Will NATO ever go with .45 ?

[kmrtnsn]

Come on guys, its been a 100 years, a lot has changed and improved; move on already.

[nogoodnamesleft]

100 years and none have improved on the 1911's trigger.

[R Moran]

100 years and none have improved on the 1911's trigger.

Yea, ya gonna have to do better then that.

Bob

[buzby]

the USMC may be. the Sgt Major of the Marine Corp talked to my unit last month and started talking about some of the new gear in the works, and made mention of a new .45 pistol

[Matt Edwards]

You guys are actually wrong...the reason NATO will never adopt .45acp is due to the fact that the only time they have seen its sheer awesomeness was when American servicemen were killing their grandfathers with it.

I was going to also ask "why whould they?" Then I saw Buck's post. All bets are off. Humpalot for President!!!

[Matt Edwards]

the USMC may be. the Sgt Major of the Marine Corp talked to my unit last month and started talking about some of the new gear in the works, and made mention of a new .45 pistol

Heck yeah. The services have been talking about this for what, 9 years now? I guess we'll see.

[JonInWA]

I think that tpd223 nailed it. There are two purposes served by a military cartridge: To incapacitate/kill an aggressor, and to subsequently tie down the aggressors logistical/medical support chain if he isn't killed outright. In terms of outright incapication, standard issue ball ammunition in 9mm and .45 ACP has been found to be roughly intrinsically equal; when you go to penetrativeness, as tpd223 laid out, the 9mm is superior, causing potentially greater woundability.

So-from a military standpoint, with military ball ammunition, the 9mm NATO round is the more effective from an overall perspective. Plus it's smaller and lighter, easing both the strain on the logistical system and the weight of the individual soldier's load.

As a former Army officer, I had absolutely no problems with the organizational conversion from .45 ACP to 9mm. I do not see NATO having much of an impetus to consider, much less make, a switch from 9mm to anything else in a PDW/SMG cartridge-especially since many of the newer eastern European countries with lesser resources have already converted from 9 X 18 to 9mm Parabellum in both platform and ammunition to be in commonality with NATO.

Best, Jon

[MiggyE]

I think that tpd223 nailed it. There are two purposes served by a military cartridge: To incapacitate/kill an aggressor, and to subsequently tie down the aggressors logistical/medical support chain if he isn't killed outright. In terms of outright incapication, standard issue ball ammunition in 9mm and .45 ACP has been found to be roughly intrinsically equal; when you go to penetrativeness, as tpd223 laid out, the 9mm is superior, causing potentially greater woundability.

So-from a military standpoint, with military ball ammunition, the 9mm NATO round is the more effective from an overall perspective. Plus it's smaller and lighter, easing both the strain on the logistical system and the weight of the individual soldier's load.

As a former Army officer, I had absolutely no problems with the organizational conversion from .45 ACP to 9mm. I do not see NATO having much of an impetus to consider, much less make, a switch from 9mm to anything else in a PDW/SMG cartridge-especially since many of the newer eastern European countries with lesser resources have already converted from 9 X 18 to 9mm Parabellum in both platform and ammunition to be in commonality with NATO.

Best, Jon

very much agree. i personally have seen 9mm ball penetrate old steel helmets that had shrugged off 45 caliber slugs my uncle threw at it with a thompson. besides, as a physician, my experience points out that wounds and trauma caused by 9mm and 45 are basically THE SAME.

as my uncle, a general and a guy whose picture hangs on Ft. Benning's OCC wall, its all logistics, logistics, logistics. even without former Warsaw Pact members to worry about, most of NATO prefers 9mm, and they have decades of practice, and the history in using this cartridge to back them up. then, as you pointed out, lighter, more compact bullets mean more carrying capacity over all. lesser headaches if you dont have to worry about fielding multi-nation forces and worrying about bullets in multi calibers

[sigmundsauer]

9 is fine.

For those of us pontificating on these pages, we could probably master a .45 ACP to make it worth it. For the legions of service members far less handgun savvy, a 9mm makes FAR more sense. They are easier to shoot by those uncomfortable with recoil.

It all boils down to marksmanship; in this sense I'd much rather have more ammo and focus on where the rounds are placed.

Tim