A little over two weeks ago I linked to an old Army report on the idea of hand-held weapons for use in space. At *roughly* the same time the Army was pondering the need to kill Commie bastards on the moon, Winchester was looking at a shotgun that kinda was almost exactly what the Army wanted: the Liberator.
The Liberator was a short-lived idea for a four-barreled shotgun “Derringer.” It would be easy and cheap to manufacture, simple to operate, great for dropping into Viet Nam or Cuba or some place else with People We Like who are fighting People We Don’t Like. Shotguns are great for “bush” areas where the line of sight often isn’t that far, and where marksmanship training isn’t that great. DARPA was involved in pushing the idea.
Three Liberator models are shown in the video below. The Mk. 1 is just a wooden mockup, and was intended to use a four-round pre-assembled package of ammo… you put in the one chunk, fire it four time, pop the expended chunk out. The Mk. 2 used conventional shotgun shells and a simple break-open arrangement, like a greatly enlarged Derringer. The Mk. 2 is the design of interest here. It was made of magnesium castings; this would have made it strong and light and cheap, but I just can’t get past the idea of being creeped out about firing a weapon made out of *magnesium.* On Earth, with rough handling and humidity and such, you’d expect the magnesium might not hold up so well, and while it was undoubtedly an alloy of magnesium which was substantially less burny than pure magnesium… still, you wouldn’t want a scuffed-up shotgun to decide Now’s The Time and spark up in your hands.
But in space? Magnesium would be just fine in a vacuum.
Also of note: the Mk. 2 doesn’t have a standard trigger meant to be pulled by a single finger, but a squeeze bar for the whole hand. Just the thing for a Marine in a space suit. Additionally, note that the trigger guard actually folds up so if you have big fat gloves you can get a grip on the thing.
This does make me wonder. It was meant for low-end combatants who didn’t have anything better. Well, in the 1960’s, how often would that description have applied to anyone outside of the tropics? How often would someone need to handle this weapon while wearing mittens? It’s unlikely… but maybe, just maybe, the design features were put in with the thought that this could be used in space (NOTE: almost certainly not). The latching handle is *huge,* again just the thing for use with a spacesuit glove. DARPA could have been thinking about this for use in places just a little higher up than the hills of Cambodia.