Artillery Luger

[Johnny Peppers]

Marvin,

The .45 Luger never made is past the preliminary testing due to DWM deciding not to enter the tests. The tests of the 1900 Luger were handled in much the same way in that two pistols were purchased for the preliminary tests, and enough interest was shown to purchase 1000 for field tests. Also remember that this was long before the tests for a .45 automatic.

The reports from the field in favor of the pistol were: great accuracy, great penetration, rapidity of fire, increased number of shots, long range, good balance, and high velocity. On the negative side were: caliber too small, frequent misfires, requires two hands to ****, lack of stopping power, too complicated, liability to jam, difficult to load when mounted, failure to extract/eject, no indicator for loaded/unloaded, can't ascertain number of cartridges remaining, and liable to accidental discharge. To sum up the report of the board after all the reports were in, it said in brief "the adoption for use in the military service of the Luger automatic pistol in the stage of development in which they have been tested if not recommended."

The initial tests before purchase of the 1000 pistols consisted of: time to dismount and assemble, working of pistol, endurance test, dust test, and rust test. No mention of a mud test was in the original correspondence.