LUGER LANGE PISTOLE 08 WITH TROMMEL MAGAZINE
LUGER LANGE PISTOLE 08 WITH TROMMEL MAGAZINE
The
Lange Pistole 08 or
Artillery Luger was approved for service in June 1913 and went into production in 1913, with an initial order of 75,000 made, only 23,000 had been made by the Small Arms Factory at Erfurt by the outbreak of the First World War. The production of the long barrelled
Lugers was moved to DWM where between 1914 and 1918 nearly 175,000 pistols were made.
Famously the
Artillery Luger has a number of additional features when compared to the original
P.08 Luger. With a 190mm long barrel, almost double the length of the standard issue
Luger and a rear tangent sight graduated out to 800m. When combined with its accompanying wooden stock the weapon was intended to act as a personal defence weapon for artillerymen and machine gun crews who could not be encumbered with rifles. They were also well liked by German airmen during the early phases of the war.
C&Rsenal run a LP.08 and a Trommel Magazine through its paces
Following complaints about the standard 8-round magazine capacity an improved drum magazine which became known as the
Trommelmagazin was developed. This 32-round magazine was developed by
Friedrich Blum an Austro-Hungarian. The new magazines were manufactured by the German toy manufacturer
Gebrude Bing AG of Nuremberg. Colloquially known as the ‘snail magazine’ they were also adapted to be used by the
MP18 submachine gun.
German stormtrooper with an MP18 and Trommelmagazin (source)
The
Luger pictured above (see image #1) combines the Trommelmagazin with the
Artillery Luger’s wooden shoulder stock. Nearly 1 million snail magazines were made before the end of the war.
Both the
MP-18 and the
Artillery Luger proved popular with German Stormtroops (Sturmbataillone) as they offered high magazine capacity in a compact package. The
Lange Pistole 08 continued in service after the war remaining in service with the Weimar Republic’s military and later the Nazi Wehrmacht.
Sources:
Image One Source
Image Two Source
Image Three Source
The Ultimate Luger,
Guns & Ammo, P. Schreier (
source)
Military Small Arms of the 20th Century, I.V. Hogg & J. Weeks (1985)
Matthew Moss is a British postgraduate student specializing in military history and small arms. He also runs historicalfirearms.info, a site that looks at the history, development and use of firearms as well as wider military history. Follow him on twitter.