ARMY GENERAL: Screw This Procurement Nightmare. Give Me Glocks.

U.S Army General Mark Milley is sick and tired of the military’s Byzantine and politically-compromised procurement system, and is looking for a COTS (commercial off the shelf) solution to replace the Beretta M9 pistol instead of waiting for years for the Modular Handgun System trials to complete.

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The Army launched its long-awaited XM17 MHS competition in late August to replace its Cold-War era, M9 9mm pistol.

Milley criticized the program’s 356-page requirement document and lengthy testing phase slated to cost $17 million for technology that has existed for years.

“The testing itself is two years long on known technology,” Milley told law makers at a March 16 House Armed Services Committee hearing.

“We are not talking about nuclear subs or going to the moon here. We are talking about a pistol.”

I bought my first Glock (the nearly omnipresent G19) back in December, and have found it accurate and fun to shoot, a breeze to maintain, and easy to carry. The price was right, too — for the same $17 million the military plans to spend on “testing,” they could have already purchased 34,000 G17s or G19s complete with two magazines each.