OK, educate me here regarding pistols and the US military.
 

One thing I've never fully understood about the military is why only officers above a certain rank (Sergeant, I believe, though I might be wrong) are issued the M9/92FS or M11/P228. Don't all recruits and trainees go through weapons familarization and training with handguns and rifles/carbines alike? And if so, then why not issue them those weapons from the start, especially if they're going to be sent into a combat zone? Or do they and I'm just reading wrongly into things here?

A buddy of mine who enlisted in the army during the mid-nineties did say they were taught how to use the M9 at boot camp.

It depends on what your Military Occupational Specialty is. I'm straight up Infantry and when I went to boot the only thing we were taught about the M9 is that it sucks.

nope... the issuance of a sidearm doesn't have anything to do with rank really, more with your position.

P.S. Sergeant's aren't officers, they're enlisted

In the Canadian military, pistols are issued to infantry officers, signallers, MPs, aircrew and naval boarding parties. Overseas they often issue them to people who are working mostly on a large base so they can fulfill the requirement for always being armed without constantly carrying around a rifle.

OK...so if you're a front-line infantry soldier, then you're getting a M9 and M4/M16, regardless of whether you're enlisted or NCO?

Generally no. Infantry don't really have much use for pistols, it's just one more thing they have to carry when they have too much already. The purpose of infantry is to close with and destroy the enemy, pistols aren't very useful for that.

And not all infantry would get the M4.

You do realize that the OP specifically asked about the U.S. Military, right? :) Though interesting, answers based on the Canadian military will be confusing. From what I've gleaned over the years, there are tons of little details that are different and very specific to the country and it's military.

Well, based on my fairly extensive experience working with the US Army, the scale of issues for pistols is pretty much the same. The only US infanteers I saw carrying pistols in Afghanistan were commissioned officers.

In our army the pistols are issued to sub-officers, commandos and second line troops.

is it allowed in the US military to carry a sidearm, if you bought it yourself and it is your own? or is it against military regularities. i ask that, because i saw a documentary about a group of Green Berets in Afghanistan and they all we're carrying different sidearms ( but maybe because they are Special Forces )

In germany it is not allowed to bring your own weapon, but it would be cool to serve with your own sidearm :) i remember myself, we had the G3 as standard rifle and the P38 as a sidearm, we were one of the last units, they do not have the G36 and the P8. I allways wanted so shoot the G36 and the P8, but mostly i wanted to bring my Sig.

Edit: Wasn't the P38, it was the P1.

What years did you serve?

I served in 2006 at the 3./WachBtl BMVg stationed in Siegburg/Bonn.
We only shot with the P8 at the so called AGASP ( in german it's called Schießkino = shootcinema )

The weapon we used the most time was the Mauser K98k :)

Sorry i have to correct myself, we didnt shoot the P38, we shot the the P1.

I can't speak for the "Green Berets" ,however there is some Army Regulation against using personally owned weapons.

Wow, they still had P1s as late as 2006?

Aren't the P38 and P1 identical? If not, what's the difference?

As i heard today they still have :D They didn't replace all G3s oder P1s.

The difference between the P38 and the P1 is afaik not a really big one, in case the P1 is a modificated p38, but the P38 has a steel grip and the P1 a grip made of lightmetal

I know back in the day officers were expected to purchase their own sidearms. Patton was famous for his ivory-gripped pistols, and even Eugene Sledge (from The Pacific) had his personal Colt New Service. I wonder when that rule came into effect and how serious enforcement is in the field.

In the past couple of years we've hired some vets who have served in Iraq, Afghanistan and both. The prohibition on personal firearms is very strict and it is enforced - at least in the United States Army. Times have changed since WWII. Hell they've changed since Vietnam.

Delta shooters are allowed to use their own personal sidearms, at least according to Eric Haney's book.

I believe they are supposed to go out and buy a 1911 and the gov't reimburses them

Some guy told me Delta operators are allowed to carry any kind of loaded firearm on commercial flights.

Yeah, there's alot of that "some guy said" or "everyone knows" when it comes to military sidearms, espescially with SOF, but alot of it is just internet stories.

No western army is going to allow it's line troops carry something that's not standard-issue, that is a logistic and legal nightmare. The only SOF organizations I've ever worked with were SAS, US SEALS and Canadian groups I'd rather not name. They all had P226s, and they were all issued.

Living in fear of the big bad Canadians are we?

That's because the P226 is fucking awesome

I've got a weird P38. It obviously has the alloy slide, but it's stamped P38.

And just how do you think they get pass security and metal detectors at the airports? Do they just wave a badge that saids, I'm spec ops and yes I got a gun.

Post-war commercial guns with the alloy frame were still marked P.38, military / police production was marked P1.

And I don't reference the Canadian groups by name because I'm in the Canadian military and I actually care about OPSEC. It's in the public domain that Canadian SOF uses the P226, so I'll say that, but what units I worked with and when I did it doesn't need to be on IMFDB.

I asked him and that was literally his answer.

He sounds alot like I guy I know who claims to have worked Marine Intelligence in Somalia. His stories have lots of nice big holes in it that I could drive a LAV-25 through. Stuff like as intelligence he went out to personally figure out where the Warlords Commo shacks were or that he personally confirmed that warload leadership was meeting so that Airsupport could waste the lot of them....Well the warlord leadership thing happened but his details are well off from what is publically available.

I thought Delta people just go through the VIP security? The one with no metal detectors.

And my understanding of sidearms was that it they were issued out regardless of your position in case your main weapon failed.

If Delta officially "doesn't exist" (despite the entire world knowing better), why would they reveal themselves to airport security? Who would believe them? Are we going to start handing out Delta Force badges? They are military, so Posse Commitus (or however you say it) applies and they have no legal authority. it's nonsense. Besides, they travel inconspicuously. Going through VIP (what is that anyway? I though FBI types and the crew just showed their badge to the TSA guys and walked through.) attracts attention. waving a long-hair guy in civilian clothes through makes people curious

Nope, that's why you should be proficient in clearing stoppages in your weapon. If your Rifle fails you just yell "weapon down" or "black" depending on your unit SOP and your team-members cover you until you get your weapon back up.

1.
Delta Force officially "DON'T EXIST" in U.S Army, according to themselves. Just some fool politicians didn't really care about the reason why they had to hide these SOF's identity at the conference, and that's why we can now walk about special forces called "DELTA FORCE".

2.
I wouldn't try to argue about whether they are able to carry weapon inside airplane, and nobody gives a damn about the chance they will go crazy and start shooting at the people, ending up crushing themselves in white house, but there is no way anyone without any kinds of authorization from both airliner and central command center for airplanes (i don't know what they call it, but there are some places for commanding planes), not even president cannot carry weapon.

P.S) Exception for Airforce One may apply

3.
When your main weapon jam or fail to fire, the first thing you have to do is reloading the weapon, not pulling out sidearm in order to kill the enemy. The best way is pull out used magazine, pull the charging handle, empty the chamber, put in new mag, and start shooting at all over the place. Pulling out of sidearm instead of cleaning out your MW means you're in some serious shit.

Fed agencies like marshals, fbi, ice, can all carry on planes. Im sure delta would be able to get an exemption.

The point of a sidearm is that you have a backup weapon in the event your primary weapon does fail and you DONT have the precious seconds to do "tap, rack, bang". If all you have is one primary weapon and nothing for backup, then you'd take cover. You also did the process wrong.

If your primary weapon fails to fire, you don't take out the mag first. You lock the bolt back, then you strip the magazine, if that didn't already fix the problem, you look inside to see the problem to see if it is a double feed or if the bullet is jammed in there. If it is jammed in there, you have to physically pick it out. Otherwise, you rack the charging handle a couple times until the jam clears. Then you reinsert a topped mag and power stroke the charging handle one time and fire. That's for double feeds.

If it's just a simple bad round, you just tap the mag, rack the charging handle and then fire.

1. I was mentioning about dropping a mag when if the whole mag goes wrong or mag is being suspicious(like spring goes wrong, etc). I know that i wouldn't pull out whole mag and dump it only because of double feed. That's waste of ammo, and also stupid action in battlefield.

2. When i said "Pulling out of sidearm instead of cleaning out your MW means you're in some serious shit", that means you're in tough fight when you have to pull out sidearm instead of trying to solve the malfunction because it means that you don't have reaction time of cleaning your main weapon, but still needs to have a working gun on your hands. I don't think that pulling out of sidearm in range of 300 meters from enemy when your main weapon fails to fire. Maybe i should've mentioned about range condition first :)

If Delta, why not SEALs? Force Recon?, Ranger? Green Berets? Where do you draw the line? Delta can't, because they are military and have no authority (aside from the "i have a gun, you don't" bit). I'm sure letting them carry would violate Posse Comitatus(like I mentioned earlier) Here's Wikipedia, the all-knowing Internet God of Truth, accuracy, and The American Way, says: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act.

So Delta can't because they are DOD, not DOJ. Any questions? let's get back to the original topic.

That's not what sidearms are for in the United States Military;(excluding any Spec-Ops who you could be right about for all I know). Like others have said before the purpose of sidearms primarily is to arm those who aren't likely to see combat but still have a need to be armed, but don't need to be encumbered by carrying a rifle around all the time.

Like I said before if your weapon goes down you take a knee and yell weapon down so another squad-mate will cover your sector while you fix your weapon.

I remember reading once how "pistols are among the hardest kinds of firearms to aim, thanks to how many lack a buttstock, another full place to grip with the off-hand, and the short sight radius," so it's not a surprise that rifle form is emphasized first in the regular Army.

So, what would it take to make the first steps towards replacing the M9 with something like the Glock 20? Same magazine capacity of 15 rounds, much better stopping power in FMJ, flatter bullet trajectories and better range, along with more compact options (such as the Glock 20SF, the Glock 29, or even a Glock 29SF) should the need arise for those with hands too small.