I'm guessing either the French or the US Army circa WW1.
For the French it was a logistics thing. France was right at the breaking point and they needed a cheap MG even if it was a crappy MG.
For the US expeditionary forces, it was a funny story with the Lewis Gun not handling the .30-06 ammo well and William Crozier not wanting to deal with the bullshit.
it was mostly that the war was revealing the need for a lighter machine gun that could be used offensively instead of needing to be setup on a tripod
the british had the lewis gun and the french needed one quickly
as much as the chauchat is memed on for being an unreliable piece of junk, it was used because it filled an empty niche in the french arsenal
Close sided mags and a dust cover solved 90% of the problems with the French guns. You're ultimately talking about a quickly designed gun shortly pressed unto service and built by a variety of subcontractors who didn't always have arms building experience due to materiel needs. By the end of the war it was an adequate machine rifle that was quickly superseded by better designed and built guns. As for the American version it was rechambered incorrectly.
wasn't it pretty good by the standards of WWI? no BAR sure, but what other options do you have. I also heard that most of the issues were with the 30-06 versions
It was a reasonably good, reaonably reliable weapon in its class and FOR ITS TIME. Only the American version was abysmal, and only because the Belgians were being bombed and occupied to shit and couldn't get the new factory for that weapon running properly. The 14 other countries using it were using the French version.
Sigh. The French, not the Belgians. To elaborate, USA wanted a version using their own rifle ammo. This required redesign and a new factory, so new machinery and new workers and new engineers in the middle of an invasion. The factory cranked out guns eventually but the less than optimal design changes and the reduced quality control resulted in a piece of junk.
this gun was fun as hell in battlefield 1, i would probably buy one in a heartbeat if a company made a semi auto repro of it, and i'm sure with modern quality control most of the original issues would be non existant
One of the main issues was that the original gun used the rather obsolete French cartridge, necessitating the full on banana magazine.
It was a reasonably good, reaonably reliable weapon in its class and FOR ITS TIME. Only the American version was abysmal, and only because the Belgians were being bombed and occupied to shit and couldn't get the new factory for that weapon running properly. The 14 other countries using it were using the French version.
Here I must correct myself. The Chauchat actually was manufactured for several other cartridges beside the French and American ones. It seems the 7.65 version worked very well.
I think that if anyone were to make this gun today, and fools they would be, they would need to make a version for a modern cartridge to have the faintest hope of getting sales.
Because in 8mm Lebel it actually works fine
morons try to rechamber an LMG in 8mm Lebel - a sharply tapered midpressure 8x50mmR rimmed cartridge in a semi-circular magazine into .30-06 - a much longer straight-sided 7.62x63mm high-pressure rimless cartridge in a straight box magazine.
US Army morons then wonder why gun don't wurk gud.
For the patetically few months the US Army was in the tail end of WW1 they could have betrer to adopt the 8mm Lebel temporarily as a specialist LMG ammo until the BARs were ready.
is that really the reason for it's reputation? i didnt even know the chauchat was used so much by the US, i always thought it was the french complaining about it
Yes. The French had little to no issues with the rifle compared to the US. It was just the rechambered versions that were so terrible (mostly due to quite literally non-existent quality control, many rifles literally didn't have extractor cutouts in the barrel) that the reputation of its terribleness still exists today, 100 years later, despite the efforts from people like Ian McCollum to rehabilitate its reputation.
>until the BARs were ready.
What do you mean? I thought the US Army refused to issue the BAR in Europe because they were afraid the Germans would reverse engineer captured versions
I can only imagine the clusterfrick being supplied with some these as part of the Waffen SS meant on the front, with regards to resupply most of all. Caliber issues must have been hell.
Who's "they"?
I'm guessing either the French or the US Army circa WW1.
For the French it was a logistics thing. France was right at the breaking point and they needed a cheap MG even if it was a crappy MG.
For the US expeditionary forces, it was a funny story with the Lewis Gun not handling the .30-06 ammo well and William Crozier not wanting to deal with the bullshit.
it was mostly that the war was revealing the need for a lighter machine gun that could be used offensively instead of needing to be setup on a tripod
the british had the lewis gun and the french needed one quickly
as much as the chauchat is memed on for being an unreliable piece of junk, it was used because it filled an empty niche in the french arsenal
Close sided mags and a dust cover solved 90% of the problems with the French guns. You're ultimately talking about a quickly designed gun shortly pressed unto service and built by a variety of subcontractors who didn't always have arms building experience due to materiel needs. By the end of the war it was an adequate machine rifle that was quickly superseded by better designed and built guns. As for the American version it was rechambered incorrectly.
wasn't it pretty good by the standards of WWI? no BAR sure, but what other options do you have. I also heard that most of the issues were with the 30-06 versions
>wasn't it pretty good by the standards of WWI? no BAR sure,
No and neither was the BAR you fricking moron.
you're acting like lmgs are useful at all
>Number produced: 262,000
That's why
For context, only 145k Lewis guns were ever made.
It was a reasonably good, reaonably reliable weapon in its class and FOR ITS TIME. Only the American version was abysmal, and only because the Belgians were being bombed and occupied to shit and couldn't get the new factory for that weapon running properly. The 14 other countries using it were using the French version.
Sigh. The French, not the Belgians. To elaborate, USA wanted a version using their own rifle ammo. This required redesign and a new factory, so new machinery and new workers and new engineers in the middle of an invasion. The factory cranked out guns eventually but the less than optimal design changes and the reduced quality control resulted in a piece of junk.
You'll cowards don't even chauchat
this gun was fun as hell in battlefield 1, i would probably buy one in a heartbeat if a company made a semi auto repro of it, and i'm sure with modern quality control most of the original issues would be non existant
One of the main issues was that the original gun used the rather obsolete French cartridge, necessitating the full on banana magazine.
Here I must correct myself. The Chauchat actually was manufactured for several other cartridges beside the French and American ones. It seems the 7.65 version worked very well.
I think that if anyone were to make this gun today, and fools they would be, they would need to make a version for a modern cartridge to have the faintest hope of getting sales.
i dunno what it could be chambered in to replicate the original banana mag that its known for, and a chauchat with a box magazine would just look lame
Because in 8mm Lebel it actually works fine
morons try to rechamber an LMG in 8mm Lebel - a sharply tapered midpressure 8x50mmR rimmed cartridge in a semi-circular magazine into .30-06 - a much longer straight-sided 7.62x63mm high-pressure rimless cartridge in a straight box magazine.
US Army morons then wonder why gun don't wurk gud.
For the patetically few months the US Army was in the tail end of WW1 they could have betrer to adopt the 8mm Lebel temporarily as a specialist LMG ammo until the BARs were ready.
is that really the reason for it's reputation? i didnt even know the chauchat was used so much by the US, i always thought it was the french complaining about it
Yes. The French had little to no issues with the rifle compared to the US. It was just the rechambered versions that were so terrible (mostly due to quite literally non-existent quality control, many rifles literally didn't have extractor cutouts in the barrel) that the reputation of its terribleness still exists today, 100 years later, despite the efforts from people like Ian McCollum to rehabilitate its reputation.
>literally didn't have extractor cutouts in the barrel
t-thank you france sama
>until the BARs were ready.
What do you mean? I thought the US Army refused to issue the BAR in Europe because they were afraid the Germans would reverse engineer captured versions
Which always seemed too moronic to me to be true.
Asking dumb questions about a Frog gun without YT-ing GunJesus on the Chauchat.
>ngmi
dunno, but i love it
its gorgeous... in a hideous demon machine kind of way
and the way it shoots makes me think of high caliber auto-cannon
I can only imagine the clusterfrick being supplied with some these as part of the Waffen SS meant on the front, with regards to resupply most of all. Caliber issues must have been hell.
Because it looks cool.