What the fuck were the french thinking when desingning this piece of shit ?
Not about 30-06
>>29375482
Never been done before.
>>29375524
/thread
It was a good gun in all respects, just not the 30-06 version
>>29375482
>What the fuck were the french thinking when desingning this piece of shit ?
That the Germans would steamroll their bitch-frog asses again anyway so they didn't bother.
>>29375482
That it was one of the first of its kind alongside the Madsen lmg and that it was new technology developed during a war so nobody expected it to be awesome but to be portable and shoot bullets.
>>29375482
They needed it really fucking quickly, so it wasn't as well thought out and proven like something which might get designed in peacetime over 5-10 years.
>>29376025
>They needed it really fucking quickly
>Put into service in 1908
hurr durr
>>29376052
If you're going to quote history, at least get it right.
They trailed it in 1908, with a handful of prototypes- then it was ordered in 1909 in a small number of some 100 guns.
Limited mass production didn't start until late 1912 to early 1913 and even then they only ended up on planes- which is important to note they didn't really have any problems on planes as there's no mud and dirt up there to clog up anything.
Come 1914 with zee germans on the border- full mass production from about 3-4 companies, some of them ok, some of them complete shit in terms of the actual quality of the weapons themselves.
>>29375482
>"Sir, we have finished designing the machine gun, but it is fucking shit"
>Don't worry, we are French, it's not like we are ever going to fire our weapons at the enemy!
>>29375482
This:
>>29375524
>>29375534
The .30-06 version was garbage. The 8mm Lebel version was a reliable, fairly awkward French prototype of the BAR M1918.
US should have adopted the Lewis instead.
>>29376096
So in other words they indeed had fucking years to design a less shitty gun?
>>29376112
Remember, the Chauchat was the only LMG that saw widespread use during WWI.
The Lewis was very limited in British use. The MG08/15 was not much of an LMG and saw limited use by comparison. Of course, the BAR M1918 hardly saw any use.
The Chauchat in 8mm Lebel was perfectly fine and filled a role that nearly every other major warring party could not fill reliably/effectively.
Enjoy your memes.
The Chauchat was years ahead of its time.
>>29376128
>The Chauchat was years ahead of its time.
>As soon as the war ended they desperately tried to find a replacement and everyone else dumped it
Lol, dank meme bro
>>29376128
madsen lmg used in russo/japanese war and in world war 1
maybe not widespread enough in use though...
>>29376141
>As soon as the war ended they desperately tried to find a replacement and everyone else dumped it
Same thing happened with the Thompson. To an extent, the same could be said about the Garand.
It was good enough for the time being, but decades after its introduction, it gets replaced by an honestly better design.
I'll say again, the Chauchat was years ahead of its time. People give the French shit, but they were the de facto force to be reckoned with on the Yuropoor continent for the prior 60 years or so. Their army meant a damn, even if it didn't live up to it in 1914 - they're the mother fuckers that first discovered and first implemented smokeless powder, they weren't no slouch.
I'd gladly like to see examples of major armies adopting automatic rifles/squad automatic weapons/light machine guns before the advent of the Chauchat. Please humor me.
>>29376143
Madsen is boss, but as you said, wasn't in widespread use.
>>29376159
>Same thing happened with the Thompson. To an extent, the same could be said about the Garand.
Except both of those saw 30+ years of service you double nigger.
Stop defending a shit gun that even the French admit was shit.
>>29376112
You're thinking late 20th century era weapons development
Think 1900 weapon development when most of the world was running around with bolt action rifles, some of them with magazines and shit like the Machinegun was space magic.
Someone dumps a weapon in your lap capable of self-loading and automatic fire, its not great, but it'll shit out bullets downrange like a motherfucker compared to anything else... oh wait, there really wasn't anything else doing that in terms of size/weight.
They don't-
>give it to grunts
>roll around in the mud with it
>have Cletus the marine use it as a club
>run 1000's of rounds through it
They stick it on the other space magic they have at the time- the aeroplane, where for the most part it does just fine.
Roll around 1914, we need guns like black kids need a dad or we're fucked, our closest allies are the Brits and they're running up to full scale production just to meet their own needs, because they're fucked too.
What have we got?
This piece of shit, ok fuck it, just get some guns pointing at zee germans, preferably a lot of guns to point at the germans shooting a lot of bullets, doesn't matter if its a piece of shit, its a piece of shit that shoots 'most' of the time.
Even the yanks at this point where 'well fuck we haven't got anything like it, we'll take some too!'
>>29376169
>Chauchat in service for roughly 30-40 years
>Thompson in service for roughly 30 years
>M1 Garand in service for roughly 30 years
Again, the Chauchat wasn't great, but it served its role for the French army. The .30-06 was trash and needs to be killed forever.
However the French were perhaps the first nation to realize that the LMG role was necessary for modern infantry tactics. Even if it wasn't great, it's an important development in the role of the LMG.
>>29376192
I very much doubt acquisition has changed in that respect.
>>29376201
Wut?
>I am drunk at this point.
>>29376208
I very much doubt that military acquisitions process was that different in the early 20th century compared to now.
>>29376223
Well fucking duh.
>this sorta shitty pseudo-LMG allows us automatic fire in 1914
>this amazing shoulder fired rifle can put out 800rpm with reliable magazines in an 8 pound package can put out fire reliably
Gee, who could have thought that a firearm from 100+ years ago isn't as good as firearms more modern (discounting the 1911, which is God's gift to man)?
>>29376141
Yeah, you're right its not like wars accelerate develoment and state-of-the-art at the beginning of the war is obsolete at the end. That's never, ever happened (pic related).
Honestly, this thread is either full of children, trolls or both.
Yes, I'm rustled.
>>29376192
So what you're saying is the Chauchat was a good CONCEPT.
>>29376258
The Hawker Hurricane makes my dick hard, though.
>>29376258
So when you say YEARS AHEAD IF ITS TIME, you really mean about 3 fucking years then?
Once again, a very danke meme bro
>>29376261
No, the Chauchat was good at the time and filled its role well, within the French Army. The .30-06 version was literal trash and ought to be laughed at.
>>29376268
>so when you says years ahead of its time
>you mean more than one year
>plural motherfucker, plural
YES, YOU FUCKING MORON.
Jesus.
>>29376268
Oh and try reading the fucking post you dolt.
It was years ahead of its time, then a war happened and everyone bothered putting the time and money into developing better ideas along the same lines.
If World War Two hadn't happened, the Spitfire/prop aircraft in general would have remained on top for much longer.
I don't see the problem. Was it some superweapon? Fuck no. But it was the first of its kind. When everything else at the start of WWI was big water cooled MGs, I'd say it's pretty impressive. Of course it was replaced and better guns were made by other nations shortly after. Of course. There was a bigass war, that always happens.
Show me another weapon or vehicle that was "years ahead of its time" that didn't also get replaced or have another country make a better version within 10 years. That's how technology works.
>>29376274
>>29376272
>Several prototypes of dirt-proof, fully enclosed Chauchat magazines were successfully tested in May and June 1918
So why did it take them until the end of the war to do something as simple as cover the fucking magazine properly?
Chauchat revisionists are the fucking worst
>>29376288
How dense are you? Honestly?
No, NO ONE, has said it had good magazine, or that it was 100% problem free.
OP decided to spout the retarded 'Hurrr chauchat a shit' meme which comes entirely from the .30-06 version of it.
For the time (FOR THE TIME) the 8mm version was fine (take note of the wording, fine, not 'the best rifle ever).
You're projecting your view of weapons from now onto over a hundred years ago, oddly enough they were still working things out.
No is revising the fact that the chauchat had problems.
I don't really see what this comment has to do with your inability to nderstand plurals though.....
>>29376301
>The Chauchat in 8mm Lebel was perfectly fine
>perfectly fine
>perfect
You're the one who started giving it way more fucking praise than it was due.
If you stopped using loaded terms like "perfectly fine" and "years ahead of its time" that imply it was anything but sub-par in actual fucking service then I wouldn't have a problem with your bullshit.
>>29376301
A magazine which might as well be deliberately designed to let in as much dirt as possible can never be fine. And that wasn't even its only problem.
>>29376313
>perfectly fine
>perfect
Are two entirely different descriptions of something.
One implies it was adequate for the time (which it was) the other implies that it had no flaws whatsoever (which is patantly unture and not what I said).
>>29376335
It worked well enough for them to keep using it and no one said that that was its only flaw.
>>29376341
But it wasn't "perfectly fine"
It had major flaws.
Fucking semantics if you want, but I think you're giving it more praise than it warrants.
>>29376335
It was cut that way to facilitate loading.
>>29376356
>It was cut that way to facilitate loading because it was the most counter-intuitive magazine design ever concocted.
ftfy
>>29375482
how to act like we don't want to surrender whilst surrendering
>>29375482
A select fire weapon, 240 rounds per minute of 8 mm Lebel in a package weighing less than 10 kilograms and 120 centimetre long with a capacity of 20 rounds.
>>29376365
Not denying that but just saying there was a purpose in the retarded holes
>>29376192
>that image
I bet no one is brave enough to share this
Support our troops!
>>29376159
>Their army meant a damn, even if it didn't live up to it in 1914 -
How did their army not live up to it in 1914? They stopped the Germans.
>>29375482
>>thinking...
That the 8mm Lebel was a tapered case round that would extract much more easily than a straight-sided .30-06
>>29376355
I don't think you understand what fine means or that we're talking about 100 hundreds years ago and not today.
ITT; Obscure Armaments shills
The Shitshit was a piece of trash, get over it.
>>29376335
Well that's how things are developed over time.
At the time the silly holes where there to see how many rounds where in the magazine so the loader/shooter could see when it was running low and no one really figured it was going to be a problem Course in hindsight, its a huge problem when you're running around a WW1 battlefield with something that was mostly meant to be hanging off an aeroplane or a nice friendly gun range which isn't waist deep in mud, dead people, shit and dirt.
Soon after that, magazines with fuckhuge holes in them don't get made any more.
Likewise the mechanism of the Chauchat was fairly complicated, robust and wasn't really very good because the cooling sleeve around the barrel would expand and lock into the outer sleeve, thus disabling the gun after a couple of hundred rounds.
That as far as I know hasn't really been replicated by anyone else since, because its kind of horrible.
But, gun manufacturers and designers learned from it.
As a military contribution, that's where the gun does deserve some respect.
One guy with an automatic rifle (Its a bit generous to call it a light machinegun) could suppress an area by themselves, which is something on a unit level is still done today and led to the development of other weapons-
>Single person operated light machinegun
>Automatic rifles, which in turn eventually became the assault rifle
Before that, you needed a crew served machinegun or 20 guys with bolt action fudd guns hammering away on an area- with this it meant that you had a full powered rifle able to move with the infantry, hammer away at an area. No one at the time had thought of it as a tactic, until the weapon itself gave them that option to do it.
Yes, its poo, but that how things are in early developments
>>29376584
>me-262
>wheraboos masturbate over it as muh first jet
>in reality it was a piece of shit that was unmaneuverable and suffered from tons of engine fires and failures, tons got shot down on landing and takeoff, couldn't decide if it was a fighter or a bomber
>even though it was, relatively speaking, a piece of shit of a jet, and got shit on by prop planes, it was still significant as the first operational jet
>>29375482
daily reminder the company which did this was originally a bicycle factory.
Every tube and spring inside was somehow related to one of their bicycles.
Other than that, awkward design. Muddy trenches. Opened magazines.
You do the math anon.
I'm pretty sure any modern familay of firearms would suffer pretty much the same fate in the same environments.
If you can't picture this, go learn a thing or two about ww1.
You're welcome.
>>29375482
Ease of manufacturing with simplified parts that could be outsourced to many machine shops and then assembled in a bicycle factory, first use of stamped steel to further reduce costs.
While the original Chauchat had been proposed years before, that simplfied version that became the standard issue one went from the designing phase to the battlefield in a mere months. It was pure genius, deal with it.
>>29376110
>Chauchat
>a prototype of the BAR
Kill yourself
>>29375524
>8mm versions doesn't jam
Oh hell yes it does.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dt25Wb09InM
A properly serviced and adjusted Chauchat runs fine. Technically it is a miracle gun because wtf else can move shit-tier wonky 8mm Lebel cartridges around. They are 50% shoulder ffs.
As someone else said, it was better off in the air but at least they had a tested gun to push on the ground.
The Brits luckily watched the Belgian adoption of the Lewis so pretty soon they would have a real LMG too. Only trouble is that one was also used in the air first. Despite being helps sweet the Lewis pan is open at the bottom and those ridges on the sides are part of its advancing mechanism. So it has more externalized functional bits than the Chauchat.
Now Germany sees both and goes "oh fuck." See war has changed and walking fire is the shit so advancing waves can move a bit under cover fire, then be cover fire while the next wave moves. This is really the first real role for a ground light machine gun.
So Germany can buy some Madsens (which are likely the best LMG of the war) but can't get nearly enough. They want to standardize on their own shit. But they get paranoid about introducing a new design and decide to scale down the 08. Literally same parts but slightly smaller all around. Aside for some basic jacket fittings, no common parts with 08. Best part is the new LMG still needs a water jacket! So now they have the heaviest "LMG" of the war so you can barely move. Only walking fire capable if you crab walk like an asshole, Maxim lock on a bipod shakes the shit out of it so bad it should have been semi-auto. Good job Germany.
>>29375482
US Army shluld have sticked with the Potato Digger
