>In defense of the 1911 in the m9/1911 argument. I believe that while the .45 was harder to control and an aging gun, the beretta itself has devolopment and reliability issues. It has a wide ejection port and I never never jammed one. However, it is easily stripped and from what Ive heard is hard to clean. Now, keep in mind, I dont own a beretta or use one daily. My military friends just tell me this stuff. And from what I read, Im inclined to believe them.<
Kinda funny: when I bought my 1991, a military friend told me all KINDS of things that were "wrong' with the design. Almost every problem he mentioned was attributable to the age of the 1911s he was familiar with. That said:
It seems that EVERY battlefield weapon is hated by those required to use it, or those who were trained on it's predecessor. The AR family is a classic example: it is almost the ultimate in infantry weapons. It can be chambered in at least 7 calibers I can think of off-hand, configured to serve in basically EVERY small-arms role necessary to a modern army (infantry rifle, PDW, sniper rifle, squad automatic) while utilizing the same basic manual of arms, and has had around 40 years to have the bugs worked out of the system (they'd probably have the last bug taken care of by using the H&K op-rod system). And with all that said, they want to adopt a new weapon... :banghead:
Personally, I think the biggest weapon mistake is the tendancy for humanity to think they can create a weapon "so terrible that it would make warfare unthinkable". Gatling thought that, so did Maxim (IIRC). And I'm sure the Manhattan folks entertained similar thoughts. But humanity ain't smart enough to back off of such things: we'll wage war no matter HOW terrible the cost will be...
Wow... that was almost deep. Think I'll have another beer...