For you WWII 1911 fans

WP might have caused that damage, or it might have been simple high speed impact.

Steel has a certain degree of "plasticity, and will deform under a high speed impact, leaving a melted looking result. Also, I'm pretty sure that same impact results in a significant amount of heat, for a very brief moment of time.

If you look at armored vehicles (tanks, etc.) from WWII, which were struck by SOLID anti tank shot (steel on steel) you see very similar looking results.

Shrapnel is a widely misused term, commonly used today for any and all shell fragments.

Growing up, one of my neighbors had been a paratrooper, who survived the Normandy drop on St. Mere Eglise, AND the Battle of the Bulge at Bastogne.

Great guy, who never talked about what happened, other than to say he was there. When the movie The Longest Day came on TV, his wife said he watched about half of it and went to bed. He had nightmares for weeks afterwards, she said.

He's long passed now, his friends still miss him, I can only imagine what he would have relived if he had lived to see Saving Private Ryan...
 
During my military days I received demonstrations of shaped charges used as anti-tank weapons. Supposedly the explosion results in a hot molten injection to the interior of the tank sending multitudes of molten hot metal from the steel of the tanks bouncing around in the tank at high velocity. It would also set-off any tank rounds and other ammunition inside the tank.

Therefore, I would assume one possibility is the M1911A1 may of been a tanker's sidearm. If so, the poor soldier would of lost his live and the tank destroyed. The weapons of war are nasty.
 
No "supposedly" about it, that is what shaped charges do. And it is a very likely explanation of what happened to that .45.

Close range, Sherman vs. Panzerfaust, very likely dead Sherman, and some if not most of the crew.

There are also many other possible explanations, but this one is as likely as any.

Tankers don't have it easy, just because they don't march a lot...
 
Shape charges are very simple to construct if you have C4 and a blasting cap. I will not discuss it since I hate to reveal certain things to unknown readers.

I have constructed them during military training which was over 35 years ago. Anti-tank rounds from recoilless rifles, main tank guns and shoulder fired weapons use this principle. This is why a lot of tanks used to put metal mesh outside the tank body.

The entry hole is relatively small and the interior hole is a large scalloped area. The steel from the inside scalloped area of the hull becomes the hundreds of molten steel fragments like so many buckshot pellets bouncing around inside the tank capsule. Some of the wounds on this M1911A1 could of been by the fireballs striking it and ricocheting off it. It looks like at least one penetrated the slide and barrel.
 
Ive seen a lot of stuff run over by heavy equipment, on all sorts of surfaces, and a lot of it with tracks, and that gun doesnt look like something that was.

The impacts are specific, and its too clean where it wasnt hit.
 
Rockeye Bomblet of VN days could put a 1/4" hole through 12" of steel ! On a tank it would punch a hole through the tank then damage everything inside.The outside of the tank would show only that small hole,not possible to seefrom the air.
 
Yes, it is a cluster bomb and each of the bomblets is a shape charged anti-tank weapon. (I do not know the exact number of bomblets, but I think there are hundreds in each cluster bomb.)

Although not used in WWII, it uses the same shape charge principle.

I suspect it was one of the weapon systems we used to destroy so many tanks and other vehicles as Iraqi fled on the road leaving Kuwait.
 
Interesting looking piece. As I look at it, I can't help but think of what caused that and in what sort of mayhem it's assigned "handler" would have been in. Shamefully, almost all of the "greatest generation" are about gone. May God bless those that are left and give eternal peace to those that are gone, as they truly deserve it. They have my unwavering gratitude.
 
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Wow:

Being a USGI 1911A1 fan and a combat Vet of the 101st, (Vietnam), I'd sell half my grandkids into the child slave trade to be able to buy that gun.

Thanks for sharing.
 
I have a 42 colt in much better condition. I will trade you. :D
Thank you for sharing the pic. I hope the gi that wore that colt made out ok, sadly I doubt it.
 
I saw something about this as well. The article said that the guy who carried that 1911 was at a location that was bombed. Supposedly the damage was the result of the bombings that were endured.
 
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