Tuesday, March 29, 2011

1911

A century ago today, the U.S. Army officially adopted the M1911.

As I've written elsewhere, both the .45 ACP cartridge and the M1911 set the gold standard for self-defense handguns.

7 comments:

s4e4 said...

Well, they have holed many a quarterdeck awning I imagine.

steve cpo ret

chief torpedoman said...

Well said my friend.

PhysioProf said...

What's the purpose of Navy sailors having handguns? (Other than blowing holes in quarterdeck awnings.)

Anonymous said...

Physioprof--

Occasionally, the sailors have to inspect ships for contraband or pirates or something, and it's handy to have something to defend yourself and use one hand to hang on. Also, sailors can be disembarked, given rifles, and used with Marines. This is scraping the bottom of the barrel, but it can be done.

Anonymous said...

I forgot to mention, sometimes you also want the guy standing watching whoever is coming up the gangplank to have a sidearm, too. Or the fellows who are tasked with keeping folks out of places they should not be--like the magazines, particularly if you've got nuclear weapons in the magazine.

Comrade Misfit said...

The Petty Officer of the Watch (Quarterdeck) was armed. There was also an armed roving security watch. Some ships armed the Command Duty Officer when the ship was not at a Navy base.

Back in the days of cash payrolls, the disbursing officer and his clerk were armed when they went to pick up the payroll.

There were other armed watches, as the case may be. I was on one deployed ship that when it was in port, had a M-60 gunner in the pilot house.

Roy in Nipomo said...

A long time ago there were times when we might have been loading ASROC missiles (though only some of them), that my destroyer had half a dozen sailors armed with .45s, along with a BAR or two, M2 carbines and Thompson subs on the deck and pier. Other times we only had one sailor armed with a .45. Whenever we carried the .45, it always had a loaded magazine in it, but no round chambered. The only times they were fully loaded was when someone screwed up on the turn-over of the weapon at watch change of the Petty Officer of the Watch.