BCC

Interesting comments. I agree with all except that the study of thousands of wartime photo clearly shows that the W-SS used more Lugers than any other 9mm, this appears to ahve been followed by the Browing HP, then the Radom and last by the P38. It is evident that more P38's did start showing up in the hands of the SS by 1944....but the Luger appears in about 75% of the photos of SS carried pistols. I have heard that the main reason for this is that the Army really wanted to standardize as much as possible on weapons and equipment. While this was never even remotely achieved, it would appear that the Army was more willing to allot the SS more of the Lugers (after about 1940) and foriegn HP's and Radoms. The SS on the other hand got more of these pistols per capita than they would have ended up with if they pressed the issue for the "new" P38's. It is true that by 43-44 the SS was given a more priority status by the OKW and this could explain why some of the SS Divisions stood up during that period are seen with SOME P38's. As for PP &PPk's being more desirable to GI's, I've never heard it before and that is certainly not the case with the many vets I've talked to about capturing pistols....most did not even know what the were. From the standpoint that they were generally carried by higher ranking officers I guess I could believe they would have been a "status" item to capture. As far as the change in US military policy toward weapons and material, it is simply PC in the military...this really started during Vietnam and is at the point today that they would not allow soldiers to bring weapons back to the US for fear of political pressure....the freedom we enjoyed 50 years ago is gone!