Talk:Walther P38

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Archiving[edit]

Archiving old discussions:

Popular culture[edit]

There appears to be an edit war about whether or not to include a "popular culture" or "fiction" section in this article. I personally have no preference, but I would remind editors that as soon as this kind of back and forth reverting starts, that it is essential to take things to the talkpage. Work it out, see if you can find a compromise, point to previous discussions, but please stop playing tug of war with the article. --Elonka 14:50, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Nice try, but this has been discussed long ago and the concensus is clear on WP:firearms page. No discussion needs to take place here as it's already signed, sealed, and delivered. If you have a problem with THAT policy, take it to the WP:Firearms discussion page. Reverts should state that they are in accordance with the concensus and policy of WP firearms. --'''I am Asamuel''' (talk) 15:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If there is a clear consensus somewhere, please provide a link to it, thanks. --Elonka 16:36, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Please see WP:MILMOS#POP, and WP:GUNS#Pop culture which was based off of WP:MILMOS#POP. Those are the two best examples I can find. I would show you the talkpage discussion that led to the MILMOS guideline, but I don't have time to go through roughly 80 archives to find the exact discussion that led to the consensus.--LWF (talk) 16:57, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi! I just want to add, that I was trained on the P1 pistol in 2004. I was Part of the Panzerartillerie-lehr-Battalion 325. Some units still use it. German Feldjäger still use it on special ocassions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.48.246.102 (talk) 20:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Megatron P38 in media section[edit]

I just wanted to get feedback on adding Megatron to the media section. It's quite infamous, and I could even cite news articles on people arrested for having Megatron's where the police thought it was a real gun. Mathewignash (talk) 14:31, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No, we have been over this before, see the section directly above this and the archive. It boils down to this: The P38 is important to the toy, the toy however is not important to the real P38. If you can find a reliable source stating otherwise, you may add the content back (without that non-free image). Until then, it is irrelevant in this article and will be removed. You may find WP:GUNS#Pop culture and WP:MILMOS#POP interesting. — DanMP5 16:17, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

why not?[edit]

The toy introduced people to the gun. I'd also mention the gun being the signature weapon of Lupin 3. if it links, and makes sense to do so. Why not? -Sparky (talk) 16:55, 24 July 2011 (UTC) And it's use in The Man from U.N.C.L.E. -Sparky (talk) 16:58, 24 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Excessive detail[edit]

The lengthy material on grips is of interest only to hardcore collectors. It all comes from one or maybe two sources: A self-published website and a self-published book. It was all added by one editor, @72stormer:.[1] I think it's just way too much detail for an article intended for the general public, especially since the sources are poor quality. Any other views? Felsic2 (talk) 23:57, 25 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The "Earwig" copying detector indicates that a lot of the material was simply copied from this source: "P.38 Masterpiece or misfit?" by Peter G. Kokalis. Because of that and my other concern, I'm going to cut almost all of the grips material. Felsic2 (talk) 18:36, 27 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]
There are two sources for the grips material: a website and a book. The website, http://pistole38.nl/, is run by someone named "Dennis". It advertises the book, P.38 Magazines and Grips A collector's Guide by Ron Clarin, Wolf Roth, and Dennis De Vlieger. This book does not have an ISBN number.[2] [3] Presumably, "Dennis" the webmaster is "Dennis De Vlieger", the coauthor. I cannot find any evidence that these writers have established reputations as published experts in their field, per the requirements at WP:Selfpub. Also, much of the text was copied directly from the website, per Earwig.
So it would appear that this enormous block of text is largely taken from a hobbyist's self-published book and website. That's in addition to the problem with the copied text, noted above, and to the issue that this material is of interest only to dedicated collectors within a small niche.
For those three reasons, I don't believe this material should stay in its current form. I deleted it, but it was restored by @Gocontributor:, who wrote: this is a book or set of books giving information on many subjects or on many aspects of one subject, if you don't care for the detail - ignore it).[4] I don't think this is correct. Inappropriate material is deleted from Wikipedia all of the time. I don't always agree with every deletion, but the principal is sound- articles should be kept readable and avoid going into excessive detail about trivial issues, article text must not be copied without attribution, and standards for references must be met. Felsic2 (talk) 22:00, 28 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]


Due to massive and extensive copyright violations, I've reverted the article to the state before 72stormer's edits. 2:35, 31 May 2014. Felsic2 (talk) 02:32, 29 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

PLease cite the "extensive copyright violations", otherwise restore the detail. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gocontributor (talk • contribs) 23:30, 24 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Production dates[edit]

Hi, I have a West German P-38 with a date stamp of 5/65. So the "Variants" section is incorrect when it says production stopped in '63. Cowcharge (talk) 16:15, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That claim isn't footnoted, so there's no way of knowing where it cam from. I'll put a citation request on it. Felsic2 (talk) 21:27, 1 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Rather a short and uniformative article for such a distinguished sidearm. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2404:4404:14F5:FE00:79FF:73F9:5A07:89D6 (talk) 00:37, 22 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Orphaned references in Walther P38[edit]

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Walther P38's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Smith":

  • From MG 08: Smith, Joseph E. (1969). Small Arms of the World (11 ed.). Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: The Stackpole Company. p. 719.
  • From Vz. 24: Smith, p. 295

Reference named "Bishop":

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 03:44, 18 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

About Walther P38 in Japan[edit]

According to the source (Scarlata's article) the use of this pistol by Japan is not mentioned. You can read the article (The P.38 proved to be a rugged, reliable handgun, although it was never available in great enough numbers to replace the P.08. The Germans also provided limited quantities of P.38s to their erstwhile allies, Italy, Croatia and Hungary. ... When the West German army — the Bundeswehr — was organized in the 1950s, the new Walther plant at Ulm-Donau began production of a P.38 variant with a lightweight, aluminum alloy frame that was adopted as the Pistole 1 (P1). The P1 was also sold in substantial numbers to the armies and police forces of Austria, Chile, Columbia, Ghana, Norway, Portugal, Pakistan, Peru, South Africa, Uruguay and Venezuela.) Shadowcaster (talk) 02:35, 4 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

No Mass listed??[edit]

I used to own a WWII P-38, and a solid chunk of steel it was too! I also bought a post-war P-1 with the aluminum frame, and it was a lot lighter, as well as being much better finished. (Accuracy?... better left unmentioned and the reason I eventually sold both!)

Just wonder why no listing for the weight? Virtually every other handgun has this entered in the Info Box, and the P-38 was standardized, so it did not vary, unlike other pistols with different lengths and calibers (e.g. Walther PP/PPK: where there is a lot of variation).

Would be helpful if the Mass were entered in the Info Box for comparison to others... just saying.

All the best,

James 203.150.179.122 (talk) 16:46, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Added. Thanks for pointing that out. Loafiewa (talk) 16:58, 1 February 2022 (UTC)[reply]
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