Rifles for Soldiers, Pistols for Officers

[Existing Alternatives]

In a recent podcast Stefan mentioned that soldiers on the front lines were better off attacking, where they stood a chance of surviving (or die as heroes and earn their families honour and pensions), as opposed to retreating, where they would have more likely be shot by their own officers (and lose the honour and pension for their families). And it occurred to me that in the infantry (at least in the days of WWII) the soldiers would be armed with rifles, which were designed to be accurate at long distances, whereas the officers were armed with pistols, which are only somewhat accurate at short distances. Just thought this was interesting…

[WasatchMan]

Who needs pistols when you can kill your retreating soldiers with industrial firing squads at the back of the line?

 

Retreat starts at 2:05

 

[In the belly of the beast]

I wonder how often soldiers ended up fragging their own officers in the days of conscription.  Supposedly it reached a high level on the American side in the Vietnam War, but what of other wars, like WWII and Korea?

[autowagon]

Dan Carlin's hardcore history podcast series the ghosts of the ostfront talks about this extensively. 

[iHuman]

I wonder how often soldiers ended up fragging their own officers in the days of conscription.  Supposedly it reached a high level on the American side in the Vietnam War, but what of other wars, like WWII and Korea?

 

Happened far more often than government's or military's would ever admit.

[J. D. Stembal]

In a recent podcast Stefan mentioned that soldiers on the front lines were better off attacking, where they stood a chance of surviving (or die as heroes and earn their families honour and pensions), as opposed to retreating, where they would have more likely be shot by their own officers (and lose the honour and pension for their families). And it occurred to me that in the infantry (at least in the days of WWII) the soldiers would be armed with rifles, which were designed to be accurate at long distances, whereas the officers were armed with pistols, which are only somewhat accurate at short distances. Just thought this was interesting…

 

Watch the 1957 Stanley Kubrick movie, Paths of Glory, for a sense of the lack of consideration for rank and file infantry in WW I. The commanding officer orders his artillery to fire on his soldiers' location.

[JanneW]

Who needs pistols when you can kill your retreating soldiers with industrial firing squads at the back of the line?

 

Retreat starts at 2:05

 

 

To me, this clip was very powerful, thank you! I'm very very sad - and disgusted - right now.

[Jack]

Some support for Stef's argument that officer's pistols were meant to shoot soldiers on their side:

 

>Pistols don't have much stopping power unless they hit a vital organ. There are many records of people being shot in close combat with a pistol and not realizing it for another few minutes. The same thing has happened with rifles, but pistol users experience it more consistently. This lends credence to the idea of pistols as an execution device or a self defense tool rather than an offensive weapon.

 

>Pistol developments in magazine size and rate of fire typically proceed rifle development.  For example, in the US military, the Colt 1911 was developed as part of a self-loading pistol competition that originated in the 1890s. A self loading rifle was not adopted until 1936, 25 years after the pistol. If firearm development was about making your forces deadlier, it would makes sense to upgrade the general infantry man's rifle before his officer's pistol. 

 

>All officers had pistols. For a rear officer who did not expect combat, weapons as pistols wouldn't make much sense. There are weapons such as PDWs or carbines that were easily carried, would not fatigue a fit person and would be much more effective in repelling a surprise attack than a pistol. For generals and rear officers to carry pistols instead of carbines or PDWs indicates that their weapons had a purpose other than self defense. Pistols do make excellent backup weapons when a soldier's primary stops working, but for rear personnel, there are better options. 

 

There is also lots of anecdotal evidence surrounding the purpose of pistols in the military. For example, in Iraq, some American officers would conceal their sidearms as previously, the only people to carry sidearms were Sadam's secret police. So for Iraqis, pistols were associated with executions. 

 

I haven't done a lot of investigating, but these are some of the reasons I don't doubt that the primary purpose of a pistol is to execute, and not to fight. 

 

Thanks, and keep on pondering!

[AccuTron]

It makes no sense for officers to have rifles.  They OFFICIATE, not shoot.  Can't observe the total situation thru a peep sight.  Not to mention the fatigue of carrying something not used, tho' I think I've seen clips of officers carrying maybe carbines in a jeep.  And if a command center is attacked, pistols are probably quite useful, certainly much easier in a crowded space to move about to re-aim than a rifle.  The Russians of WW2 era surely did use weapons on their own men, and surely some Nazi's.  But that would be true for any issued weapon the officer had.  The idea that an officer in the general case is completely defenseless is lunacy.

 

Having said that, I just viewed the entirety of HBO's "Band of Brothers" and "The Pacific" and I can't recall which one, but there was a brief bit of WW2 talk about lieutenants catching intentional friendly fire.