Joint Service Small Arms Program

The Joint Service Small Arms Program, usually just called JSSAP, was created to coordinate weapon standardization between the various U.S. armed service branches.

Their first major program involved the search for a new 9 mm Para pistol to replace existing M1911A1 and a variety of .38 Special revolvers. Starting in the late 1970s and going into the next decade, the U.S. Air Force was originally selected to lead the selection process. Entrants included the Beretta 92S-1, Colt SSP, Smith & Wesson 459, FN DA, FN FA, FN High Power, Star M28, Heckler & Koch P9S and H&K VP70. The Beretta would be declared the winner, but the U.S. Army contested the results. The DOD and JSSAP gave the task to the Army starting in 1981.

The first Army test resulted in all pistols failing. The standards were lessened and a retest was done, but again, none passed.

By 1983, a new program was started, now called under the XM9 name. These service pistol trials would result in adoption of the Beretta 92F as the M9 Pistol. Note that these later trials did not have all of the same pistols competing.

Controversy over these trials lead to the XM10 trials, but these were boycotted by some makes and resulted in the Beretta M9 winning again.

SIG-Sauer's P226 passed the XM9 trials but lost out in the final bidding. In a later competition for a compact service pistol, SIG-Sauer's P228 became the M11 pistol.

In the 2000s, a new joint service handgun was started, the Joint Combat Pistol which was actually the result of a merger of two earlier programs: the U.S. Army's Future Handgun System and USSOCOM's SOF Combat Pistol. However, the Army ultimately pulled out of the competition.

ee also

*List of individual weapons of the U.S. Armed Forces
*Objective Personal Defense Weapon
*Personal Defense Weapon