.45 ACP Procurement News
From American Rifleman, pp. 37, 56, July, 2007
"In August of 2005, the U. S. Special Operations Command issued a Presolicitation Notice, in which it announced the intent to purchase up to 649,000 caliber .45 ACP pistols for use by SOCOM and eventually by all armed services. The gun was to be a non-developmental item, which meant an off-the-shelf-pistol that already existed and required no development. Performance specifications were included....the total number of pistols to be procured was divided between 600,000 with a manual safety and 49,000 without one."
(Snip)
"Three special characteristics listed as objectives that would not result in disqualification if omitted. One of them is an ergonomic enhancement in the form of modular grip adjustments....Another objective is a force-on-force training module that essentially converts the pistol to a low-velocity paintball gun for use in realistic training scenarios. The last of the three is probably the most controversial--a Wepon Shot Counter...that counts the number of times the pistol is fired. The information thus accumulated would be downloaded into a computer.
(Snip)
"Beretta will have a pistol in the trials, but it it sholding its cards close to its vest.....
...The SigArms entry will be an updated version of the P220....
Although it is not well-known, Glock has put safeties on its guns for other markets in the past....
The Taurus entry will be a modified version of the 24/7 with a slightly extended barrel....
....the FNH entry...would be a truly new gun that represents all of the best features of several recent designs plus much more....
Para...would be a version of the ...LDA series....
the H&K entry will be...very close to the USP Tactical .45....
