Sharpen Yourself: “40 Second Boyd”

Col. John Boyd

“In the mid to late fifties, a fighter pilot could earn himself a quick forty bucks and perhaps a nice steak dinner in Vegas – not to mention everlasting renown, which is to fighter pilots what oxygen is to us lesser beings – by meeting over the Green Spot at thirty thousand feet and taking position just 500 feet behind an arrogant and unpleasant man with precisely zero air-to-air victories to his credit. From that perfect kill position, you would yell “Fight’s on!” and if that sitting duck in front of you was not on your tail with you in his gunsight in forty seconds flat then you would win the money, the dinner and best of all, the fame… To be challenged in such a manner is an irresistible red flag to men like this, and certainly no less of one because the challenger was a rude, loud, irreverent braggart who had never been victorious in actual air-to-air combat. And yet that forty dollars went uncollected, uncollected for many years against scores of the best fighter pilots in the world.

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TACOM Orders 20,000 Beretta 92FS Pistols

Beretta 92/M9, firing

Beretta U.S.A. Corp. in Accokeek, MD recently received a 3-year, $8.2 million firm-fixed-price contract for 20,000 Beretta 92FS 9mm pistols. Work on this contract will be performed in Accokeek, MD, with an estimated completion date of Oct 20/09. One bid was solicited and one bid was received by TACOM Contracting Center at Rock Island Arsenal in Rock Island, IL (W52H09-09-D-0037).

The Beretta 9mm pistols have received extensive criticism since the pistol’s inception in the 1980s. Modern front-line soldiers, who frequently face armed, drug-enhanced opponents in the Middle East and Afghanistan, have re-echoed some of those criticisms. This problem is not exactly unknown in certain American neighborhoods, either. American law enforcement agencies seem to prefer Glock pistols, and many are also moving to heavier rounds; .40 caliber is becoming dominant, and some are even using .45 caliber pistols. Or perhaps the best solution lies in the bullets?