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

[Excalibur]

Originally Posted by Mazryonh

Otherwise, we'd still be using M14s instead of M16s. Of course, as I've said before, on-paper-effectiveness is no guarantee a weapon system or new ammunition will be adopted (sadly enough).

The deal with the M16's adoption was very controversial and it happened during a time in military standards where they believe what they got works and most old men of the military don't like to make their rifle ammo smaller caliber so they compromised and created the M14. Otherwise, the M1 Garand would still be in service because the M16 was so new at the time. It introduced so many new technology that frankly, the higher ups in the chain of command didn't know how to make heads or tail of. It's the old saying of if it isn't broken, don't fix it