What is the historical signicance of this weapon?

[Frodo_Baggins]

(Gun Dungeoneers -don't help!)

[jpak]

1. It was a cheap one-shot .45 made by the OSS

for the French Resistance in WW 2.

[Endangered Specie]

3. heh, only one shot for the French?

[Fenris]

4. The French are very capable marksmen

As are any other ethnic group with the proper training. Besides, the idea was that you got close enough to the target that you only needed one shot.

[Frodo_Baggins]

6. However some nations have more tendency to possess the needed qualities

Like Russians, Americans, and Chechenyans (no particular order).

[Fenris]

2. The famous "Liberator" pistol

Dropped over Europe during the Nazi occupation with the hope that some resistance fighter would find it and use it to "commandeer" a more powerful German rifle.

[Frodo_Baggins]

5. Perfectly correct

Bingo!

[Limbought]

7. I aske this same question of a gun collector friend of mine ...

thought you might be interested in his response.


I'll be damned, a "Liberator." Where'd you find a picture of it?

This is an obscure weapon, built by General Motors for the US and produced by some lamp factory in Indiana. They were able to produce a million in four weeks! It's a simple single shot pistol that is very compact and easy to conceal. Ten extra .45 calibre auto cartridges were concealed in the handle. Eight were in a fabric packet tnat was two cartridges wide and four deep and two others were loose. You could access them by opening the back of the grip.

The projection at the back of the barrel was pulled out and twisted to expose the breach, then a cartridge inserted and locked in. The barrel is not rifled so the thing is worthless for shooting anything more than three yards away. Also many people were skeptical about the safety of a .45 handgun held together by spot welding.

Why would the goverment commission such a primitive gadget? It was conceived by a psych warfare committee in 1942 and was to be dropped behind the lines in German occupied territories for use by the Resistance. If you see anything about this gun it will be referred to as the Flare Projector. That was to conceal its real purpose. Some eventually were sent to England to be used in Europe and others were shipped to points in the Pacific and China.

Because of the ready availability of Sten guns these strange pistols were held back in Europe.