Was the 1911 or the Luger the Most Effective WW-I Pistol?

It seems about time to hash this out for future historians.
I would suggest McBride's "A Rifleman Went to War" (The chapter titled "The Pistol in War") as a starting point. Both pistols are still in original or aftermarket production.
I would appreciate your thoughts on this subject.

IMHO the 1911 was far superior to the '08 Parabellum Pistole. The 1911 was much more reliable. It fired a bullet with more stopping power and was still very managable. You could adjust the sights, somewhat, to right and left.
The Luger's sights could not be adjusted unless you wanted to file down the front blade. It also had a tendency to "stove-pipe", even with machine gun ammo.

There are many others on the Forum who can give you much more detail than I and probably have a different opinion. I'm speaking from the viewpoint of someone who has owned and fired both extensively.

For air to air combat?? Neither ; )

I have no experience with the Luger 9mm but would still choose the .45 over it based on the idea that the bigger slower round deposits more energy in to the target and increases the possibility of stopping the threat with the first center of mass hit.

Thankfully for me, this is still a theoretical question, but the folks I know who have 'been there' either say 'the weapon doesn't matter as much as the individual' or 'go for the bigger caliber'.

Since those two statements are not mutually exclusive I would have to vote for the M1911 while taking to heart the injunction that having the better weapon doesn't always mean you win the fight.

Even though the luger was probably more effective as a blunt force instrument than a firearm according to McBride, I would have to give the edge to the M1911 in this category also on visual inspection alone

It would be interesting to know from anyone on the forum who has used a pistol in combat whether they recall making use of the weapons sights during a firefight.


regards,

MDD

I prefer the M1911 only because I'm prejudiced toward the larger caliber. Also, I prefer a handgun with more weight towards the front end. The Luger is pretty, though!
Regards,
Steve

MDD:
Ahah! You are at the crux of "combat shooting" VS "target shooting."
As it happens, I'm writing a book, with corroboration from several medical authorities, on the "fight or flight effect" (it is NOT a syndrome.)
In reviewing hundreds of shootings over the past 45 years as a police firearms instructor, including my own experiences, I have reached some plausible conclusions:
First, we are taught to align the pistol's sights carefully on the center of the X ring. We are told that the front sight will be in sharp focus, while both the target and the rear sight blade will be fuzzily out of focus. he reason being that our eyes do not have the depth of field to make all three points sharply focused. So, we have some (roughly) 3 feet to partway to the 25 yard berm in sharp focus.
It's axiomatic that you shoot in combat the way you were trained. You look for a sharply defined front sight blade, but it is suddenly out of focus, as is the rear sight blade. The reason is that the glucose released into the blood expand the eye's lens, changing the hyperfocal distance to 6 feet to infinity. There is a complex explanation for this effect which has no bearing on your question.
Thus, the eye focuses and becomes fixed on the target. We align the sights as best we can.
In my case, I have no memory of sight alignment; I took a shoulder point and did a seven tap.
While recollections varied in the hundreds of shootings I investigated, essentially, the people tried to maintain a sight picture.

[Ginger.]

1911 anyday,think of all the pesky Mexicans drilled by The Wild Bunch.

[Shooter]

John:

To make this judgement one must first define the role of the sidearm. For most European armed forces, a sidearm was merely a badge of rank (if you wore a sidearm, you were important}. The Americans saw a sidearm as a weapon of last resort and issued it liberally to both officers and enlisted.

If one views the sidearm from the American viewpoint, the .45 ACP sidearm was certainly superior. If one reviews the sidearm from the European viewpoint, the question is unimportant.


Shooter sends

Shooter:
I'll tell you some things you may not know about both pistols.
First, chances are that if I took you to the range and handed you my Luger P.08 in 9mm parabellum (9X19), you would probably overshoot the target at 25 yards. The reason: The P.08 has an "acorn" front blade sight and a V notch rear sight. If you line up the top of the front blade with the top of the rear notch, you would be holding grossly over. It requires lowering the tip of the front blade into the extreme bottom of the rear notch to align line of sight with line of bore at 50 meters. This sight picture is called "taking a fine sight." There is only room for 1 shothole on the tip of the front blade...a very accurate system.
The original 1911 had a tiny front blade and rear notch, which you would hate, but when properly aligned with front sight tip level with the top of the rear notch, the pistol was dead on at 50 yards, and the tiny, narrow front blade allowed only 3 shot holes across its top surface. Our modern sights (such as those you and I use) allow 33 .451 shotholes between the sides of the rear sight notch. That's why we have to take great pains to get a "halfmast bull" and hold centrally to get into the X ring.
The Luger is inherently more accurate than an "as issued" WW-I 19ll because of the sight arrangement. The 1911's accuracy is predicated on the tightness of the bushing on the end of the barrel and the proximity of the barrel's underlugs to the slide stop pin. A loose barrel can be pushed down at the exposed portion in the ejection port.
The terminal ballistics of the 235 (in those days)grain bullet was far superior to the 124 grain parabellum round. (Later Frankford Arsenal switched to a 230 grain fmj bullet.)
The 1911 would function after some abuse in "no-man's land", but the Luger was, and is, very prone to malfunction.
While the 1911 was issued in a full flap "suicide holster", the Luger's holster was even worse, being deeper to protect the fragile pistol from intrusion of foreign matter.
If we had brought one of our modern 1911 pistols to the Western Front, it would have been a source of wonder to all concerned.
I personally believe that there is no contest here.
One thing: 8" barrel Luger pistols (Langpistole) was issued to NCO's of machine gun units. Some had two extra magazines and others had a 36 round drum. Tactically, this was to cover the gun crew while they changed belts.
If you havent read McBride's book, he said that a soldier with him on night patrol bashed a German in the head with the butt of an 8" barrel Luger he picked up for a souvenir. Mac said that was the only Luger he ever saw that had "knockdown."

[Shooter]

John:

Thank you for the tale, sir.

I always enjoy stories about the use of sidearms in combat. On the modern battlefield, they have become almost anachronistic, but in the past a good sidearm might have been all that stood between a warrior and his demise when the chips were down.

And I would be honored to pull some trigger-time with you on the pistol range at the Flatwoods any time that you come by way of Hubert, NC.

Semper Fi!

Shooter sends

[Ginger.]

Good luck to you shootists,pistol shooting is a thing of the past over here.The old trigger finger still itches when I read about it.