Talk:Chauchat

Note on Edit
I have removed the line "However the Chauchat machine rifle is also recognized today as one of the least reliable automatic weapons ever issued to armed services." from the article. I agree with the sentiment here, but the question is "Who" recognizes it as the least reliable automatic weapon. A source or justification is easily needed here. Just because this line if often repeated, does not mean that it is verifiable without a source or meets the Burden of Proof criteria.

The removed piece also comes off as NPOV, as the line points out merely opinion instead of fact. Where is the definitive source on all firearm facts that defines the weapon as the least reliable squad automatic rifle produced? Unless a source is provided, or the wording changed, this comes off merely as a subjective opinion.--Termynuss 19:52, 10 October 2006 (UTC)


 * Well, it could be reworded as saying: "However, the Chauchat automatic rifle is also recognized today by a number of military and armaments analysts as one of the least reliable automatic weapons ever issued to armed services." One definitive source I can think of which features a military weapons expert's opinion on the Chauchat rifle is the television series Mail Call, whose host, GySgt R. Lee Ermey, once featured the rifle (And Ermey's views on it). Of course, that's just one Marine's opinion. Another source may be needed before this sentence can be put back in. 124.187.68.121 12:07, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

I have no doubt that the Chauchat was pretty unreliable. However care must be taken to separate the Chauchats that were chambered in .30-06, that were even less reliable. It must also be put in context of what I've quoted below, there was no comparable light machine gun on the German side and the Germans were compelled to capture Chauchats for their own use. Reliabilty issues nonwithstanding the Chauchat was evidently an important weapon on the battlefield of WWI.--Sus scrofa 12:31, 6 November 2006 (UTC)

Useless information?
What is the purpose of the comparison between the Chauchat and other automatic weapons of the time that seemingly have nothing to do with the rifle? Other, more detailed parts of the article cover the subject better than the blocked off area. Furthermore, what is the purpose of the FM Chatellerault piece? The FM 24-29 has little to do with the Chauchat sans replacing it-- wouldn't it be better off if this was added to an article on the FM 24-29, with a passing mention linked to that article?--Termynuss 19:43, 10 October 2006 (UTC)
 * I fully agree. What's the point of comparing the Chauchat to the MP18, which was used in a completely different role? If anything it should be compared to the MG 08/15. Unless someone makes a good point I'm going to delete it. 84.152.107.181 15:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.152.107.181 (talk) 15:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC).
 * I smell someone's trying to make the gun look better than it actually was. Forerunner of the assault rifle concept? Yeah right. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.113.113.81 (talk) 11:42, 23 October 2007 (UTC)
 * That's a bit of information that is fairly widely recognized. Just because it was an awful gun does not mean it was not innovative. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.178.2.254 (talk) 07:34, 4 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The Chauchat is a light machinegun. Period. It uses a full-powered rifle round. It can't be fired from the shoulder while standing. It was never issued on a individual soldier level, like an issue rifle, but on section level, like light machinegun. Please tell me in which way it was a forerunner to the assault rifle concept, apart from the fact that it fires automatically (which many older light machineguns were capable of).84.152.117.218 14:38, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmmm, I must be some type of buff, Godlike super-being or something. I can fire the ShowShit from the shoulder no problem.  The 30-06 version, never fired the French version.  You're mistaken.  It's an automatic rifle or squad automatic weapon.  It hardly fits the bill as an LMG. I'll have to say, even the kid-glove treated gun I fired was a POS by any standard. --Asams10 15:03, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * The fact that it can be done physically doesn't mean much. It's not designed to be fired that way and was pretty much fired exclusively from the bipod on all accounts that i have read and on every picture i have seen. Feel free to prove me otherwise, though. There's people that fire MG42s from the shoulder, does that make the MG42 a forerunner of the assault rifle concept? I can agree on automatic rifle. But an automatic rifle doesn't automatically make it a forerunner of the assault rifle. There are even older guns that share more features with the assault rifle than the Chauchat. Despite that, the section at discussion clearly is POV.84.152.117.218 20:53, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * It'd be easier if you didn't put words in my mouth. I never stated, nor do I feel, that the ShowShit is in any way, shape, form, or incarnation any semblance of an assault rifle. I merely stated it was simple and practical to fire from the shoulder.  That it happened is not in doubt.  That it happened often enough to be notable, I don't really care.  That it was more appropriately placed in the automatic rifle class is a surity.  An LMG should be capable of sustained fire.  The mere fact that the magazine capacity was limited precludes this.  As for it's parity with the BAR, they were roughly the same weight though the BAR was tremendously better balanced. The BAR was quite often fired from the shoulder and I can attest to that second-hand through stories a BAR gunner related to me. I've also seen film and read accounts of the same. Having fired both weapons, I can say the BAR is more comfortable to fire that way, but I wouldn't discount the French Feces Firearm completely in that respect. --Asams10 21:15, 5 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Where did I put words in anybodys mouth? If you did actually care to read the discussion at hand, you'd see that the "forerunner of assault rifle"-line in the article is the exactly why I am here on the discussion board. If you don't care whether or not it was fired from the shoulder on a regular basis, that's your thing. For the discussion whether or not it can be described as a forerunner of the assault rifle, it is of importance. So far I have not seen anyone providing any sort of evidence that would make the Chauchat more of a forerunner of the assault rifle concept than any other man-portable, automatic firearm of the early 20th century, bar its select fire capability. From an engineering POV it shares about as many features with the assault rifle as a Hotchkiss LMG. When defining "assault rifle" from the user side it's even clearer, as the gun was never issued on a individual level but on a squad level.84.152.101.209 19:44, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Spanish Civil War
If I remember correctly, the Republicans used it extensively during the Spanish Civil War. Matt714 06:34, 4 August 2006 (UTC)­
 * Perhaps they used the some of the 5,700 Russian Chauchats that the communist had taken over and later witdrown from service when the DP machineguns was introduced. By the time of the Spanish Civil War they were obsolete so they were probabkly sold or donated to friendly pro-communist forces. Mieciu K 15:10, 22 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Poland sold 5000 Chauchats to Mexico in 1936 and 3650 to Greece in 1937. It is suspected, that they went to Spain in fact, for these countrios did not use Chauchats at that time. Pibwl &larr;&laquo; 21:58, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

QUESTION: Why the two American soldiers on the picture wear English uniforms?????

America got a lot of its equipment from other countries in WW1. But not all parts of the uniform where made in the UK. Those uniforms are American. Those helmets that they are wearing are called Brodie helmets. They were everywhere. They were used by Canada, America, and various commonwealth countries as the standard helmet during WW1. The helmets were not exclusive to the BEF.Blamazon (talk) 19:39, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

Removed text
The following text was removed by an anonymous user, some many versions ago, among other valid-seeming changes. I'm not about to put it back, as I don't know whether it's true or not. But pictures, , appear to confirm that it had a box magazine and was not belt-fed.--Andrew 18:05, May 4, 2005 (UTC)
 * Among its many problems were the fact that it only accepted 20 round box magazines, which required reloading after only a few seconds of sustained fire, as compared to the Maxim gun used by virtually every other combatant in the war, which used a belt of 500 bullets (or more). The reason for the supremacy of the machine gun on the WWI battlefield was the ability to lay down a constant hail of bullets against the inevitable human wave attacks. Reloading constantly obviously undermined this tactical ability.

The main dispute would come from the comparison between the Chauchat and the Maxim gun itself. The Chauchat's employment by France was on a completely separate level than the Maxim gun's use by Germany. Whereas the Maxim was a heavy gun, usually placed in stationary positions or mounts, the Chauchat was an automatic rifle, meant for assault operations and tactical maneuverability. It's 20-round box magazine was the normal size of magazine for weapons in it category, which included the BAR, Madsen, Farquhar-Hill, and the Lewis gun to a lesser extent. The way it is compared in the deleted text is not only unfair, but completely out of context of the weapons purpose and use. This gun is probably the worst gun ever to be put in the hands of American soldiers

It is one of the worst guns in history, PERIOD! AllStarZ 19:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

''As early as 1915 the French began to issue other new weapons to the infantry, notably the light automatic rifle and the rifle grenade launcher. These, plus ordinary hand grenades, gave the French infantry more mobile automatic firepower and short-range (up to 150 meters) indirect-fire capability. On 27 September 1916, France reorganized the infantry company to consist of a headquarters, which included communications and pioneer (combat engineer) personnel, plus four platoons of two sections each. Within these twelve men sections, hand grenadiers, rifle grenadiers, and riflemen were organized around the automatic rifleman as the base of fire. Three of these infantry companies, plus a company of eight heavy machine guns and a 37-mm gun in the headquarters, made up an infantry battalion that modern infantrymen can recognize as such. Other armies adopted similar armament and organizations, although the Germans delayed until 1917. The German preoccupation with accuracy of fire by heavy machine guns made them reluctant to accept the relatively inaccurate light machine guns and automatic rifles, until in desperation the frontline German infantry began to use captured French automatic rifles.'' from: The light machine gun was a different class of weapon that could be used in the offense unlike the heavy machine gun which was suited static defense only. --Sus scrofa 16:11, 14 October 2006 (UTC)
 * That's a pretty weird thing to say since Germany was already using the Madsen and had been since 1914. Bones Jones (talk) 17:17, 20 October 2017 (UTC)


 * How could you fire 20 rounds in a few seconds threw a gun with one of the world's slowest fire rate?Blamazon (talk) 18:16, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

"Worst machine gun" moniker
I've added three solid citations to the end of the lede to support the "worst machine gun" description, and I can easily add a dozen more if need be. Pretty much any book dealing with the Chauchat in any regard tends to include the "worst machine gun" or "worst light machine gun" description applied in various ways, such as "worst designed", "worst in the world", "worst in history", or "worst ever fielded in war". The use of "worst" is about as universal as I've seen for any gun ever written about by firearms experts. Bullzeye contribs 23:40, 21 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Worst, worst, worst... Could you change the tape ? I find surprising the fact that the worst (lots of things) light machine gun was also "the most widely-manufactured automatic weapon of World War I". But you may have a good explanation for this. The Chauchat automatic rifle or light machine gun was not made for trench warfare, Period. This is why it has such a bad reputation. Look at its dates of service : its developement started in 1903 and it was first manufactured in 1912. Nobody in Europe expected a long war of position at that time.90.9.154.174 (talk) 13:48, 16 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Widely manufactured does not mean good. Canada made 420,000 Ross Rifles during WW1. They were eventually relegated to use in training because they performed so poorly in the field. Japan made 72,000 Nambu Type 92 pistols, weapons that could kill their operator while being holstered, in WW2. America made one million FP-45 Liberator pistols in WW2, a weapon with an effective range of 3 yards, and most of which were scrapped.


 * The Chauchat had a lot of very real problems to do with rushed production, poor material quality, inherent design problems, and the inexperience of the manufacturers. Compared to the earlier Madsen, it was a joke. Bones Jones (talk) 17:10, 20 October 2017 (UTC)


 * Quality is defined by manufacturing cost, reliability, and combat effectiveness. The Chauchat doesn't fail all of these in my opinion. I think the Breda Modello 30 LMG(Italian WWII LMG) is the worst because it does poorly in all three of these categories.Blamazon (talk) 16:15, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

.30-06 version
So, was the American version in .30-06 actually used in combat or not? The article seems to be sending mixed messages in that regard.--172.190.50.63 (talk) 00:18, 12 February 2012 (UTC)
 * The US expeditionary force seems to have actively avoided using them, but some reached the front lines every so often. Bones Jones (talk) 17:11, 20 October 2017 (UTC)


 * I think it was used a few times in combat, especially during the first days of that America spent in WW1. But I think they were mostly used for training during their service. That would also explain why there are few pictures of them being used during the Great War.Blamazon (talk) 18:11, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Photo at the top
Turn the photo 180 degrees, left to right, right to left. -- hmaag (talk) 08:36, 1 October 2019 (UTC)