I'm a little confused, George (my usual state of mind): Are these 'regular' P08 Lugers issued to an artillery unit, or long-barreled LP08's converted to P08 spec???
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Originally Posted by George Anderson
They are P08s issued to an artilley unit. I've only ever seen one LP08 issued to an artillery unit.
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I can perhaps shed a little light on this one for you both. So following the adoption of the Luger Pistol as the Standard German sidearm in 1908, the Imperial army was out to see what other functions the gun and frame could accommodate that would be practical militarily. The army did have one particularly troublesome logistical issue that it saw in itself. As the cavalry, some MG detachments, and Field Artillery units (not the heavy guns where these two pistols originated from, but the field pieces that moved with an attack or defended from the trench lines) needed to have a lighter weapon to carry than the standard Gewehr 98 infantry rifle. This was being stopgapped by issuing these troops Kar 98AZ or Kar 88 rifle carbines. The German army found that they could not scrounge enough of these weapons to effectively arm everyone in these units with one. As a result, some troops in these specialized units only had a rifle, some only had their 4" Luger pistols. The Germans also found that the combat which they had to engage in during various colonial conflicts like the Boer War observations, Boxer rebellion, etc. was not what their troops were equipped for. Often these artillery crews and dismounted cavalry found themselves fighting from 25-150 yards. Too close in for even their bolt action carbines to be effective at stopping multiple attackers, but too far away to be effectively engaged by their pistols. The German army had been in close contact with their navy counterparts and saw their adoption of the Luger in the P04 (navy) variant as well as looking at the commercial carbine variants. The army tasked the designers around 1910 to get a working design that maximized the oomph of the 9mm military cartridge while not over-encumbering the men who carried this as a do it all weapon. As such, they chose the 8" barrel for maximum accuracy at the noted distances at which combat was likely to take place for these troops (out to 200 yards) while otherwise making this a gun whose parts were largely interchangeable with other P08/Luger pistols. It would become army adopted only in 1913. Early on, these lugers were issued with their typical 8 round magazines and the shoulder stock to effectively turn them into a semi-automatic carbine, a PDW of sorts. These pistols were given to these units as well as pilots and performed quite well in their role in both world wars. (EDIT except pilots, none were used in the Luftwaffe who had a contract with Krieghoff for standard P08’s) They gave these men a chance to at least tie down the enemy when the lines broke or they had to dismount, and could put down lots of fire being semi-automatic in the time when most had large and cumbersome bolt action rifles. They worked SO well in fact that in 1916, the 32 round Trommelmagazin (drum mags) were developed for the Artillery Lugers and the new Stosstruppen (Stormtroopers) often stole these shipments from the field artillery/cavalry crews by priority as elite troops and used them to devastating effect as the precursor to the combat SMG, which they'd also get to use in 1918 with the advent of the Bergmann MP18. SO they get their name of "artillery luger" because most of the early war captures came from German field artillery units. Hope you all enjoyed my historical rant here. Very nice pistols, holsters, and history here George.