Re: How many soldiers did carry handguns?
What an interesting topic - there are some great posts here, especially Kyrie's. For my 2 cents. The general rule of thumb is officers make up about 10% of an Army. The German Army has historically been a little light on officers because of its strong reliance upon NCO's. So the 25% -30% count for officers is way out of line.
Not mentioned yet is the fact that a lot of individuals carry both a pistol and another weapon. In most Armies Senior NCO's in combat usually manage to acquier both a side arm and rifle or sub-machine gun. And how many Company Commanders did you see in "Nam who carried just a .45? All of them had M-16 and most, but not all, had a pistol as well.
The point about partisans is well made. In reaction the Germans armed all their own nationals who were working in Occupied Europe with pistols - railroad workers, construction crews, etc. The question is how many pistols did these para-miltary organizations draw off?
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