The US Army needs Glocks

Read correctly: GLOCKs. The US Army had chosen SIG Sauer M17/M18 as its service weapon. Nevertheless, GLOCK is still in play. Apparently, the Pentagon was searching for Glock Perfection and awarded the company a contract worth around $15 million last week.

The American branch of Glock in Smyrna, Georgia, received a five-year contract for $14,999,980 for "various firearms, spare magazines, and spare parts" at a fixed price. The contracting authority is the U.S. Army Contracting Command, Newark, New Jersey. The announcement stated that "all pistols should be delivered without restrictions on re-export by the United States Government (USG)."

In the 59-page solicitation released by Picatinny Arsenal in July, the focus was on the "acquisition of non-standard weapons/commercially available Glock weapon systems," including up to 1,500 G17 model handguns, 5,000 G19, and 2,200 G26 pistols from various generations (Gen3, Gen4, and Gen5). Modular Optic System (MOS) (G19, Gen 3, 4, 5) and versions with threaded barrel (metric or standard thread, G19 MOS, Gen 4, 5) were also included. The image above shows a soldier of the US Special Forces assembling a machine gun, with a Glock on the hip.

Optional configurations include night sights or standard sights, metric or standard thread (for threaded barrel variants), an extended slide stop, extended magazine release, and optional Maritime Spring Cups.

While the standard handgun throughout the US military is the modular handgun system M17/M18, based on the Sig Sauer P320 series, various units often use Glock handguns, acquired with unit funds or in small lots with the National Stock Numbers (NSN) 1005-01-571-9875 and 1005-01-426-0608 for G17 and G19, respectively.

Furthermore, since at least 2017, the Marines have selectively used the Glock 19M variant of the FBI as M007. This pimped-out Glock was issued for concealed carry by criminal investigators, members of the helicopter unit that transports the president, and advisor groups training overseas. They can also be seen in published images of Marine Raider units, the special forces of the US Marine Corps.

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