Artillery crews have their hands full, every time the crew changes position. Not to mention the operation (loading, aiming, firing, cleaning) of the weapons during (or after) the barrage. In the battle scenarios they are often protected by machine gun crews, but that's not always possible. Having a full size battle rifle (K98 or such) for personal protection can be very cumbersome, and get in the way of artillery crew's performance.
If they are issued with only 4" pistols, they are very vulnerable to attack by the enemy infantry that can pick them off from the range not reachable by the handgun. And that's where LP08 came into play. It allowed the crew to defend itself out to the greater distance, and offered easily transported, and maneuverable "short rifle" (carbine), with even greater capacity (with the snail drum) than the battle rifle of the time.
This concept has to be viewed in the historical setting of the "Great War" (WW1), where intermediate range automatic weapons (submachineguns) didn't exist yet. In the way,......"Artillery Lugers" were "submachineguns" of their time. Add to that the "Schnellfeuer", and you can clearly see where the tactical development thinking was heading. With the adoption of MP40 (and much earlier than that!), this artillery crew protection tool went down in history.
Some "old school" officers even had them during the invasion of Poland (September 1939), as a "status symbol" of sort, much like some ranking officers still carried the sabers in the Great War. Artillery Luger is a fascinating piece, and the first weapon I ever laid my hands on as a toddler. My Mother brought one from the war, and as a toddler I was allowed to play on the couch with it (unloaded of course). And since I was born ten years after the Second War, political correctness didn't prevent me from developing a healthy fascination toward ALL historical weapons, and history in general.
|