Re: Why 9mm?
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: ArcticLight</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: joe90</div><div class="ubbcode-body">So I was wondering why the military has been using 9mm sidearms? Is there something that the 9mm has over other bigger calibers?
Thanks
Joe </div></div>
For the exact same reason, whatever it is, that they went to 223
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Since this thread has already gone all over the map anyway…
The original question “why the military has been using 9mm sidearms?” assumes, by the discussion that follows, the US Military. IMHO, it boils down to the political and yes, practical “need” to conform to NATO STANAG 4090. I only mention this again so I can add the following:
There are underlying reasons, or if you prefer, excuses for adopting 9mmNATO Ball over the previously issued .45acp Ball. They include, in no particular order, but are not limited to: Nominally equal “lethality” on the battlefield (not the capability to stop mind you, just produce wounds sufficiently incapacitating to take the enemy out of the fight...eventually. Military planner’s view of things has always been at odds with the view of the GI actually implementing the policy
); lighter per round weight and as originally intended, lighter pistol weight, with all that entails for the individual GI (only in so far as that then allows them to weigh you down with something else…that probably weighs more…and you probably don’t need
), the military logistics train and even strategic materials considerations; increased penetration through the light military equipment (LBE) and helmets of the time, as well as what we now know as primitive (fragmentation only) armor; reduced recoil impulse permitting greater accuracy/hit probability; as I mentioned previously, a convoluted and aging inventory; and; well…yadayadayada…
The reason the US Military “went to 223”; IMHO, actually happened the other way around from the 9mmNATO adoption. The underlying reasons for the 9mmNATO adoption were the primary reasons for USG adoption of the .223/5.56mm.
Since the early ‘50s, factions within the US Military (contrary to the dictates of the established Bureau of Ordnance) wanted the nominally equal “lethality”; lighter per round weight and as originally intended, lighter rifle weight; reduced recoil impulse permitting greater accuracy/hit probability (sound familiar?) at shorter perceived combat distances as well as, OMG, automatic fire capability (cause that sure wasn’t happening with the 7.62NATO in a rifle
); “modernization” for the sake of modernization…yadayadaya. These issues/ideas/reasons and many more were at the heart of the “Small Caliber/High Velocity Concept” which involved aspects of the Hall Study and Hitchman Report of 1952, as well as other projects such as SALVO which ultimately resulted in our beloved/hated .223/5.56mm.
Here’s why IMHO, it actually happened the other way around; Unlike our 1985 adoption of the 9mmNATO (M882) to conform to the existing NATO STANAG 4090, we’re the ones who pushed NATO to adopt the 5.56mm (approved originally as “Secondary Standard” in 1980) because we had already adopted the .223/5.56mm ourselves for all the SC/HVC reasons, and many more, including, unfortunately, internal US Military as well as civilian politics. And our major NATO allies had been, since the ‘70s, seriously toying with all kinds of alternatives (4.85, 4.7, etc.) to the Standard 7.62NATO, the same 7.62NATO, as the US 7.62x51 T65E3, we had previously forced on them in 1954…and then, without so much as a by your leave, we abandoned ourselves in the ‘60s for the .223/5.56mm.
FWIW, that's my take on it anyway