Why the U.S. military made the right decision ditching the M1911

Damnit, not again (Photo by Jim Grant)

When the United States military chose the Beretta Model 92 to replace the all-American M1911 as the standard sidearm, people lost their minds. It was as if society forgot about the M16’s failure in Vietnam and all the men who died as a result, did so for nothing. Once again the military bought into some gun company’s marketing hype and ditched a successful design for a smaller-caliber weapon with no perceivable gains.
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The M1911 and its replacement, the M9 (Photo by Jim Grant)

The M1911 had seen our troops through WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam and even earned a reputation for stopping enemies in their tracks. After all that, the brass wanted to ditch the hard-hitting workhorse for some Italian design based off a Nazi pistol that the 1911 clearly outclassed?!
The M9, 1911 and the pistol I think should have replaced the 1911, the P226 (Photo by Jim Grant)