There are some truly strange pages in the history of gunsmithing. One of these can be safely considered the history of the emergence and implementation of a pistol called the "FP-45 Liberator". In this weapon, everything is “perfect” from appearance to fire characteristics. It will sound funny, but this thing was even produced serially. The gun fired only 4 meters with the manufacturer's declared firing range of 8 meters. So, who needed this miracle and why?
It was 1942 outside. The Nazis stormed Sevastopol, the Soviet Union tried to counterattack, leading an offensive in the Caucasus and near Stalingrad. And somewhere on the other side of the European continent, to the best of their strength and resources, a few French resistance prevailed. The local partisans and underground workers had a particularly hard time, since no one actually provided them with assistance. True, in the gloomy 1942, lovers of gourmet cuisine, romantic poetry and courtly love nevertheless decided to lend a helping hand from across the ocean.
In the USA, in Anderson, in the state of Indiana, there was one factory where extremely enterprising people worked. They decided to create a tiny and simple pistol for concealed carry for the French comrades. It was assumed that with the help of pocket weapons it would be possible to shoot the Nazis at close range and take away their “normal” army weapons. The miracle pistol, concocted in haste, received the pretentious name FP-45 Liberator, which can be translated as "The Specialist". It was produced in just one factory with 300 workers. In the shortest possible time, the Americans riveted about 1 million pieces of such pistols.
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The Liberator used .45 ACP rounds. The gun weighed 0.455 kg and had a length of 141 mm. The initial speed of the bullet reached 252 m / s. However, due to the short barrel and some other solutions, the maximum firing range did not exceed 8 meters. The sight of the pistol, consider that it was not, and the reloading was completely manual. Workers at the Anderson plant jokingly nicknamed their creation the "Woolworth gun". This is a persistent mocking expression applied to low-quality goods sold at a sale for pennies. The production cost of the Liberator was $2 and 40 cents. At the same time, the resource of the pistol does not exceed 50 shots, so low-quality materials were used in it.
A separate anecdote was connected with how the Americans tried to deliver the Liberators to France. It was just "brilliant". They were thrown from aircraft... As a result, the vast majority of the Liberators produced did not fall into the hands of the resistance fighters. Something was appropriated by local residents, something was broken or lost, something else fell into the hands of the occupation administration. Only a small part of the pistols leaked into the underground, and even there, in fact, turned out to be useless because of their disgusting characteristics. The history of the Liberator is as ridiculous as the gun itself was. In the light of all this, it is just right to suspect the owner of the plant of "cutting" state subsidies for defense. However, this is only a version that still needs to be proven... By the way, today collectors give from 2 thousand dollars for the Liberator.
In continuation of the topic, read about "elephant": what is the main revolver of the Russian special forces RSh-12.
Source: https://novate.ru/blogs/130622/63275/