Sidearms. Who had the better weapons?

"was going to comment that it was the Colt 1911, because after you missed all your targets, you could throw the thing. With it's large size and weight, if you hit someone, you'd do a lot more damage than with those other puny pistols. Plus, there was the added bonus of when you lost all that weight hanging on your hip, you can run faster"

reminds me of the scene in private Ryan where sarge throws his pistol at the german

 

reminds me of the scene in private Ryan where sarge throws his pistol at the german

It's not his helmet?

 

Could well depend on which version ye watching, Ropi. I've seen two different 'cuts' and I believe there may be more. Subtle, but noticable scene changes take place. It's quite weird.

 

Hang on Bobby and Jeff get to carry guns you Yanks have all the fun
It was issued, as a tool of the trade Jason. All the police here are armed you know, because the bad guys are armed and dangerous, and carry automatic weapons....

 

Only if they are new. The dad of one of my mates once told me that when he was in the army, he had a TT as a sidearm (in the '80s, not the '50s or '60s!), and he said that his weapon was so abused, that it couldn't get the rounds out straight at 7(!!) meters. The bullets were also spinning in a very strange way: they were looping and if they'd hit the target they often arrived with their bottom ahead... But it was a really abused piece I guess.
I think a TT (7.62x25mm) would really be "powerless" for you after a .45 Colt:p:p

I find that odd. The TT fires the same 7.62x25mm round that the Soviet submachineguns of the era fired. The cartridge is, if anything, very overpowered. I regularly fire 50's manufactured Tokarev ammo in my CZ-52 and I find it to be a very flat trajectory, high powered round, even with 60 year old ammo. Ballistics test have shown the cartridge can penetrate Level IIIA body armor and kevlar helmets.

I suspect your friends story has more to do with a batch of very bad ammo rather than the weapon firing it and nothing to due with typical performance of an excellent cartridge.

I think a TT (7.62x25mm) would really be "powerless" for you after a .45 Colt
I regularly fire a couple of .45's as well. I find my 7.62x25 calibre CZ-52 to be much more powerful than .45 ACP

Now, if we were referring to stopping power I'd prefer the .45 to the Tokarev as the TT's round is virtually guaranteed to overpenetrate (except perhaps when the target is wearing heavy winter clothes) whereas the .45 dumps all of its considerable energy (largely a function of width & weight in its case) into the target. This creates a larger wound channel and is more likely to stop your enemy rather than punching holes through him (wasting energy traveling beyond the target), that will eventually kill him, but may well allow him some time to continue firing back.

I see each as tools for different tasks. The TT with its flat trajectory does well at the longer distances one often finds in Russia, and its very high muzzle velocity guarantees penetration even through bulky winter clothes. The 1911 was designed in response to US experience in the Phillipines where it was felt that more stopping power was needed. Close range and a lack of heavy winter clothes meant that the .45 performed well in the Pacific.

I have pistols in both calibres and love shooting both about equally. The .45 (mine is a Star M45, as is my girlfriends, albeit hers is much nicer) is a joy to shoot, the heavy weight of the pistol absorbing much of the recoil and the slow speed of bullet making for a different experience from other pistols that are "snappier". The CZ-52 is an experience to shoot, the high powered round offering up an impressive fireball, and recoil being significant, but although the rudimentary blade sights of the weapon are a little difficult to use, once mastered are more than adequate to utilize the flat trajectory of the cartridge to show some excellent accuracy.

I've handled one of the Yugoslavian copies of the TT-33 (M70A). The small size of it struck me. I imagine it would be a bit of a handful, perhaps being hard to control. The other potential downside I see of the TT-33 is its lack of a safety.

Now, if given my choice of WWII sidearms, there's no question I'd choose a Browning Hi-Power. There's really nothing wrong with 9mm's stopping power. Certainly nothing that 13 rounds of it can't solve!B)

Cheers!

 

I suspect your friends story has more to do with a batch of very bad ammo rather than the weapon firing it and nothing to due with typical performance of an excellent cartridge.



No, I don't think they had bad ammo... He was in the border guards, and those guys always had the freshest ammo avialable, even in communist era... the ammo they didn't use was moved up later on to the other units... He was talking really about the bad conditition of the gun (probably about the one specific gun, or guns they were equiped with).


Now, if given my choice of WWII sidearms, there's no question I'd choose a Browning Hi-Power. There's really nothing wrong with 9mm's stopping power. Certainly nothing that 13 rounds of it can't solve!B)



Agreed!

 

My old fella had a captured German .45. Any ideas what it would have been?

He slept with it under his pillow for years after the war. What with the nightmares an all. Possibly down to a lack of trousers.

 

The Browning .45, of the dozen or so types of handguns I've had the opportunity to fire, still does it for me. And, as the veterans have noted with the Thompson, when you hit someone with a .45 round they tend to stay down.
Just how frequently did sidearms get used in WW2? I'm sure it was simply a decoration for most but a nice confidence booster to have.

 

Deleted comment

 

My old fella had a captured German .45. Any ideas what it would have been?

He slept with it under his pillow for years after the war. What with the nightmares an all. Possibly down to a lack of trousers.

The Germans didn't have their own .45 as far as I am aware although they did use captured Norwergian M14s.

Kongsberg Colt - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Regards

Richie

 

Cheers Richie.
Could well have been what you mention. He did mention it kicked like a mule and was certainly not a US .45

 

Goering carried a privately purchased Smith & Wesson .38. Might have been something like that.

 

Putting aside the fact that officers would sometimes take a rifle in order not to make themselves targets (this brings to mind that iconic picture of Calvert, Shaw and Lumley at Mogaung), I read somewhere that the higher up the chain of command you go, the more troubling to the men it would be if that officer had his sidearm drawn--let alone if he is actually firing the thing. This sounds a litttle 'myth-esque' to be, but I can certainly believe that it was a telltale sign that the battle plan has gone awry. I speak only of infantry actions here.

I don't have an example to hand, but one recurring scene from memoirs seems to be that of a junior officer who is either about to be captured and/or has become cut off from his men (usually a cut-up platoon) and ends up firing to deter the enemy while he makes good his escape. My mind turns here to the harried retreat from Billin River and the horrendous mess at Sittang Bridge.

 

My understanding is that they were primarily used for putting the fatally wounded out of their misery. Dirk Bogarde alleged that in Normandy he witnessed more seriously wounded men being mercifully executed by officers than evacuated, although he is not considered a particularly reliable source.

 

That doesn't sound right. There were over 2 million 1911A1 .45s made during WWII. Primary usage was surely something else.

 

On 13 May, as Sant’Angelo fell, just beyond in a hamlet called Vertechi Captain Richard Wakeford of the 2/4th Hampshires rallied his badly chewed-up company, while his supporting armour of the 19th NZ Armoured Regiment was held up by a tributary of the Rapido named the Pioppeto. The stream had unfortunately not been identified as a major obstacle and other armoured units, including the 16/5th Lancers, would be bogged down here, requiring further bridging operations. When subsequently attacking a hill the following day, Wakeford’s company again came under heavy fire, and although wounded in the face and both arms, he pressed on with the attack. Armed with a revolver, he went forward, killed a number of Fallschirmjäger and took twenty prisoners. For his leadership, the much-wounded Wakeford was awarded a Victoria Cross.​

Monte Cassino: Ten Armies In Hell by Peter Caddick-Adams

 

Perfect examples:



And:



Both from: