If you close your eyes and picture a cowboy’s revolver, chances are your brain draws a Colt Peacemaker. Long barrel, plow-handle grip, big exposed hammer, six fat cartridges in the cylinder. It’s ...

That’s what makes handguns such an oddball part of military history. Soldiers carried them into the worst moments of combat, the Western Front trenches, the Pacific jungles, the Eastern Front winters, ...