Lugers was in short suply over the WW2, not like in WW1 just one company made them. Germans thinked that thei are obsolete, and mede them just because the shortage of guns. Oficers prefered Walthers, Sauers and other pistols, Lugers were isued for the MG gunners, radio operators ETC. Luger was sovenir because it was quaite rare at the time
the m1911 colt .45 acp was better it was reliable wasnt prone to jaming. and the claiber was better
Of course this is the very reason that the US armed forces (plus nearly every army in the West) now uses 9mm over .45acp.
… oh wait.
The US Army adopted the caliber only because nearly every other army in the West (NATO) uses it…
And its M1911s were getting old. But some special operations units have returned to the .45ACP, ironically using a German H&K…
Of course nearly every army in the West adopted 9mm after WWII because .45acp is so superior…
Keep in mind that the US had enough clout with NATO small arms standisation to force through 7.62nato against the better judgement of many countries and then get them to adopt 5.56x45 in a stunning reversal of the earlier decision. So its a bit unusual for the US to adopt the stance of “everyone else is using it so we might as well” unless it actually, really makes sense.
Let’s be factual here.
The 45 caliber ACP has more muzzle energy than the 9 mm Parabellum round. It is also heavier and slower.
The main reason the 9 mm Parabellum was adopted is simple, the pistol can hold 15 rounds instead of 7, with 1 in the chamber.
So, the typical 9 mm Parabellum modern autoloader holds 16 rounds when ready to fire and the typical 45 holds 8.
16 is better than 8 in the minds of most people, partcularly when most lethal shootings in the world are committed with the ubiquitous .22 caliber long rifle round. If a 22 will kill someone, as it does frequently, then a 9 mm MUST be OK as a pistol round.
By and large, the people who think this way are right.
All world use 9mm because in this case thei had same round four smg and pistols. When USA get rid of thompsons, thei had to use two calibers instead of one, that mean that 45 had to go.
It is beter because the gun, that uses 9mm is lighter than the gun with 45 when thei had same ammo capacity.
9 mm is easier to get in the batlefield or in the combat situatin than 45, because it is comon rouond, legal almos everywhere
The Luger is an icon.
Great pics! Thanks!
I didn’t say that. As Ian Hogg once wrote, 9X19mm bullets have killed more people than the .45ACP has…
But some have found the round to lack stopping power, including the US FBI Agents that were sadly murdered by rampaging bastards in Florida:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout
Keep in mind that the US had enough clout with NATO small arms standisation to force through 7.62nato against the better judgement of many countries and then get them to adopt 5.56x45 in a stunning reversal of the earlier decision. So its a bit unusual for the US to adopt the stance of “everyone else is using it so we might as well” unless it actually, really makes sense.
Well, I’m unaware of the exact circumstance of the adoption of the 7.62X51mm NATO round. Why didn’t the US ‘force’ the .30-06 on everyone then? But I AM aware of how contentious and bitter the conflict was within the US military when the “Whiz Kids” like McNamara decided that a small caliber weapon in the incarnation of Eugene Stoner’s M-16 was needed to counter the Soviet AK-47. So, the the decisions were “monolithicly” from the US I’m guessing? As far as the inner conflicts within the US military it was so contentious that certain generals told Stoner that (parenthetically) “your going to get our boys killed!” and to the point that they attempted to rig tests by removing the sights from the M-16s during cold weather firing tests in Alaska!
The M-16 was really saved by (USAF) Gen. Curtis LeMay who wanted a weapon that was light to guard his precious nuclear armed babies. (He adopted the rifle after shooting it at watermelons during a 4th of July party/barbecue). And another, more important (to the adoption by ground forces) US Army general whose name escapes me, that had seen heavy combat in Korea and longed for more firepower for his infantrymen (as a junior officer) against the Red Chinese hordes…Yearning for sort of a cross between the range and stopping power of the M-1 Garand and the lightweight firepower offered by the fully automatic M-2 Carbine…
The Soviet 7.62X39mm “reduced” round was as probably as much the cause of the adoption of the M-16, and its overall success in Vietnam, and the US solely ramming it down the guts of other poor, little NATO countries.
And seeing as the Soviets themselves later adopted a “small caliber,” (5.45mm) the US couldn’t have been all wrong…
Which caliber rifle rounds did other NATO nations favor? I’m aware of only one. but I’m only asking, not trying to dispute your statement…
As far as the 9mm parabellum, I think I have also read (via Ian Hogg, if memory serves correct) that there seemed to be no rational, logical reason as to why the 9X19mm should have been as popular as it has become in modern pistols other than the fact that the Germans used it for the Luger, so it somehow became the “standard” pistol cartridge.
Very true! I recall the M-9 (M-92 Beretta) was adopted as many US police departments were casting aside their .38 Special service revolvers for the greater firepower offered by 9mm pistols.
But many have since gone to the .40ACP caliber is a nice medium between the .45 and the 9mm…
Hey Nick, Your right!..and the gun is now in Canada…go figure!
The 7.65mm Walther pistol presented to Adolf Hitler on his 50th birthday by the Walther Waffenfabrik Weapon Factory is now owned by Andrew Wright of the Wright Historical Museum at Swift Current in Canada.
The U.S. Military originally adopted the .45 ACP (or .45 Colt at the time) as a primary armament for officers, not a status symbol and last ditch weapon as the European armies did. With the introduction of the M-16 as a light weight primary firearm the role of the pistol in the U.S. Military shifted from an offensive primary armament (which was actually outdated by WW II) to a defensive last ditch weapon. As a defensive firearm a 9mm handgun is better suited because the soldier can carry more ammo for less weight. However, units that still use the pistol as an offensive weapon (i.e. Marine Force Recon, U.S. Special Forces, etc) almost exclusively use pistols chambered in .45 ACP. If one round from a .45 takes out your enemy but it takes three rounds from a 9mm the fact that the 9mm holds twice the ammo is negated.
.45 ACP and .45 Colt are two different calibres. What is now commonly called .45 Long Colt actually started out as .45 Colt, .45 ACP has always been called that.
General Patton did not carry his famous two pistols for any reason other than image and status. The issuing of pistols to officers as a status symbol is universal to all armies. Senior officers don’t fight at the front line so don’t need a weapon at all. Junior officers at the front during WWII were armed with SMGs or m1 carbines.
During WWI the situation was different due the lack of choice, a junior officer either carried a standard rifle or his pistol, since he had other things to occupy him, the pistol was a logical choice. This was relevant for all armies.
In the German army the whole pistol/status thing went further with staff officers not even being issued their pistols, instead they were expected to purchase them. Popular choices were pocket pistols like the Walther PP and Mauser HSc. Standard issue pistols like the P.08 and P.38 were reserved for issue to junior officers and the rank and file. The German army actually issued more pistols to its soldiers than the American army.
Personally I don’t know how much of this statement is fact, urban myth or boys in specalist areas getting to play with different toys. And even then the pistol is still a back-up to their M4 or other rifle.
I can point out that the 9mm P.08 and C96 were favoured choices for German trench raiders during WWI. That is about the only historic semi-standard offensive application of a pistol I can think of, unless we go back to the times of horse back cavalry.
Of course there are other times where a pistol is a useful offensive weapon, like the tunnel rats in Vietnam but that is far from standard.
On special forces, I was under the impression that the SMG in 9mm was the preferred weapon. If they are so concerned with knock-down why not use .45 acp in a SMG? The US has several suitable choices available there, or even in 10mm.
This is a myth. Stories of .45’s knocking people of their feet are just that; stories. It’s simple physics: for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. So if a calibre is powerful enough to knock the target down, the recoil will knock the shooter down.
Where the .45 has an advantage is that its slightly larger diameter increases the likelyhood of hitting a vital organ or the central nervious system to quickly take your target out. But the three to one ratio you mention is quite frankly rubbish.
The round now known as the .45 ACP started out as the .45 Automatic Colt. You are correct that the rimmed .45 Long Colt is a different round. I should have included the full original title, my bad. Though technically we are both incorrect because they have started calling them .45 Auto instead of .45 ACP now.
I did state that the concept of carrying a pistol as a primary weapon was outdated by the time of World War II however with the issuance of pistols the view was still observed. Originally the only weapon issued to men such as mortarmen and other troops that were at the front lines but not riflemen was a pistol. The inadequacies of the pistol was one of the reasons that weapons like the M1 Carbine were developed.
Marine Force Recon have been issued the MEU pistol since 1985 which is just an updated 1911A1. H&K also supplies a number of .45 caliber pistols for Special Forces. True the M16 type rifles are still the primary firearm but the pistols are not issued as purely defensive weapons. As for a SMG, H&K developed the UMP 45 however the lack of knockdown of the 9mm compared to the .45 is not as big of an issue when dealing with fully automatic weapons.
According to your logic a .50 BMG would be impossible to fire, that or it isn’t capable of knocking down a person either. 
When the U.S. military submitted the requirements that resulted in the adoption of what eventually became the 1911 one of the requirements was for a lot of knockdown. Subsequently they tested the .45 ACP on cattle and the round reportedly had the energy to knock down a cow. Now I have never tested my .45 on cattle and would think that something vital would have to be hit to bring down an animal that large but there is no doubt that the .45 has much greater knock down than a 9mm. The three to on ratio was just an example-I have no studies to back it up-but the fact that one .45 round has a better chance of stopping an individual than a single 9mm round is certainly not rubbish.
Oh I forgot to mention there were still field grade officers that only carried a 1911A1 up into the 1960s. They found out rather quickly that Viet Cong and NVA snipers would target anyone not carrying a rifle first because it showed that they were officers so it wasn’t long before even they began carrying M16s if nothing else to hide the fact that they were officers from the enemy.
M2 muzzle velocity is quoted as 2810 fps for a 720 grain bullet. In sensible units, that’s a 47 g bullet travelling at 856 m/sec. That’s a momentum of 40 kg m/sec. Assuming that the bullet penetrates a the body of an adult male at that speed but doesn’t go out the far side (extraordinarily unlikely, but bear with me) then they will suddenly be moving backwards at about 0.5 m/sec (a bit over 1 ft/sec). That’s equivalent to a hard shove, and won’t knock anyone off their feet unless they’re unbalanced at the time.
If the bullet comes out the far side at say half the original speed (much more likely) the magnitude of the shove is halved. In other words, even .50 BMG is pretty unlikely to bowl someone over. Blow them in two and scatter them over a wide area maybe, but not knock them over.
Oh it will blow parts of them over:army:
However if a person was somehow able to have say a bullet proof vest that would stop a .50 BMG round the sheer impact of that heavy of a bullet would knock them over, probably a few times.
I guess I should have used a deer hunting story to better illustrate my point earlier though. Using a 20 ga shotgun i shot a 120lbs deer at about 30 feet and knocked it over on its back but being that i only weighed about 100lbs (10 years old) the recoil should have been enough to knock me clean out of the tree given the example put forth earlier. Granted that didn’t happen.
It’s not my logic its simple physics as pdf27 has pointed out. Your anicdotal stories are just that; stories. They have no relevance in debating well established laws of nature.
Also for the record why do you think rifles in those calibres have muzzle breaks? Its to re-direct that opposite energy away from the shooter. But even then it is to make it less painful to shoot rather than anything else (think of the early anti-tank rifles of WWI, they had no muzzle breaks or padding for the shooter).
So it’s just a figure you pulled out of your arse and presented as fact? But yes according to FBI studies (the same ones that said knock down is a myth) .45 has a better chance of stopping an individual than a 9mm, not because of knock down but because of that 2.5mm extra chance of hitting something vital.
That deer wasn’t knocked over by the force of the shot. It fell over as a reaction to the pain and blood loss from being shot.