Army Fires Off Criticism at Plan to Oust Beretta as Military Gun
The Army voiced outrage today at a move in Congress to throw out the Italian 9-millimeter Beretta pistol as the U.S. military’s new standard handgun and to reopen the competition for an American company.
“This is worse than absurd,” Army spokesman Maj. Phil Soucy said.
“The move is political and it wrongly suggests that the Army lied, cheated and rigged the original competition against Smith & Wesson.”
The Pentagon agreed last year to spend $75 million to begin replacing the cumbersome, World War I-vintage Colt .45 pistol with the smaller, fast-firing and accurate pistol made by Beretta SPA of Italy.
But after Beretta won two court challenges and delivered 11,700 of the 315,980 weapons, the House Appropriations Committee voted Thursday to reopen the competition to give Smith & Wesson of Springfield, Mass., another crack at selling its own 9-millimeter pistol to the military. (Story on Page 24.)
Army and Marine officials both said today that the Beretta had won the competition with Smith & Wesson fairly and that the contract should not be reopened.
The Army said it would cost $8 million to $15 million to reopen the competition.
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