question for you history buffs

It's an iconic pistol, that was instantly recognisable as being German, and as such it was desired as a war souvenir, rather than as a combat pistol. I don't know why you think it's so bad though, I've fired a real one a few times and it's both accurate and pleasant to shoot.

It's not horrible at all, it's a beautifully engineered piece of kit, but that's my personal opinion. The kudos about looting one was that it came from an officer.

I should know, my grandad bought one back. Sadly for me (and legally fortunate, i guess!) it was handed in, along with some ammo, during a police amnesty in the 60's, as it was still live.

It's a squaddie thing and, always will be. Some souvenirs are coveted more than others, that's all. A pistol is much easier to stash in your kitbag when you come home as well! Same goes for Iron crosses and other awards.

Nothing was ever quite explicity said so you have to take educated guesses.

I'd venture:

- Their dads raved about it from their experiances in 1914-18 (when allies had 6 shot revolvers, the Germans had 7+ shot automatics!, that impressed the average soldier).

- Its looks are rather unique (unless you see next to a Borchard/Lhati etc but the Russians & Finns had those).

- Fashion.

- It is a well engineered peice of kit, fits rather nicely in the hand, aiming is intuitive, however exposed action and fine tollerences means you have to look after it and use good quality ammo or it will let you down. Unlike the M1911 .45 pistol which seems designed to take a fair bit of abuse/lack of care and still not bite back.

It was not Just the Lugers that the G.Is obsessed over.
My great gandfather(at the time a corporal) captured a P38, and he once told me that any german pistol was prised, but no GI would want to be caught with a german weapon by germans, as the germans would "want to know where they got it from".

Adrian - Would you please elaborate on why you say the P.08 was such a horrible "gun"?

Having owned and shot a number of these pistols I beg to differ and whilst it did have inherent flaws (much like many semi auto pistols) I have to disagree strongly with your supposition.

The P.08 pistol was designed by a Swiss by the name of Georg Luger which is how it came by its title. Originally the US Army trialled it and a number were shipped to the Ordnance Testing facilities for that purpose. It was however dropped for he home grown M1911A1 .45ACP Colt pistol and that put a stop to that but a considerable number of P.08 pistols remained in private hands in the US as a result. The P.08 has a very ergonomic design and fits easily into the hand. It's angled grip lends itself to aiming and instinctive shooting as it seems to point the pistol where the shooter wishes to place his shot. It is then a very good combat pistol. It is quite light especially when compared to the Colt and so the recoil is felt more. This is countered by the novel "Knee" or toggle system employed in the blow back mechanism. Whilst one would think it unbalances the weapon it tends to keep the barrel on target and given the standard length of 4", the 9mm Parabellum round exiting the barrel at 3-400mps has actually left before the recoil takes effect.

The faults with the P.08 are the trigger system whereby a side plate actuates the sear and if accidentally knocked on a loaded, cocked weapon, can dire it without the trigger being depressed. The second fault is the steep angel between the magazine and the chamber (known as the feed ramp) Armourers often overcame this by filing it back and reshaping the lower face of the chamber but if not done correctly this cause gas seal (and therefore reloading/cycling problems) but the easiest way was to use a long nosed bullet which was guided by the ramp into the chamber. Rounded bullets tended to jam half in, half out of the magazine and "stovepipe" when the weapon cycled.

Overall the P.08 is a design classic, a good pistol when well maintained, cared for and fed with decent ammunition. It is well built and fits together solidly. It is easy to disassemble and clean and is light to carry, taking up little room. I can see exactly why the P.08 was a quality souvenir and have spoken to quite a few veterans who regret the day they either d=traded, lost or gave up their war trophy.

I took time to give you a detailed and factual answer - Please return the compliment and expand upon why you think it a horrible pistol.

it was seen as THE iconic symbol-the one thing to get-small, portable, very German, very to use modern parlence 'gucci'

It's not a horrible gun. OK it has 'flaws' (detailed by PD) but that's only looking at it from the perspective of 100 years after it was designed.

If you're going to be fair you have to compare it to it's contemporaries and in that company it stands up well. While I've not looked for some years you could still get newly manufactured clones in at least the 1980s so I feel that is quite a testament to the design.

edit: nearly forgot - that's the technical side. Aesthetically, well, everyone has an opinion. I admit the appearance/style doesn't do much for me but I'm a "function leads form", minimalist kind of guy. Not everyone shares my taste - and I wouldn't expect them to.

I think its horrible because I look at at it and see a horrible looking thing Im sure its very nice to fire and all that but as someone who doesn't use pistols nor could I if i wanted (UK), how a gun works isnt important to me (obviously different with airsoft guns although even then its looks will take first consideration, performance second).

I guess its very unique look would make it a good souvenir tho, bit of a collectors piece even back then. Tho I am still quite interested in why it was so iconic, other than the fact that had a very unique look, because many allied soldiers went into Germany wanting one, in those days surely they wouldn't have seen one until they saw one first hand, or were they abundant in films and that?

I should know, my grandad bought one back. Sadly for me (and legally fortunate, i guess!) it was handed in, along with some ammo, during a police amnesty in the 60's, as it was still live.

lol, my granddad had a similar story, coming back from Africa apparently all the troops were lined up at the edge of a dock waiting to board their ship and some official chap came up and announced a bunch of official info which included that anyone caught carrying a gun back into Britain would get 40 days detention (or something like that, basically not get home so soon) and all of a sudden a wave of weapons of every size and description went flying into the water as the vast majority of men had something but no one wanted to risk having to stay behind, so they just chucked it

When you say "horrible" do you mean aesthetically horrible i.e.plain ugly or do you mean you associate the gun with horrible things?

Answering the question now. If an allied soldier did have the choice of taking any item from a fallen german, I guess he would want someting that was:

a) identifiably german.
b) something he could carry easily.

I didnt know that only officers carried them?? Is this true? If so then theres a third reason why the allied soldier would take the luger- it would be evidence of a high status kill for that soldier.

Its worth remembering also that to the average citezen soldier of WWII many things we know to be different came under the same terminology/category.

These guys didnt have the luxury of google to find out model makes and serial numbers, or a brian davies book on uniform types. It was few hurried lessons on 'the enemy' and hearsay.

Hence:

Every lone rifleman was a 'sniper'.
All german AT was an '88'
Every German tank was a 'tiger'
SMGs were universally called 'tommy guns' regardless of make, it tended to just mean SMG rather than a thompson.
MP40s were called 'schmeissers' dispite being made by Erma

and there are plenty more examples like that, most guys knew very little about the enemies kit and often shockingly little about their own, especially supporting vehicles and armour with which they often had little contact.

So its not totally off the wall to think that as well known as the luger was its also possible that veterans may well have used the term to mean any german automatic pistol.

Excellent point... and thinking along similar lines; If you squint at a picture of a Walther P38 it is not totally disimilar to a P08 luger.

More misnomers and Hollywoodisms
Officers seldom carried a Luger - Officers were required to purchase their own sidearms and were given a voucher known as Eigentumswaffe to subsidise the purchase. Officers favoured smaller calibre (.32ACP) 7.65mm pistols mainly Mauser, Sauer and Walther.
The P08 was issued to NCOs MG Gunners and Vehicle crews - It was superseded by the Walther P.38 which I am sad to say does not bear much resemblance to the P08 at all. The P38 has a straight grip rather than a raked grip. It has a linear slide action rather than the toggle action of the P08. IT also has a flat bottomed magazine raher than the "button bottom" of the Luger.
So to repeat - Officers did not carry large 9mm pistols. That is not to say the odd one might. Officers purchased their own personal sidearm.And as an affectation chose small. compact pistols.

More misnomers and Hollywoodisms
Officers seldom carried a Luger - Officers were required to purchase their own sidearms and were given a voucher known as Eigentumswaffe to subsidise the purchase. Officers favoured smaller calibre (.32ACP) 7.65mm pistols mainly Mauser, Sauer and Walther.

In one of the interview segments of Band of Brothers, Dick Winters shows what looks to me like a Walther PPK he got from a surrendering German officer.

It was superseded by the Walther P.38 which I am sad to say does not bear much resemblance to the P08 at all.

Side by side you can tell them apart easily, yes.
But I'll bet many a GI were in posession of Walther P38s wrongly thinking that they where in posession of a P08 Luger.
In the context of Gadges post it probably didnt matter to them anyway; so long as the gun that they captured was a german automatic pistol.

Excellent point... and thinking along similar lines; If you squint at a picture of a Walther P38 it is not totally disimilar to a P08 luger.

typical example, at an open day on the 7th of march i was in my generic heer kit, i was holding a p38 and a guy said "nice luger"

he assumed thats what it was as all he could see was a ww2 german holding a pistol

the same thing happend later when i put on a camo smock over my greys and a camo helmet cover on, for the afternoon game, a guy stood right next to me said, wheres that ww2 german gone??

as he only saw camo, he had no idea the webbing and helmet shape were ww2, he could only identify the ww2 greys.

if your not an enthusiast or interested, its not easy to identify kit correctly

example, id not know a chasser from a lancer , as ive no real interest in napolionic warfare, so id say wheres the 18th century guy ?

You mean a chasseur?

Id so the answer's simple - A Chassuer has chicken in it!!!!!!

the same thing happend later when i put on a camo smock over my greys and a camo helmet cover on, for the afternoon game, a guy stood right next to me said, wheres that ww2 german gone??

as he only saw camo, he had no idea the webbing and helmet shape were ww2, he could only identify the ww2 greys.

Either that or it was VERY effective camo and he really couldn't see you!

example, id not know a chasser from a lancer , as ive no real interest in napolionic warfare, so id say wheres the 18th century guy ?

The one holding the lance would be a clue.