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#Post#: 141--------------------------------------------------
This old gun
DIR By: allmanav
Date: April 15, 2020, 1:38 pm
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At the onset of the World War I, the machine gun in standard use
for most all European armies was a stationary weapon platform
limited in mobility due to weight, size and the need for a crew
to operate. It was apparent that advancing infantry units would
benefit from increased firepower from more portable light
machine guns. Several countries were already prototyping and
experimenting with designs for a man-portable platform.
France began just such an endeavor a decade prior to the
outbreak of war with a viable design, the Chauchat-Sutter
machine rifle. In 1915, the design was adopted by the French
army as the Machine Rifle Model 1915 CSRG, the acronym standing
for the principle influencers: Chauchat, Sutter, Ribeyrolles and
the manufacturer Gladiator. Today, it is most commonly known by
the name Chauchat, the last name of the leader of the design
project, Col. Louis Chauchat.
The Chauchat is a man-portable automatic rifle, and one of the
world’s earliest fielded light machine guns. It uses an
adaptation of the Browning style long-recoil operating system
and is chambered for what was the standard cartridge used by the
French at the time, 8x50 mm Lebel. It has a low rate of fire of
240-rpm, which helps with controllability. The action is fed by
a curved detachable single-stack magazine attached at the bottom
of the receiver. It weighs in at 20 lbs., lighter than the
50-lbs. weight of standard crew-served machine guns of the time.
It could be carried and used by a single man without the need
for a crew. It can also be shot while using the attached folding
bipod or from the hip. In this way, the Chauchat could move with
the advancing infantry and be used for “walking fire,’ where the
user would provide suppressing bursts while on the move, a big
advantage for a maneuvering force. At the time and with the
technology available, the Chauchat was reasonably reliable light
machine gun in good conditions.
The Chauchat was used extensively by the French from its
adoption to the end of WWI. It was also used by the American
Expeditionary Force, as the United States had not adopted a
standard light machine gun yet in 1917. The United States
purchased French made CSRG 1915s, first used by the U.S. 1st
Infantry Division in October 1917. Eventually, 18 United States
Army Divisions would use the Chauchat before the end of the war
in November 1918. It was the most-produced light machinegun of
the war.
Yet the Chauchat received a bad reputation in popular memory for
poor reliability. This is partially due to the conditions of the
trench warfare battlefront it was used in along with its
construction. The trenches of the First World War were full of
mud and grit, which found their way into every opening. The
magazines of the Chauchat typically had open areas on the side
of the magazine to allow the user to see the remaining capacity.
These openings allowed mud and grit in and caused the magazines
to gum-up, resulting in failures to feed.
The Sides of the Chauchat magazine had openings for visibility,
which made it easy for mud to get in and jam the magazine.
The Sides of the Chauchat magazine had openings for visibility,
which made it easy for mud to get in and jam the magazine.
Another issue was the construction of some of the parts using
stampings, which was relatively unusual to find in military
firearms at the time. The stamped parts could be more easily
damaged with use and were distorted by the heat generated by
sustained fire in combat. The barrel sleeve that the barrel
recoiled in could also be distorted by the heat of sustained
fire, causing stoppages. The Chauchat works fine with short
bursts, just not in sustained fire.
The controversy over the Chauchat’s reliability also grew
largely from the attempt to produce a .30-06 Sprg. version for
United States use. The .30-06 Sprg. version was not made to the
same design or build quality as the CSRG 1915 in 8x50 mm Lebel.
As a result, the new version did not have the reliability or
performance of the original, and United States forces ended up
using the CSRG 1915 instead despite the logistic issue of
different cartridges. The controversy stuck however, and the
Chauchat was remembered as a failure, when in fact it was a
reasonably good and widely relied on light machine gun. Watch
the American Rifleman "I Have This Old Gun" video linked above
to learn more about the CSRG 1915 Chauchat.
Look at the video.
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