Would it have been possible to suppress a liberator pistol?

Untrained individuals haven't been shown to fair much better with a full magazine, let alone a single shot.

About half those made were supposedly sent to OSS to be dropped in the Phillipines and such, but I believe they deceided they would also be better off dropping stens than Liberators.

Part of it is a faulty assumption. 'In an un-secure location within a region in which resistance/rebel/whatever troops are known to operate, an armed sentry is to be found alone.' It just isn't very likely.
 
The Liberator pistol (FP-45, so-called because the program was supposedly to produce a Flare Pistol) was literally a concept from a fiction story, taken up by the Harvard/Yale "boys" who were running the OSS at the time. Those overage romantics imagined millions of people in the occupied countries eagerly seizing a pistol found on the street and turning it on the nearest German/Japanese soldier. Too bad that the Ivy league schools didn't seem to have psychology courses; someone should have told the kiddies that in a country overrun by a brutal enemy, people don't look for weapons to fight back; they keep quiet, keep their heads down and just hope to survive. Sure they might be liberators some day, but they can't count on that.

The resistance forces were few, and had to be tough-minded to see their families and friends summarily executed to instill fear, with no evidence that they had taken any action against the occupier.

That is why most of the initial resistance forces in occupied Europe were Communists, highly disciplined and well trained before the war by Soviet agents to overthrow the existing democratic governments and take over in the name of Stalin. They simply turned their skills and training against the Germans, postponing (not eliminating) their plans to install a Stalinist government subject to Moscow.

Jim
 
In today's world you could just duct tape a small plastic soda bottle to the barrel and presto-chango a one shot suppressor. However; I'm not sure what you'd use in WWII. I wonder if a hard bread roll would work?
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There are a lot of "urban legends" when it comes to suppression/silencing handguns. One of which was that a baby's bottle nipple, cut crosswise and slipped onto a gun barrel would act as a silencer. I can attest that it did nothing to silence my Marlin .22 long rifle...the report was just as loud as usual. I did not even try the condom over the barrel. So, unless one tries/tests those lame legends, including the unlikely soda bottle, we can pretty much assume that they are just the stuff of lame crime novels cum urban legends.
 
The usual assessment for WWII was that collaborators were at best 4% of the population, resistance in its various forms another 4%, the rest of the population kept their heads down, too busy trying to get enough to eat.
The version I heard from some fellow ROTC cadets and shooting enthusiasts was a potato as a silencer. IMHO put anything solid in front of the muzzle Not A Good Idea IMHO. The baby bottle nipple-like a condom-a good way to cover the muzzle and keep out rain, etc.
 
I can attest that it did nothing to silence my Marlin .22 long rifle...the report was just as loud as usual.
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Assuming you were in the US at the time and didn't pay the $200 for the stamp along with paperwork; you know you just admitted to a Federal Felony, right?
The pop bottle will work to some degree on a 22 for at least one shot. It has been tested.
 
dahermit said:
There are a lot of "urban legends" when it comes to suppression/silencing handguns. One of which was that a baby's bottle nipple, cut crosswise and slipped onto a gun barrel would act as a silencer. I can attest that it did nothing to silence my Marlin .22 long rifle...the report was just as loud as usual. I did not even try the condom over the barrel. So, unless one tries/tests those lame legends, including the unlikely soda bottle, we can pretty much assume that they are just the stuff of lame crime novels cum urban legends.
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A baby's bottle nipple has practically no volume and couldn't possibly do anything. A pop bottle has much more volume and could work to reduce the report/contain the explosion. I'm sure there are youtube videos out there.

I know there are oil filter videos out that are kind of impressive.

Surely the Liberator could be quieted a little, it's just a matter of having the right tools. It's not too hard to think up cylindrical items that could be modified to fit over the barrel. The use of zip ties, clamps, even string could work to hold something in place for 1 shot
 
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