Never used an M15 during my 21 years USAF active duty. A lot of my Air Police (later Security Police) friends did, though.
However, when I was a flying as the Electronics Maintenence Technician on USAFSS flights, we were issued an S&W short barreled K-Frame in our survival vests. Had 6-rounds of hardball, and 6-rounds of tracer ammo provided
. Don't remember what the model number was.
Later, when I was with AFOSI as a Technical Agent, we had S&W M36s with 3" barrels. Unfortunately, they didn't hold up very well to the USAF issued hardball ammo.
But, yes, the M15 was a very nice gun. I almost bought one some years ago, but decided instead to buy my M66 no-dash, which I still have.
Nice to read through this thread. Even brought back memories for me, even though I wasn't in the APs/SPs. Like I said, a lot of my friends were. When you're stationed on an AC&W Radar Site, we all got to be friends, just wasn't enough of us there to not be.