery for the next burst.)

The end result was a weapon that was light, with a high ammunition capacity, and which was capable of firing accurate 3-rounds bursts.

So what happened to the G11?  Well, as luck would have it, as the G11 was nearing production capability, peace broke out all over the world and with all the lions-and-lambs group hugging going on, the West German government decided it had more important things to do than buy a bunch of new wunder rifles, (like look for jobs for all its new citizens from the East zone) so the program was shelved. 

Well, if the Army is looking for revolutionary, I dont think you can get any more revolutionary than this.  I just dont expect the Army to explore it.

Check out the G11 here.

– Eric Daniel

Jason posted this comment a while back on my What is a Combat Handgun? entry.

When I got out I worked personal security for individuals.  I had to take 3 levels of firearms qualification classes.  Even with my experience several of my instructors asked me to try the revolver (yes I am going there)

I was skeptical.  But in their opinions (all were similar), if I got the **** scared out of me I would be more accurate with a revolver.  I went to a gun shop after doing some research and picked up a S&W Model 66.  Stainless steel, .357 Magnum, and adjustable sights.  Night sights too.

I started practicing with it every night for about an hour during my courses and would shoot both types of firearms.  No question I could get two in the chest and a head shot (had to unlearn that per my instructors, though…) even when worked up (we did push ups, sit ups and ran in place and then went into shooting scenarios and drills at the sound of a whistle).

In my very few engagements I felt 100% better with the revolver.  Stainless steel doesn’t rust and conceals nicely when not in use.  Speed loaders are exceptionally fast to load when taught the right technique.  And a .357+P hollow point round will mess the BG up.

Besides aren’t almost all of these engagements where you switched to a pistol for whatever reason CQB.  You are going to end up stabbing the BG in the head or chest anyway when the gun is empty, so reloading is unlikely.

I know the instructors who taught me had rarely seen statistics that involved a successful engagement between two combatants where the winner (good or bad) had fired many more than 3–6 rounds.  Anything with more shots than that fired usually involved one or more of the combatants retreating and looking for cover with someone or both wounded.  All instructors (to my best recollection) had fired their handguns successfully as I remember.  That is what made me pay such good attention.

Jasons comment got me to thinking.

Why not? 

Fine, revolvers, as battlefield weapons went out of style in the American army a century ago (surviving until recently as aircrew holdout weapons) and they dont carry as many bullets as modern automatics go (6 v. 15) but is the revolver really that bad as a defensive firearm when compared with an automatic?

I would think, from a purely layman perspective, that revolvers would have a number of things going for them, as a mass-produced, mass-issued defensive firearm. 

Firstly, they are reliable.  Yes, I know that most properly maintained military-grade weapons are reliable, but I would think that a revolver would have an advantage over an automatic in that it has fewer moving parts and its operation isnt dependent upon the effective transfer of energy (be the slide gas or recoil operated.)  Theres no energy to be lost, no slide to bind, no failures to extract, eject, or feed.  In short, if you can get the hammer to fall, the weapon should function as advertised.  Hell, even if you get a misfire, theres no SPORTS to perform, you just pull the trigger again. 

Secondly, they are durable.  Again, Im not saying that automatics are not durable, but I would think, especially when compared with a polymer-slided auto, the all-metal revolver has a longer working life.  Now, to clarify further, when I mean durable, I mean 30–50 years durable.  My issue .45 was 40 years old for Petes sake.  Yes, I think modern firearms are, for the most part, well built and will provide years of service, but I do believe theres a difference between a sportsman who uses the same handgun for target practice for 10 years and a weapon that gets issued to soldiers for field duty over a 30 year period; in general the Army pistol will see more abuse and have a poorer maintenance program, so soldier-proof weapons are a big plus (now before all you out there bag on me about dissing your weapon maintenance habits, youll notice I didnt mention you by name, so I wasnt talking about you.)  How many police officers us hand me down weapons that old, or stick with the dame duty weapon for that period of time?  Durability would also translate to maintenance costs as well.  With fewer moving parts, there would be fewer parts to replace over the life of the weapon, though this might be negated by the cost of having to replace a barrel (Ive never replaced a revolver barrel, mind you, but its got to be harder to do than swapping out one in an automatic) but then, on the flip side, there are no magazines or magazine springs to replace either. 

Finally, there are the politics and training considerations.  Revolvers are double action only weapons (okay, sure, if we brought back the Colt SAA, wed have a cool single-action handgun in .45 Colt, but I dont see that happening) which means that they are politically more palatable than are SA weapons (which also dovetails well with the fact that a revolver only has 6 bullets rather than 15.)  Mind you, Im not saying that this is a good thing, or that it is even appropriate to entertain such considerations when selecting a piece of life saving equipment, but nonetheless, the fact remains that it does happen, and so it would be a consideration.  In addition, in the one-size-fits-all category, a revolver would have the advantage over all the double stacked autos out there, and with the case of the .38 special/.357 magnum combination, youd even have the added bonus of issuing different rounds if you wanted to (yes the same could be said of automatics, but to get an automatic to function reliably with either a different cartridge or lower powered cartridge youd need to swap out some parts to account for the change in slide operating recoil.)  Also in the ammunition realm is the discussion of anything other than ball type ammunition.  Since we are never going to use anything other than ball ammunition (at least until personal linear accelerators come out) in the rank-and-file military, comparing .357 JHP to .45 WC to .460 Nitro Express is pointless and non-productive.  Again, Im not saying this is a good thing, but it is something that those in power seem to focus on, so its worth mentioning.

All this having been said, however, there are a number of huge, real world, realities that a revolver would have to overcome in order to get selected. 

First, there is the dearth of revolver ammunition in the military supply system, which is to say theres none at all.  Before we all started shooting our new wheel guns, wed need some bullets to shoot first (no, I dont see the Army adopting a 9x19mm revolver, though given how things have been going of late in procurement, I wouldnt be surprised if they did.)  I also realize that thered be the issue of overall effectiveness. 

Second, all those revolvers would have to be purchased, and those purchases mean money.  This issue is further compounded by the fact that revolvers, at least on the free market, appear to be more expensive than automatics (I came to this conclusion by looking at the MSRP for a variety of stock handguns, so it is more an anecdotal conclusion than a scientific one) and that there wouldnt be any commonality offsets associated with the new purchase, meaning a S&W Model 60 and a Beretta 92 FS are not going to have anything in common.  This means that all those Berettas still on the books would need to find a home in someone elses army.

Thirdly, there is the fact that revolvers are, well old.  While this has absolutely no bearing on the actual merits of the item in question (youll notice farriers still use an anvil and hammer for shaping horseshoes, devices introduced in the early Bronze Age (3300 BC)) in todays, its gotta be digital, carbon fiber, and Land Warrior compatible world, revolvers are looked down upon as being less advanced than automatics, and therefore less effective and ultimately less desirable.  Also, as mentioned, while there are very few things that can go wrong with or wear out on a revolver, the things that do wear out, like the barrel, are big-ticket maintenance items.  Given the Armys tolerances for equipment wear, and the relative ease of replacing worn parts on an automatic, the revolver, over the long haul, might be the less effective of the two options.  There is also the issue of weight.  Hands down, revolvers, especially when compared with polymer automatics, are significantly heavier than automatics.  Is that weight difference a deal breaker though?

That all having been said, where are we now?  Personally I would want a weapon that was firstly reliable (if it doesnt work, what good is it) secondly effective (the purpose of the weapon is to kill or disable the target, not piss it off) and thirdly is everything else; size (smaller is better) capacity (6 v. 15.) and ergonomics (how well does it fit in my hand (allowing for custom grips would be a nice touch) with political considerations last of all.  Would I personally select a revolver over an automatic?  I dont know, but I certainly not opposed to the idea and wouldnt frown upon a good .357 S&W if that were what the Army issued me.

Gerber knives are very sturdy and well-made. That having been said, they have also always been too gimmicky for my taste and most, if not all, have typically been considered wannabe knives by real professionals who use knives. There are only two killing knives I’d consider:

1. The old Army fighting knife with a blade that’s just like the issue Colt M-16 bayonet without the rifle hook-up. This knife has a sturdy, curved, dagger point, and it’s very smooth with a sure-grip handle in both the old leather rings and the newer rubber rings from Ontario Knife. It doesn’t jam between the ribs and is a perfect ear-canal knife. If you are a pro, you’ll know what I mean.

2. Is the Tanto; although the Tanto is more geared for outright fighting, it’s also a great rib-stabbing and cutting knife, and also an excellent ear-canal knife. I probably shouldn’t say this, but these knives also cut through bullet-proof vests like they were butter, as long as they don’t hit the ceramic plate. Even then, if they slide off of it while you are still pushing on it, they can still do some terrible damage.

The Ka-Bar of Marine fame requires too much brute force to make it work in too many circumstances, but it might be something I’d consider if I was forced to do so. That’s it for killing knives.

For working knives, there is nothing like the bulky and heavy Victorinox Swiss Army Champ. Not Wenger, but specifically Victorinox. It’s worth many times its weight in gold, if you have ever needed a really great working knife while out in the bush. One of my sons once cut a piece of tool steel with the hacksaw in one of my old Swiss Champs and didn’t damage the knife!

Gerber knives, with all those candy-ass serrations and gimmicks are more geared for the fire-rescue unit than the fighting man. I’d like to see anyone stick one into someone else’s ribs without getting the serrations stuck in between them. Yes, you can do it, if you turn it horizontally going in and coming out, but in a fight for life and limb, who the hell knows how they are sticking a knife into someone else? Sideways, upside down, it’s all the same when the chips are down. A real professional, chock-full of adrenalin, with a knife stuck three inches deep between ribs will still easily kill you without a second thought while you determine how you’ll get your knife back. (To free it, you have to violently pull it up or down to break a rib. By the time you decide to do this, you might be dead. Having tremendously injured the other guy is immaterial to your being dead.)

The guy who said that the aluminum handle would be bad for both cold weather and not to be left in the sun was absolutely correct. In very cold weather it will freeze to your hand and having been in the tropical sun for any length of time, you wouldn’t be able to hold it in your bare hand. The guy who talked about wrapping a handle with 550 cord (parachute cord) was absolutely correct too, except that before you wrap the handle, you take out the guts, so the cord lays flatter and ties better over the handle. If you want to make it better, twist the empty cord as you tie it and create a greater gripping surface. It’s not about making it stick to your hand, but about creating friction so that under any and all circumstances, including blood, gore and slime, you will be able to maintain a secure grip on your weapon. I gave my wife a Cold Steel Tanto with a 550 cord-wrapped handle some years ago and she loves it. She says it’s a ‘pretty’ knife, as opposed to my old U.S. Army fighting knife, which she says is a ‘nothing killer and a pirate knife.’ I love it. My children all say they’d rather meet me at night in a dark alley than to do the same with their mother. I’m very proud of the way I trained her, especially having taught her how to overcome female deficiencies in fighting men, something a majority of women have not been taught, consequently, when the chips are down they lose. It’s a shame. Me

ED The only reference to an old, bayonet-style fighting knife offered by the Ontario Knife Company was the SP3-M7 knife (Ive included the picture above) which features a 6 blade (11 1/8 overall.)  I hope this is what you were referring to.  If not, let me know and Ill update this posting.

Regarding your comments about the utility of the skull crusher point you see on many knives (the Gerber Yari II or the SP3, for example) I agree with you that a pointed crusher will be much more effective in a fighting situation, than would a flat basher like the Ka-bar.  For me though, as the poster child for the non-knife fighter community, if push ever came to shove, Id probably reach for a cinder block as a means of self-defense rather than a professional fighting knife (Ill never hit the ear canal, but Ill probably get the guys head with my brick.)

Regarding the use of the 550 cord, I agree, you need to strip the handle down to create a smooth wrapping surface.  With my kukri I sanded down the handle, with the Yari II I wrapped the forged aluminum handle with athletic tape to fill in the holes, and then wrapped it.  For me, I like to leave the core threads in the OD sheath, to give the material better absorbency.  One thing I found that worked real well was leather bootlaces.  They wrap well and they grip well.  Unfortunately, they are also porous and I was concerned about how to clean the knife up after getting it contaminated.  So I went with the 550 cord.

– Kit Up!

A lot of money was invested in building that state of the art pistol, and theres no arguing that it is in fact, one hell of a handgun; but you dont see too many of them around. Of all the SOF personnel I saw in Iraq, none had anything other than the M9 Beretta, and of the several I spoke to about the .45 SOF pistol, none had ever seen one.

To be sure, Im sure there are more SOF folk than there are SOCOM pistols, and there might be some sort of SOP regarding the use of the SOCOM, but if that were the case, why go through all that trouble to make such a superlative firearm and either not issue it in greater numbers, or restrict the use of the ones you do have?
Now, Ive said it before and Ill say it again. I am not a gun guy. As a soldier, I use firearms as the tools of my trade. I can take them apart and put them back together, and I know how to troubleshoot them when something does not work right.

What I cant do is quote chapter and verse on muzzle energy, knockdown power, stopping power, fit, feel, or functionality of any particular firearm or bullet. This having been said, however, I think, even given my own limited gun knowledge, I could come up with a replacement for the M9 for less than $5 million dollars.
Take my experience with the M1911A1 .45 pistol and the M9 Beretta. The thing I liked best about the M1911A1 was the fact that it was made out of forged steel; You could drop it, kick it, crawl on it, you could do anything to it short of melt it, and you wouldnt affect its reliability. Moreover, properly blued or parkerized, the M1911A1 was very forgiving of the elements.

Not everything on the M1911A1, however, was perfect. I thought the ejection port on the slide to be too narrow and I remember that stove piping was a constant issue, where the spent casing would extract from the chamber, but would not eject clear of the slide. Now I dont know if this issue was the result of the small ejection port or some other issue, but it was something I noticed with the pistol. The lack of removable or adjustable sights seemed to me to be a viable point of improvement.

While I understand that the inclusion of such features would obviously drive up the price of the weapon, I would have, at a very minimum, liked to have seen replaceable sights on the pistol. Many, many of the .45s I saw had mangled front and rear sights, no doubt the result of decades of service. Adjustable sights might have been something of a luxury for a strictly defensive weapon, but I believe replaceable sights would have been an improvement.

Finally, some complained about the recoil from the .45, that it was too powerful, or that the weapon, being made from steel, was too heavy. I personally thought the recoil was manageable (more than the M9 to be sure, but not alarmingly so) and when compared to all the other gear I was hauling around, the extra 2 pounds from the M1911A1 was hardly noticeable (not to mention a loaded M9 weighs almost the same.)

As for the M9 Beretta, it fired well, it was easy to take apart and put back together, and since it was made of a non-ferrous alloy, it was again very tolerant of the elements. Moreover, it did have a nice big ejection port (right out the top of the slide.) On the downside the M9 was made of a non-ferrous alloy, which made it significantly more susceptible to damage from what I would consider routine exposure to the combat environment. Ive seen M9s crack when dropped off of vehicles, suffer significant gouging, and pinching of the frame.

With the M1911A1 if I could get the slide to work I had faith that the pistol would work, and work safely. Not so with the M9. Moreover, the M9 was a SA/DA (single action/double action) pistol, which meant that you didnt need to thumb cock it like you did with the .45 or rack the slide to cock the hammer, you could just pull the trigger and the hammer would cock itself and fire. However, with the Beretta the trigger, in DA mode (hammer down) was WAY out there and for some folk, reaching all the way out there with one finger was literally quite a reach (Ive even seen folk double pull the trigger where they pull the trigger partway and then readjust their finger position to complete the process.)

For me, coming from a M1911A1 background, I always thumb cocked my M9 during qualification. This may not have been the standard, but it was how I grew up and I didnt see the need to go to a different method simply because TRADOC said so. Others have also complained about the fat double stacked, 15-round magazine, but again, with my big hands, that wasnt an issue.

Finally, as with the M1911A1 the M9 does not have removable or replaceable sights, though again, in the grand scheme of things, this isnt really a deal breaker as much as it would have been means of maintaining the accuracy of the pistol over its service life.
(Now, before anyone mentions it, I intentionally did not address the physical characteristics of the bullets themselves. Over the course of my military career the only thing Ive ever killed with my pistol was paper and plywood, so I cant comment on the combat utility of either the .45 ACP or the 9mm Parabellum. But bullet lethality is a whole nother can of worms, which we will get to shortly.)

My question before the court is this. What is a combat handgun and what is it that we really need and what do we want it to do. I would think that really what were talking about here is a defensive/back up/bail out weapon, not one that you would use as your primary offensive arm (yes there are many situations where a pistol is superior to a long gun in offensive operations, like searching confined spaces, vehicles, or what have you, but I dont think a pistol would be my first choice for assaulting an enemy position or defending my perimeter.)

Again, Im not a gun guy so Im not going to tell you what that ought to be, but let all of you take the ball and run with it. To better organize the discussion, though I thought it might be helpful to break down the discussion into a couple of functional areas.
Automatic or revolver? Yes, it seems a bit antiquated to ask the question, but its as good a place as any to start.

In terms of sheer reliability I would thing there would be nothing more reliable than a revolver. Up until the introduction of the M9 in fact, aviators were still issued a .38 revolver. They were small, easy to operate, and very reliable. On the down side however, I would think that, unless you trained regularly with one, reloading one under combat conditions would be something of a disaster waiting to happen (I have visions of Stanley Baker as Lt. Chard in Zulu trying to reload his revolver with shaking hands) but the same could be said of any weapon I suppose.

Something else to consider is action type. Should the pistol be SA (single action) only DA (double action) only or SA/DA? Many law enforcement agencies are adopting DA only pistols for liability purposes, but should this be a consideration for military personnel as well?

Construction. Steel or alloy? As I said, I grew up with the all-steel M1911A1 and then transitioned to the alloy M9 and now there are plastic polymer handguns, of which I have only very limited experience with (while deployed in 05 I carried a Glock Model 19 9mm compact.) I like the durability of the steel over the alloy M9, but the Glock also seemed to hold up well (it had a steel upper on a polymer lower.) Furthermore, what kind of finish should the pistol have? Blued? Parkerized? Stainless steel or some other exotic metal?

Size. How big should the pistol be? Full size (4+ inch barrel) or compact (2 inch) barrel? Should it have a double stacked magazine or single stack? Over the years many folk have complained about the weapons they were issued, that there were certain aspects regarding them that they didnt like, but Ive never heard any say that they couldnt use a weapon. Another question along these lines is, should the services field different sizes of the same caliber, or just a single unit? Should we have a pistol with a single stack or double stacked magazine? More is always better, but as would be the case with a double-stacked .45-style pistol, youre talking a lot more (in terms of grip size, that is.)
I think there is a tendency now a days to look for a satisfy everyone approach (the XM-8 with its golf bag of mission flexible barrels, for example) rather than a satisfy the requirement and learn to deal with it approach (heres your M1911A1, have a nice day.) We dont have his and hers M-16s or M2s or M249s, so coming up with five different flavors of handgun so that everyone can pick the one that feels best to them is, in my opinion, a waste of resources.

Cartridge. Ok, here comes the can of worms. Traditionally, this discussion tends to degenerate into .45 v. 9mm. Again, I have absolutely zero experience with actually using either cartridge for anything more than killing qualification targets, a task for which both are more than adequate. What I do know about them is they have both been around FOREVER, and their ballistic characteristics are well known. At a purely visceral level, when it comes to bullets, I tend to believe that bigger is better, so I like the .45, but is that really a proper basis for selecting a cartridge? Moreover, while the 9mm and the .45 are proven, theyre also old. There are many new (relative to the .45 and the 9mm) cartridges out there, such as the .357 SIG, .40 S&W, 10mm Auto, just to name a few. Should we consider one of those?

Economics. While talking about guns is great and wonderful, buying them is a completely different experience, and the bottom line here is, regardless of what the services decide to adopt as their service handgun, economics will play an important, if not THE most important, roll in the process. We currently have a lot of 9mm pistols in our inventory, and a lot of 9mm ammunition to go with them. So do our allies. Complain all you want about the 9mm, but it will require big bucks to replace the Beretta and its legacy (ammunition, spare parts, etc) But it can be done. The Coast Guard did it just recently when they dropped the M9 and went to the SIG-Sauer P229R DAK in .40 S&W while the USSS (United States Secret Service) went to the SIG-Sauer P229 in .357 SIG, siting its armor penetrating qualities among others (thats something else that has advanced significantly since the introduction of the .45 and 9mm; the proliferation of both soft and hard body armor.)

Finally, there is the question of going custom or COTS (Commercial, Off The Shelf.) Every couple of years someone will write in to ARMOR magazine about the need for a PDW (personal defense weapon) for tankers and other armored vecicle crewmen. The M4/M16 are too large they say, the M9 is too small what tankers really need is a custom weapon that is sort of M9ish, and sort of M4ish, but completely unique to their needs.

Rubbish. If tankers really needed a bail out gun, and there is a compelling argument for such a need, especially with all the urban action going on (though seriously, unless the tanks on fire, youve lost turret power, none of your MGs work, or your stuck in front of an enemy ATGM factory, you are generally safer inside the tank than outside) there are plenty to choose from.

Yes the M4 (or the full auto version, the M4A1) will work just fine, but if you want something more exotic then go with something from the Heckler&Koch MP line, such as the MP5K-PDW. I thought it sadly humerous that the Army announced the development of a combat shoulderbag after claiming that they couldnt find a suitable bag on the civilian market. To say the same about a handgun I think would just border on criminal insanity.

The bottom line here is there are enough guns out there that surely we can find one that meets our needs (youll notice that there isnt a member from any law enforcement agency in all of America walking around without some sort of duty weapon) and I dont think it would take $5 million to figure out which one we need.

– Eric Daniel

To me, knives are tools.

They are to be used and abused, to accomplish the mission or die trying.

Ive been through several multi-tools (on average I break one a year) and pocket knives come and go (they get loaned out, lost, or break) but the one knife I have always had unwavering faith in (up until the time I had to quit using it) was the Ka-Bar USMC fighting knife.

As I mentioned in a previous post, a good utility knife is indispensable in the field. Pocketknives like the Buck 110 are great for light work, but sometimes you need something with leverage. Whether it was cutting open MRE cases or prying the wire off of crated ammunition, my Ka Bar took it all in stride. In a perfect world a bayonet would have done just as well for most things, had I been able to draw one from the arms room when we went to the field, but sadly this was not the case, which made the Ka-Bar all the more valuable.

Moreover, the Ka Bars design alone made it superior to the bayonet. The all-leather grip worked wonderfully wet or dry, hot or cold. The blade was thick enough that you could pry with either the point or the flat without undue fear of it snapping, and the big steel endcap, combined with the knifes own mass, made for a fair field expedient hammer.

It didnt bother me in the least that I was in the Army and I was using a Marine Corps knife. That Ka-Bar was a tool, and one I deemed best available to do the jobs I needed doing. I reasoned that since the Marine Corps used the same rifles, ammunition, artillery and armor that the Army did, it was perfectly acceptable to use their knife.

Silly me. Eventually, someone vastly more knowledgeable in trans-service etiquette than I explained to me the magnitude of the military faux pas I was committing. No, it simply would not do to be caught out of doors with such an icon of Marine Corps tradition prominently displayed on my LBE. As a Soldier and an NCO, I should have known better. Need to bust open those crates of MG ammunition? No problem smash them on the ground or kick them, or use a stick (a good NCO always carries a good stick with them for just such a situation.)

The bottom line was that Ka-Bar was a Marine Corps thing and it simply had to go. No amount of pleading, reasoning, or rationalizing could resolve the situation. I just had to learn to do without.
Of course, ten years later Im back to carrying a non-issue fighting knife, but now its made in Nepal, not Olean, N.Y. so I guess that makes it ok…

– Eric Daniel