This was an assassins' weapon devised by the British for the use of the Special Operations Executive (SOE) and resistance forces. It was essentially a foot long tube with a magazine/handle. The back end had a bolt action and receiver and the middle and front had a suppressr with ports and baffles for silencing. The key to silencing a weapon is the slow release of the gases. The bang occurs when the cartridge fires and the rapidly expanding gases caused by the powders burning collide with the air. That is the crack or as I already stated "bang." If you let the gas out slowly then the collision is lessened. The baffles work to force the gas to travel longer distances before entering the air and several ports divide up the gases and lessen the noise. Imagine a water slide. If you let the water go straight down the slide, that is the shortest distance. Then take several straight pieces of metal and weld them on to the slide so that the water hits them and has to travel around them. You can conceivably lengthen the water's trip down the slide 3 or 4 or 5 times the distance depending on the number of baffles (because that's what you welded onto the slide. ) That is how a silencer works. It makes the fired gases travel much further and they are moving a lot slower when they come out. As I stated earlier the multiple ports also aid the process. You cannot silence a revolver no matter what Hollywood shows you in flicks. There is a gap between the cylinder and barrel and that bangs. An automatic pistol is easier to silence because there is no gap but the slide operates and clangs back and that makes noise. The Welrod as I stated was a bolt action. No gap and no noise--a very ingenious assassins' weapon. Remember the scene in "The Godfather" when Clemenza and Micheal are working with the assassin weapon that Micheal is going to use in the restaurant when he meets Sollozzo and the police captain? Micheal shoots a revolver and it is loud. Clemenza states "I left it loud." That was really poor technical information since you can't silence a revolver and Clemenza had done nothing to silence this particular revolver! Nothing was added.

Awesome weapon, no matter what anyone says. Obviously, it found no place in regular infantry, but it still was a weapon that was dangerous in the right hands. A silenced weapon only effective at short distances; what was that intended for? It was magazine fed and bolt action; quite awkward for a pistol, but this was no ordinary pistol. To this day, when ever I see one, it always reminds me of a night stick carried by OPP. But, I am going to have to correct the same person again (got I am getting tired : )). One, it wasn't a single shot weapon. And two, surely you can not compare the Colt .45 with Welrod. That would be like, well, comparing a MRLS and a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher...wait, you already did that.

Hard to rate a weapon such as this. No doubt effective for its chosen role, the fact it is still classified surely means it is of importance and a brilliant design

it was an elete weopon and great for the secret servise

A British-American Pistol that can only hold one shot. The range isn't even that far. It's only like 40-50 feet. The M1911(Colt .45) is way better.