Glock 17 9mm pistols replace Browning for UK forces
British forces are to be given a new standard issue handgun for the first time in more than 40 years.
The Ministry of Defence has signed a £9m contract to provide the Armed Forces with more than 25,000 new side-arms and holsters from Austria's Glock.
It will replace the Browning 9mm pistol which has been in service since 1967.
The Glock 17 9mm pistol is lighter than the Browning and can be fired faster, within a second or so.
Colonel Peter Warden, from the MoD team introducing the new weapon, says that after well over four decades in service, the pistol from US manufacturer Browning was no longer the ideal weapon and had become increasingly expensive to maintain.
"We began to lose a little bit of confidence in its reliability. So we trialled seven different weapons, and got down to the Glock as the best of the bunch," he says.
After a tendering process which lasted just two years from start to finish, the MoD is buying the side-arms to issue to all three services.
Among the first people to get the new Glock over the coming weeks will be troops serving in Afghanistan, where the enemy can sometimes attack at very close range.
The pistols are most effective at a range of between 10 and 25 metres, and the Glock 17 is lighter, more accurate and its magazines can carry more bullets than the Browning it replaces, according to the trials team.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-20978842
