Combat pistols: seeking a man-stopper: experience in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years has reinforced the importance of compact weapons in operations in urban environments. The pistol is a defensive weapon for the overwhelming majority of military users such as staff officers, vehicle and aircraft crew members and others who cannot be encumbered with a rifle or carbine.

Summary

---

Warfighter: weapons

See the full content of this document

Extract

---

Combat pistols: seeking a man-stopper: experience in Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years has reinforced the importance of compact weapons in operations in urban environments. The pistol is a defensive weapon for the overwhelming majority of military users such as staff officers, vehicle and aircraft crew members and others who cannot be encumbered with a rifle or carbine.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Combat soldiers such as machine gunners, military police officers and naval boarding parties are usually armed with pistols as a secondary weapon. Special operations forces are one of the few user groups to employ the pistol as both a defensive and an offensive weapon. Whether used in self-defence or offensively, the most important characteristic of the pistol as a close-quarter weapon is it kills or disables an opponent with a single round.

In May 2003, following the US-led invasion of Iraq, the US Army's Program Executive Office Soldier sent a team to visit units in country to investigate equipment performance. Concerning the Beretta M9 pistol the team reported:

See the full content of this document

---