I dont think Beretta was so much arrogant to the military as the military in this case are being azzholes to Beretta.
Indeed. I don't know why, but I've been following the MHS thing closely. I don't know much about the US military runs procurement contracts, but it sure seems an awful lot like they already know who they want to give the business too, and the bidding is all just for show. My
guess is that S&W is going to be the beneficiary, but I'm having a hard time finding out who is even in the race.
The fact is, at least from what you can read on the Inter'tubes (and when are they wrong??), you can hardly even tell what the parameters are. I mean, caliber is kind of a big deal in a handgun bake-off. They don't know what they want? And what does "modular" really mean? Just how interchangeable does it have to be? The only thing out there that really seems to be plug and play is the SIG 320. Hell, it even swaps with parts from their alloy pistols. If that level of modular is a requirement then I don't really see who else can play. (Well, Detonics Defense does advertise the same, and lots of "we've got great special sauce ergonomics" talk, but I don't see how they could be a serious contender as someone to fulfill even 10% of the army's contract. But they can always partner...)
So, Beretta doesn't seem dumb or behind the times to me at all. The M9A3 was offered by them as an ECO (Engineering Change Order) on their existing contract, which has like 200k replacement pistols already bought and paid for if I recall correctly. They offered it at a discount (from what I read), and it is an incremental change that addresses most of the "announced" shortcomings of the existing pistol. A quick search and you find many people saying the M9A3 *will* be the pistol going forward, and the MHS will just be scrapped as a waste of time.
In fact, it makes a huge amount of sense just to keep the M9A3 for 95% of the military and let the special ops, &tc. choose their own as they already do (and always will). The M9A3 is cheap, no need for retraining, holsters, armorers tools, &tc. It would save a huge amount of money.
If they are leaving 9mm, why not say so and let people work to get them solutions in the caliber they want? Beretta offered them .40cal with the M9A3, by the way. If they are dead set on .45, well they should just announce that. And if they really don't know what they want then the manufacturers are just jumping through hoops and wasting their time to win a contract that doesn't exist, or has already been quietly "won" by someone else anyway.
