PDWs...and other small arms.

[ahillock]

AH:

Roger but there is a bit of a difference between two or three gun and the Mil. Like body armor with side plates plus a bunch of stuff you hang off of your kit. Helmets, eye pro, elbow pro, knee pro, rack of some sort, radios, et. al.
Also holsters that are easier than the old flap holsters but no where near a speed holster. And with all the kit being worn, the holsters tend to be leg holsters which means you got to get the carbine out of the way and maybe even contort to get to the pistol. BTW -- with all the kit a guy is wearing he may not be able to see the holster if he needs to. For CQB -- it is about the only thing a guy can do but it is way easier and faster to change a mag when a guy is wearing all the stuff they wear today. And with CQB it is a huge sin to run dry. Very bad kaa-kaa. If I were scoring 2 or 3 gun there would be big penalties for a malfunction of the primary weapon and a bigger penalty for letting it run dry.

There are doctrinal reasons why SF guys carry pistols. It involves, almost primarily, CQB. It is a good idea, don't get me wrong. But it isn't because of the money invested in training a SF guy.

LR55

SF guys do carry for CQC, but there are plenty of Marines and Army units, as noted previously, that are not issued a side arm. Part of the issue is definitely the money invested in SF guys. They receive the best equipment for a reason, they have monetary value to the military beyond what they are capable of but also what has been invested into them. A sidearm can make or break the difference between whether you come home or not, or even successfully complete a mission. Not to mention the monetary issues of supplying a sidearm to every GI Joe in the military vs. providing them to just the SF guys and specialized units. To say a side arm is not useful, just isn't true.

There is no question in a CQC situation, where you are actively being engaged + you are actively engaging the target, that "The fastest reload is the transition to secondary weapon system." If you don't trust this, do some training with a timer or even watch some of the pros on YouTube to see the time difference in what they can do with a reload of their rifle vs. transitioning to their side arm. When you are actively engaged in a firefight, fractions of seconds matter. If you are in handgun range and are being fired at, you don't have time to reload your rifle and not switch to your handgun that is already loaded and ready to go. That is idiotic.

This issue doesn't even get into gross motor skill vs. fine motor skill in a reload situation under stress as "cory" alluded to above me. In a fight situation with your adrenaline and other stress hormones going through your body, you lose those fine motor skills that makes a reload of your rifle more difficult to accomplish. I have fortunately never been in a gun fight and hope that I never am, but from guys I have trained with and learned from, your fine motor skills go out the window in a situation like this. As a result, your gross motor skill of picking up a sidearm that is already loaded with one in the chamber and safety off is much easier to use than having to figure out if your rifle went dry (not the easiest thing to keep track of in a gun fight) or if it has a mechanical issue + do all the manipulation needed to reload. Transitioning to your handgun is always easiest. This doesn't even take into account if it is at night with poor visibility and you can't tell immediately if you have a mechanical issue with your rifle or just went empty.

For a CQC environment where you are within handgun combat range, transition to a handgun is always the quickest reload.

Now if the engagement distance is 200-600 yards, then yes I agree 100%, reload or check mechanical issue with rifle is the best option.