According to an article in The Firearms Blog from 2015, supposedly quoting from a draft of the RFP itself:
Quote:
The MHS procurement is intended to be an open caliber competition, which means the choice of caliber is left to the discretion of the Offeror.
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If in fact S&W submitted its guns in 45ACP, then when the decision was made a some point that the military would stick with 9mm, the S&W guns were simply going to be dropped out, along with all other 45 caliber offerings.
Frankly, the description of the competition as being open caliber strikes me as a little strange, and not something the competing gun makers would want to bank on
unless there were solid indications that the Army and Marines were serious about dumping the 9mm round. Given the time it would inevitably take to replace ALL 9mm handguns in service and the logistical complexity of supplying two calibers of handgun ammunition throughout the probably-decades-long transition period, the likelihood of 9mm being dropped should have looked pretty small from the start, absent something specific to suggest otherwise.