Quote:
Originally Posted by Excalibur
I think had the US Army not had their budget gutted post WWII, they would have been getting new 1911s instead of keeping the old ones in inventory until the 80s.
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You know, except for the fact they explicitly set out to replace them with a 9mm, with continual efforts to do so starting in 1947, and only didn't because of budget constraints (IIRC it came down to one brigadier general's decision, and he decided not to proceed due to cost, in favor of replacing the 1911 when they wore out, which I think was expected to happen sooner rather than later since they were basically disposable and weren't even fully heat treated). Not that all the potential replacements were DA/SA, as the earliest efforts were why the Colt Commander (in 9mm) was developed
I love 1911's, but they weren't the best they could be until post WW2, when Colt started making the Commercial 1911's using fully heat treated, forged steel. Before that, peening (pre A1) and cracking (A1) were a known issue