this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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Forgotten Weapons

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This is a community dedicated to discussion around historical arms, mechanically unique arms, and Ian McCollum's Forgotten Weapons content. Posts requesting an identification of a particular gun (or other arm) are welcome.

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Presumably an attempt to reduce the cost to manufacture the iconic handgun.

This one is also on display at the Springfield National Armory Historical Site.

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[–] FireTower@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My guess is it was the same idea as the Liberator (conveniently in the bottom left). A cheap gun that could be dropped in occupied cities to arm partisan fighters with something they could use to get a rifle.

The Liberator wasn't a very good pistol and was single shot. The stamped 1911 might have been an attempt at practicing the ideas behind the Liberator in a semi automatic handgun.

We made ~1 million Liberators but turns out the hard part about arming partisans isn't making the guns, but getting them to them. I believe most of them never left out hands. Probably a factor in the death of the stamped 1911 program.

[–] setsneedtofeed@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Believe that zero Liberators were ever airdropped as originally intended. Not because it was too difficult but because it was a waste of a bomber mission.

I’m not arguing with you, just thinking out loud why and how this handgun idea ever materialized into more than a paper suggestion.

[–] FireTower@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Yeah, it was definitely a 'good on paper' type idea. The only other possible explanation I can think of is export sales to poorer countries.