Handguns
The Dragoons had a rather wide variety of handguns available to them during the war. Two of the most common are pictured here. The Webley of pre-World War One fame was still in widespread use during the Second World War. The .455 bullet had good stopping power, but the weapon was generally heavy. This had its good and bad points. The weight helped absorb recoil but was somewhat unwieldy to aim.
The far right weapon in the picture is the Enfield “tanker model” pistol. This .38 calibre pistol was designed with vehicle crews in mind. Notice the complete lack of a thumb actuated hammer on the pistol. It was thought prudent to delete the hammer so that it would have less chance of interfering with egress from an enclosed vehicle. The drawback was that a single pull of the trigger actuated the revolution of the cylinder but also the firing pin, as well. This required a large amount of pull pressure and many soldiers found it difficult to keep the iron sights on target during this evolution.
For my editorial on the live firing of these weapons, please see our main WW2 Polish Living History Group Main Page and click on “event pictures.” I have information regarding my experience firing both of these pistols on the range.