I can think of a couple of reasons: (1) its performance was known. Basically, "the bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" kind of thought pattern. (2) The more cynical, whoever was peddling the Lanchester said they'd have a thousand units delivered in 10 days - or some other equally bogus timeframe.
I would vehemently disagree, having fired two of them. The grip ergonomics are terrible, there's no natural 'point and shoot'. It's reliability in the Great War (it was RFC, RN and RHA issue) was rated as poor, this was mainly an ammunition problem but the breech lock was prone to being jammed by dirt.I'm aware. And yep, that was basically what I was thinking.
Pistols don't change much in combat, but I am also a fan of the Webley Automatic:
Wikiwand - Webley Self-Loading Pistol
The Webley Self-Loading Pistol was an early magazine-fed pistol. The gun was designed in 1910 by the Webley & Scott company. The Mk. 1 entered police service in 1911 in a .32 ACP model for the London Metropolitan Police. The .455 version was adopted by the Royal Navy in 1912 as the first...www.wikiwand.com
Its a touch heavy, and it looks funny but it is apparently a very reliable and pleasant gun to shoot. The Webley Automatic Round is a touch more powerful than the .45 ACP and Webley was famous for making adaptable weapons (they sold a lot of them commercially and were open to customization). The Navy loved it but the Army wasn't really interested at the time. They also didn't like the grip safety. However, Webley had made a similar version with a more conventional safety for commercial sale (in 9mm too).
I haven't fired one, so I will have to take your word for it. That said I have seen mixed reports on its ease of firing:
I may have been overly harsh, I learned on more modern designs (HP and Glock mainly) but I found the grip terrible. It was significantly more expensive in its day than comparable revolvers.
Yeah, it definitely would not compete against those.
By the '30s the High Power was available and actually cheaper than the Webley. In fact if the UK was interested they could have joined the programme that preceded it in the 20s.
Licencing the Hi Power could conceivably lead to Britain joining FN in developing their self loading rifle.
That's a VP (Voltigeur-Patrouiller) ultra light AFV designed by Victor Bouffort for Fouga. It packed a U.S. Made 106mm RCL plus a 20mm. It was part of a number of studies for light AFV, the most interesting of which was the Even, part of a new concept of mechanised operations introduced by General Juin in the 50s
Chennault AT carrier with a 20mm recoilless rifle. Somewhat resembles an armoured bobsleigh.
Anyone ever heard of this thing? I've only got this one photo, without much information.
The UK had going through a lot of "standard" sidearms in the late nineteenth century (.442, .450, .476, .455). I can't see them going for an autoloader until they're more established (plus the whole 7mm debacle was consuming resources). Of course there's always the Mars.....
Or kept the original project, which historically moved very slowly. Perhaps the original Saive design is more popular at Versailles and continues development, complete with sixteen round magazine, and the UK joins in...
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that Westly Richards had a licence to produce the C96.
I believe that was just to import and sell the pistol in the UK, though I believe (and this is based only on word of mouth from years ago) that they converted a few to the twenty round configuration for customers.
In the 1910s, a Colt 38 automatic cost twice as much as a top quality S&W 38 revolver, and you could buy 8-10 Iver Johnson or H&R revolvers in 38S&W(above average quality) for the cost of that single Colt. The Webley SL was even more expensive than the Colt
This is a lesser issue to the pre WWI British Military as it was usually only officers who used handguns and they had to buy their own. Only small numbers of specialist troops would actually be issued them such as MP's.
The 9mm seems pretty feasible, as the Germans would produce a large number of the "Rotneuns" later on...
Given the similarities between the cartridges that was a simple change. I just don't see the UK adopting either .30" or .36" (in their terms) in the 1900s but there's no reason either W-R or a sufficiently motivated Mauser (probably the former as I can't see the UK adopting a weapon not in local production) developing a suitable ".455" pistol cartridge and a modified C96 for it, The Chinese did after all.
