The .45 Legend

[mzimmers]

This is all from memory, but:

The .45 was adopted by the military way before Vietnam. The Army was experiencing ineffective performance from their current sidearms (.38 Long Colts) against the Moros in the Philippine-American war. The Moros were 1) very big people, 2) taking narcotics to lessen their physiological reaction to being shot, and 3) wearing some kind of bamboo armor. The combination of the three made the .38 LC fairly poor at stopping them. The .45 ACP was hastily put into action, with better results.

So, this isn't another .45 vs. 9mm discussion...

[Bhobbs]

Never heard of it in nam, but soldiers and marines in Korea complained that the M1 carbine was having problems penetrating the heavy coats and some type of extra padding wore by chinese troops. Dont know how true it is but have read it in several books about the Korean war.

If a .30 Carbine wouldn't penetrate then 9mm or .45 ACP would have no chance.

This guy shoots his M1 carbine through frozen denim, wood and a gallon jug.

[M. D. Van Norman]

People will make any damned excuse to explain away their inability to hit the target.

[IEShooter]

Wooden armor

Bullet stopping bamboo body armor?
You sure someone wasn't pulling your leg?

Oh no, it's all true. Haven't you read about the new line of bamboo body armor used by special forces "operators" and elite SWAT units?......

[M. Sage]

Never heard of it in nam, but soldiers and marines in Korea complained that the M1 carbine was having problems penetrating the heavy coats and some type of extra padding wore by chinese troops. Dont know how true it is but have read it in several books about the Korean war.

That was at the Chosin. It was extremely cold. So cold that the ammunition was not developing the proper power levels.

Read the Last Stand of Fox Company. They don't make any conclusions about what was causing this problem, but the description over and over about Marines shooting at Chinese and seeing the bullet impact come up short tells me what I need to know. It also said that the extreme cold meant that artillery was initially falling short.

In other words, it was so damn cold the powder wasn't burning right!

At one point it describes the Chinese as having worn tourniquets already cinched down on their arms and legs.

It was so cold that they didn't usually need to bandage the wounded. Wounds would actually just freeze shut, sometimes before a corpsman could attend.

ETA: For what it's worth, the Brits were quite happy with their Webley revolvers up through Korea. And they're chambered in .38 S&W, which is only slightly more powerful than .380 ACP.

[M. D. Van Norman]

[yellowfin]

Whatever the .30 carbine couldn't handle the .30-06 could and did just fine.

[mzimmers]

Interesting story about the ammo's poor performance in very cold weather. I wonder if that incident is what prompted the change to .45 ACP from small primers to large...

[Untamed1972]

I saw Larry vickers on one of the spike TV shows comparing 9mm vs .45. His ending statement was "If you are legally allowed to carry 9mm JHPs then that is the best choice due to performance and expansion of modern 9mm JHP rounds the extra extra mag capacity (in free states anyway). If you can't carry HPs then .45 FMJ is the way to go." (Not an exact quote)

Funny...he didn't even talk about .40 at all.

[thrillhouse700]

Sounds like we need to call "Myth Busters"

We also need them to test whether or not a handgun sitting on a table will get up walk outside and commit heinous crimes Have boxer as a guest on the show.

[Res]

Never heard of it in nam, but soldiers and marines in Korea complained that the M1 carbine was having problems penetrating the heavy coats and some type of extra padding wore by chinese troops. Dont know how true it is but have read it in several books about the Korean war.

The ones who said that were most likely bad shots (except for jshoebot's grandfather of course).

soldier: see that? I know I hit that guy, the bullet must've just bounced right off him....

The Box Of Truth

Exactly

[M. Sage]

That and it's probably kind of hard to keep track of who exactly you're shooting at when there's a human wave coming at you, screaming in Chinese and hurling grenades.