But it automatically went into my US inventory.
When I got the same pistol before, I received a blue exchange ticket and could choose which faction to receive it.
I wanted to equip my Japanese soldiers with it.
Like Ken Watanabe in “Letters from Iwo Jima”.
It would have been better if I could have chosen which faction to receive it.
Well… this shiny pistol is sexy. 
It has been always available only for the US. Back then (pre merge), you could only choose in which campaign to claim it. But you couldn’t choose different faction.
Well, it depends on your point of view.
You can also think of the British in Tunisia, the US Army in Normandy, and the US Marines in the Pacific as separate factions until the merge. Although now it has been integrated.
I had given the first M1911 I received to the British.
Well, literally nothing has changed in this matter since then.
I wouldn’t mind being able to equip the 1911a1 on another country. It’s not as if Colt wasn’t selling them outside US military contracts even back in the day. Two wouldn’t knock off game balance… at all, and a nickel plated side arm is exactly what an officer with money to burn would buy, or a soldier would pick up off said officer’s corpse.
Not, of course that I expect to be able to do that, but it would be neat.
Yes, soldiers during WW2 carried not only their issued supplies but also personal belongings, and Japanese military officers also loved FN and Colt guns.
I think it would be good if pistols could be equipped across factions.
The pistols in this game don’t have enough performance to be actively used, and I think most people buy them as casual fashion items.
