I got all excited about this, a thread which is more aroud my knowledge base, and where I can contribute... but it seems to me that the last 2 pages are nothing to do with pistols, but firstly a conversation, followed by two old blokes arguing about... nothing, as far as I can see. (Steady chaps, it's all a joke
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To get back on thread, i've always thought that there are three possible ways downed aircrew can behave if faced with capture - fight it out with your 13 odd rounds, and hope to be treated well at capture (yeah right), fight it out then turn the weapon on yourself (Kipling, anyone?), or just as has been mentioned, hand the weapon over and hope that by acting nice you will avoid being killed to death.
All aircrew i've ever talked to have gone for the final option, meaning what is the point of a combat pistol? Surely, what would be better is to have a survival pistol, a large calibre revolver maybe, used to defend oneself against large predators, or get some food - the basic advantages of a combat pistol, such as larger capacity magazine etc wouldn't be needed in such a situation.
If the aircrew needed a true combat weapon, then a pistol wouldn't cut it anyway, and you'd be better off giving them the Carbine L85A2 a la AAC Apache crewmen, which i've fired and isn't a bad little weapon, if badly balanced.
Hopefully that'll rile enough people up so we can get a decent discussion going again...