How proficient were the man killers of old?

[Flamingo]

Ian McCollum, host of Forgotten Weapons, wrote a great book on French Military weapons titled Chassepot to FAMAS.

[revchuck38]

I worked with the French Army in the late 70s-early 80s, and there were no MAS-36s being used as issued weapons in the units I worked with. There were some with welded-shut bolts being used for training where they didn't want to mess up their -49/56s.

While I was there, one of their AAA units switched from quad 50s on half-tracks to Rolands. Now that was an upgrade!

[Borderland]

Scattered all over Indochina and Africa. And on the surplus market. I'm not sure what your getting at. They were being used by the French and its former colonial holdings for quite a while as reserve weapons, but France was never able to make the ridiculous quantities of the things that all the other major players of WW2 did, or as they did with the Berthier in WW1, because if the whole conquered by Nazis thing.
They never had enough to equip their own forces completely before that happened, but then never intended to. The MAS 40 was supposed to be the frontline rifle, a semi-auto, but didnt get finished or produced until after the war, and both it( as the MAS 44 and 49/56) and the 36 until the Famas was adopted.

So they never had the capability to produce enough rifles for their own military. France isn't a large country, but then neither is Germany or GB. Russia produced their own military small arms. So did Germany and GB. I'm just saying that France wasn't a country that was able to build enough arms to defend itself prior to ww2. Lets face facts. They weren't interested in doing that.

[okie john]

Also very early developers of the concept of the machine rifle/ light machine gun, with the Chauchat. It wasn't all that great, but it was the most produced machine gun of WW1, and had a big impact.

My grandfather humped a Chauchat in France for a while. I was very young when I heard him talking about it. I don’t recall specifics but I do remember clearly that he hated it and that the Lewis gun was a slight improvement at best. He liked the BAR quite a bit more.


Okie John

[Half Moon]

My grandfather humped a Chauchat in France for a while. I was very young when I heard him talking about it. I don’t recall specifics but I do remember clearly that he hated it and that the Lewis gun was a slight improvement at best. He liked the BAR quite a bit more.


Okie John

Some light duty reading awhile back says the Chauchat was decent enough, for the time, in the original French caliber but the US .30-06 version was prone to a variety of feeding related issues and was widely hated. I've seen a couple under glass including at a museum dedicated to Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus, NM so US service predated WW1, and the BAR, by at least a little bit.

[Jim Watson]

Never heard anything against the Lewis gun; "The Belgian Rattlesnake."

[BillSWPA]

Part of the reason France ended up in World War I is that Germany had much more respect for the French army than the Russian army. At the beginning of that war, Russia could easily supply a large number of men, but only a rifle for one out of every three. The other two were told that when the guy next to them dies, they should pick up his rifle and start shooting. Knowing this, as well as who is committed by treaty to defend who, Germany did not have any battle plans that did not involve invading France prior to invading Russia.


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[revchuck38]

Never heard anything against the Lewis gun; "The Belgian Rattlesnake."

I’ve read that it ran well while it had ammo (47 rounds?), but was a stone bitch to reload.

[Half Moon]

Part of the reason France ended up in World War I is that Germany had much more respect for the French army than the Russian army. At the beginning of that war, Russia could easily supply a large number of men, but only a rifle for one out of every three. The other two were told that when the guy next to them dies, they should pick up his rifle and start shooting. Knowing this, as well as who is committed by treaty to defend who, Germany did not have any battle plans that did not involve invading France prior to invading Russia.


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Reading says a lot of this involved railway schedules. WW1 was the first war with professional General staffs and they were heavily trained in railway logistics. A lot of the driving force ended up being X can transport Y per hour and if we don't act now then X will have Y troops deployed before we go to war leaving us at Z disadvantage. So the transportation calculations pushed for action, now, now, now, in a situation diplomacy should have resolved given time.

[Joe in PNG]

One could also mention that France didn't have the same large export client base for firearms that Germany did before the wars.

The Germans were basically selling Mausers to pretty much every nation of the world before the war began that wasn't part of the British Empire, and would even custom design a nation specific cartridge for your army to boot.

France, as per the old saying, was still under "the French copy nobody, and nobody copies the French".