I would rather all the money spent on new/more sidearms and a new rifle/round be spent on better training with what we have now.

As in more #$%@!* money to spend on ammo to train with.

Well, everyone wears that. In tans the only way to tell Army, Navy and Air Force apart is the crest on the name tag. In greens the t-shirt's and berets are at least a different color. The M4 variants, depending on when you were there, were likely C8A2s, with the 16" heavy barrel. Most infantry troops carry C7A2s (20" barrel, M4 style stock), at least when I was there with 1 PPCLI it was mainly M203 gunners and LAV crew that had the C8s. The M249 would have been a C9, again depending on year probably the C9A2, which comes with an 18" and a 14" barrel and a folding stock.

Excaliber: Can't speak to US military, but as far as Canadian military goes, yes. Money would be much better spent on training than new kit. Hell, it's a good thing I'm a shooter in civilian life, because in Army life my training with the Browning amounted to "here's a 9 mil, try not to shoot anyone". As Checkman said earlier, civvie shooters tend to forget that most people who carry a handgun for work aren't gun people, and espescially in the case of those who don't carry it as a primary weapon, probably aren't espescially interested or well trained in its use. I'd be more concerned with it being as simple and light as possible rather than a favorite of competition shooters or Guns and Ammo.

In all honesty, I think a Glock 17 would be a good general service sidearm.

Cheap, light weight, easy to use, nice big mag, reliable, simply manual of arms.

But for good or ill, the U.S. military likes external safeties for the masses.

Nyles, I'm guessing then that they were MPs.

They had that MP sense of "I'm watching you Trooper, regardless that you're in a different uniform" versuses that whole SOF "yeah, you know and I know I'm cool. We can be friends but I don't want to waste the effort right now" swagger of SOF dudes.

The big green part of the US military, at least. Keep in mind SIGs and Glocks are quite popular with SOF units. ;)

I remember reading an article a few years ago where a Green Beret unit was given permission to use the Glocks they've been picking up in Iraq and they got to customize the Glocks they keep confiscating.

whats the point of the glock 30s? I mean, glocks one big product is....fail?

When will they make a single stack 9 which people have been BEGGING for. Seems smith and wesson and springfield have the right idea.

It was Glock vs M9 article from the 2011 American Handgunner Tactical Annual, written by Randy DeHay. Got them from corrupt police. Major grip modifications were done to them. Hey they were free.

I doubt they want to go into the R&D to make one since they don't feel the need to compete, both because they are so secure in the market and because of the stiff competition you've mentioned, as well as the offerings from Kahr and all the micro 9s coming out. What I want to see is all these companies, making gigantic fat double stack 20+1 service guns and then going to the opposite side of the spectrum and making slim, light single stack guns for micro carry, go balanced tier and make trim double stack guns with the slimness of the singles and a significant increase in capacity, around 12 rounds or so. There is very little good competition in this market niche, most of which are still pretty chunky like the Glock 26, hard to find like the 6906, or hard to find and expensive like the P7M13, and I know there's demand for it. If Kahr started making double stack K9s/P9s, I'd surely be a happy camper.

As far as the British's switch, it's interesting to see them go from a gun with a manual safety to one without though. Of course I still don't like safe action guns for duty use as I don't think they're that "safe" still, but if an operator, soldier or military bureaucracy weighs that next to ease of use, instruction and the tenth of a second faster one will be in deploying the weapon, go figure.