Walther P38

The Walther P38 is a 9 mm caliber semi-automatic pistol that was developed by Walther as the standard pistol of the Wehrmacht at the beginning of World War II. The intention was to replace the expensive Luger P08, whose production had been scheduled to end in 1942.

History and development

Walther P38 was developed as a military pistol for the German Army during the 1930s. It first appeared in 1938 under the name Walther AP (Armee Pistole, German army pistol).. The first designs supplied to the German Army for testing had a locked breech and hidden hammer, but they requested that they be redesigned with an external hammer.

Several experimental versions were later created for the.45 ACP and.38 Super cartridges, but these were never mass produced. In addition to the 9 mm caliber version, some versions that used the 7.65 x 21 Parabellum and.22 Long Rifle cartridges were also manufactured and sold.

The idea of the P38 was accepted by the armed forces in 1938, but production of prototypes only began in late 1939. Walther began production at its Zella-Mehlis factory and produced three series of test pistols, identified for a "0" as a prefix to their serial numbers. The third series pistols resolved previous problems encountered by the Army and serial production began in the mid-1940s, employing the code "480" to identify the military production of Walther. After a few thousand pistols, the Army changed all digit codes to letter codes and the Walther was code "ac".^{[citation needed]} All production took place at the Walther factory until the end of 1942, when additional production began at the Mauser factory in Oberndorf (code "byf" until early 1945, then "svw" 34;) and then at the Spreewerk factory in Hradek and Nisou, Czechoslovakia ("cyq"). Production continued until the end of the war and even into the postwar period. The first Walther pistols, until late 1941, were manufactured almost to commercial assembly and polishing standards. Since the war forced high production, the external finish deteriorated but the internal parts of the P38 continued to maintain their quality during the war, especially those manufactured by Mauser.

Tres empresas fabrican piezas para la producción de la P38:

• Fabrique Nationale (FN): belts, frames and locks (marked with "M" or "M1")
• Ceska Zbrojovka (CZ, Böhmische Waffenfabrik): canyons (marked with "fnh")
• Erste Nordböhmische Metallwarenfabrik: chargers (marked with "jvd")

After the war, most of Walther's machinery ended up in France as war reparations and many of the post-war P38 pistols were actually built in France, by the Manurhin factory since May or June 1945 until 1946. These pistols can be identified thanks to the presence of a 5-pointed star stamped on the slide. Total German production was estimated at just over 1,000,000 Walther P38 pistols. Production of the P38 was resumed at Walther's new factory in Ulm, West Germany, under the name Pistole 1 (P1) in 1958 for the Federal German Police and the Bundeswehr. It continued to be produced by Walther, in various revised models, until the early 1990s.

Design

From an engineering point of view, the P38 was a semi-automatic pistol whose design introduced several technical and tactical features found in other modern semi-automatic pistols, such as the Beretta 92 and its M9 variant, adopted by the Armed Forces of the United States.

The P38 was the first locked-breech pistol to employ a double-action trigger. The previous Walther PPK double-action pistol was recoil-operated, but the 9 x 19 Parabellum cartridge used by the P38 was more powerful and required a locked chamber. The shooter could chamber a cartridge, use the decocking lever to lower the hammer without firing the cartridge, and carry the loaded weapon with the hammer down. Pressing the trigger with the pistol with the hammer down fired the first cartridge and the action of the pistol ejected the case and inserted a new cartridge into the chamber, all features found in several modern pistols. In addition to a double-action trigger similar in design to early Walther PPK pistols, the P38 also includes a visible and tactile breech cartridge indicator, which is a metal rod that protrudes from the back of the slide when there is a cartridge in the chamber.

The moving barrel mechanism works through a wedge-shaped locking block located under the breech. When the pistol is fired, both the barrel and the slide move back a short distance and that is when the locking block goes down, releasing the slide and stopping the movement of the barrel. However, the slide continues to move rearward on the frame, ejecting the case and cocking the hammer before completing its travel. Two recoil springs located on both sides of the frame and under the slide, when compressed by the recoil of the slide, propel it forward and remove a new cartridge from the magazine, introducing it into the chamber and locking it, ending its journey with a new cartridge. in the chamber, cocked and ready to repeat the process. The design of the locking block offers good precision, due to the rectilinear path of the barrel and slide.

The P38 pistols of the first batches were equipped with walnut grips, but these were later replaced by Bakelite grips.

Variants

The Walther P38 was in production from 1939 to 1945. From 1945 to 1957, no P38 pistols were produced for the German Armed Forces. As time went by, Federal Germany wanted to rebuild its Armed Forces to be able to defend itself. Walther prepared its machinery to produce P38 pistols again, since no military weapons had been produced in West Germany since the end of the war, knowing that the Armed Forces would once again request weapons bearing its brand. When the Bundeswehr announced that it wanted the Walther P38 as its official pistol, the Walther company quickly resumed production of the P38 in just 2 years, using pistols used in the war as models but with new technical schemes and new machinery. The first new P38s were supplied to the West German Armed Forces in June 1957, just 17 years and two months after the pistol had been used in combat in World War II, and from 1957 to 1963 the P38 was again the standard weapon. standard auxiliary.

At the end of 1963, the German Armed Forces adopted the post-war P1 military model, identifiable by the "P1" stamped on the slide. Postwar pistols, whether those marked P38 or P1, have an aluminum alloy frame instead of the steel frame of the original model. The aluminum alloy frame was later reinforced with a hexagonal screw in front of the trigger guard.

During the 1990s, the German Armed Forces began replacing the P1 with the P8, finally removing it from service in 2004.

A slightly modified version of the P38, called the P1, was adopted by the Bundeswehr in 1957 and was in service until the early 1990s. The P1 had a frame made of an aluminum alloy instead of steel, to reduce your weight. There was also a version with a shorter 25 mm barrel and modified safety system of the P1, called the P4.

An improved version of the P38, the Walther P4, was developed in the late 1970s and adopted by the police forces of Rhineland-Palatinate and Baden-Wuerttemberg. This had a 25 mm shorter barrel and the modified safety system of the P1.

Users

• Afghanistan: The Afghan National Police received 10,000 Walther P1 after the fall of the Taliban regime.
• Germany
  • Nazi Germany
  • Federal Germany: Walther P1.
  • Eastern Germany: Employed mainly by the police and paramilitary units.
• Algeria
• Argentina (only for testing)
• Austria
• Chad: Walther P1.
• Chile: Chilean Army.
• Croatia
• Finland: Finnish United Nations Peace Forces, Walther P1.
• France: Replaced in the mid-1950s.
• Hungary
• Iraq: Iraqi Kurdistan received 8,000 Walther P1 in 2014.
• Italy
• Japan
• Kazakhstan: Until 2007 it was used as standard weaponry by surveillance companies.
• Lebanon
• North Macedonia: Walther P1.
• Mozambique
• Norway: Norwegian Armed Forces. It was replaced by the P80 in 1985.
• Pakistan
• Portugal: Portuguese Army. It was replaced by the Glock 17 in 2019.
• South Africa: South African Police Standard Navy.
• Sweden: Walther HP.
• Uruguay, used in the National Army to date.
• North Vietnam

Non-state entities

• Yugoslav Partisans

Curiosities

• In the animated series "Transformers", Megatron (leader of the Decepticons) becomes a pistol-carabin of this model.
• Arsène Lupin III, the main character of the sleeve/anime Lupin III, employs this gun as his personal and preferred weapon.
• In the Second World War, allied soldiers stayed with the Walther P38 they captured and considered them a very valuable collection weapon, as few German soldiers used them. The corporals rarely carried them, but the sergeants and other senior officers.^{[chuckles]required]}
• In the movie "Harry el Sucio" (Don Siegel, 1971) the villain, "Scorpio" (Andrew Robinson) uses a P38, at least in the final scene, when he hijacks a school bus. It can be clearly seen at the time Scorpio is unarmed when he gets shot in his arm, when Harry challenges him to recover the gun, which is focused in the foreground.
• In a multiplayer cinematic mode of "Conker's Bad Fur Day", the "buddy bears" use a gun almost identical to the Walther P38. It's also the gun that Agent 007 uses in skyfall.