Out at the range today with the Chauchat, testing accuracy against a simulated MG08/15 nest at 150 yards. I’ll try out semiauto and full auto (in short bursts), and see how they compare. For reference, the US Army recommended never using the Chauchat beyond 400 yards, as it was not sufficiently accurate to be effective at greater distance.
To see a set of original WW1 American Expeditionary Force Chauchat manuals, check here:
Germany developed its first 37mm (or as German designations put it, 3.7cm) antitank gun in the last months of World War One; a very simple design built using barrels from obsolete Hotchkiss revolving cannons. In the mid 1920s, the concept was reinvigorated by Rheinmetall, which developed a much more modern 37mm gun using a much larger and higher-pressure case (37 x 249mm). In its initial pattern, the Tak as it was called (Tankabwerhkanone) has wooden spoke wheels and no suspension, intended for transport by horse. A small number were made for the German military (to avoid aggravating the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles), and the gun was sold commercially by Rheinmetall. The Soviet Union in particular was interested, and used the 3.7cm Tak as the basis for its later 45mm antitank gun.
Between 1934 and 1936, a number of changes were made to the design. The wooden wheels were replaced with steel wheels and pneumatic rubber tires, and spring suspension was added to allow the gun to be towed at higher speed by motor vehicles. The designation also changed at the time from Tank-abwehrKanone to Panzer-abwehrKanone, as the new term “panzer” entered German military parlance. Under Germany’s 1930s rearmament program, the Versailles limitations were ignored, and Pak production took off. By September of 1939, the German military has some 11,200 of the guns in service. They were solid dependable guns at the beginning of World War Two, but became obsolete by 1941 as tank armor began to rapidly increase. A new tungsten-core AP round was introduced in 1940, and a rifle-grenade-like hollow charge munition (the Stielgranate 41) added in 1941, but there was stopgaps at best. The last few 3.7mm Paks were built in early 1942, as both it and the 50mm Pak 38 were phased out in favor of the 75mm Pak 40 antitank gun.
I’d like to thank DriveTanks.com for giving me the opportunity to bring you their 3.7mm Pak! They have a very cool collection of armored vehicles, artillery, and machine guns available for rental in Texas; check them out: http://www.drivetanks.com
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The United States developed the M1 carbine very quickly at the beginning of World War Two, once the German “blitzkrieg” made it clear that highly mobile enemy forces could threaten rear echelon troops in a modern war. The M1911 pistol was seen as a difficult weapon to use well, and a light carbine would offer much greater effectiveness with less training. It was estimated that 500,000 would be needed, and more than 6 million were eventually produced during the war. The M1 Carbine would equip drivers, artillery crews, mortar men, headquarters staff, paratroops, and many more.
The M1 Carbine was developed by Winchester, but they were not participants in the first round of trials, Instead, their design came about when Rene Studler (head of the Ordnance Department) saw Winchester’s “M2” rifle prototype, a lightweight .30-06 intended to compete with the M1 Garand. He urged them to scale it down for the light rifle trials then ongoing in 1941, and Winchester complied. The design used a Garand-like rotating bolt and a gas tappet system designed by David Marshall Williams for the .30-06 rifle. The new carbine was cobbled together in less than two weeks, and is a truly fantastic achievement.
Thanks to InterOrdnance / Royal Tiger Imports for providing this M1 Carbine for filming!
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The Belgian Army was the second to adopt the Chauchat automatic rifle, after the French. Almost all of Belgium was under German occupation during World War One, leaving Belgium significantly dependent on French aid for arms during the war. The initial Belgian purchases were standard 8mm Lebel CSRGs, but by 1917 Belgian engineers were working on a solution to convert the guns to the Belgian standard 7.65mm Mauser cartridge. This was completed by the end of the war, and the Chauchat remained a standard arm of the Belgian military after the war.
Work to improve the design continued, and an upgrades version was formally adopted in 1927. This included the 7.65mm conversion, with the best magazines made for any model of the Chauchat, as well as a series of dust covers to close off every hole in the gun (magazine well, ejection port, charging handle slot, and barrel shroud vents). The Belgians also replaced the original bipod with a much better type (similar to what they would use on the FN BAR), simplified the feed system, and added a tension latch to ensure reliable operation.
This new pattern of CSRG would be standard Belgian front-line armament until the FN BAR was adopted in 1930. The Chauchats were still in service with some units at the beginning of World War Two though, and saw service at that time.
Thanks to the Liege Arms Museum for access to film this for you! If you are in Belgium, definitely plan to stop into the museum, part of the Grand Curtius. They have a very good selection of interesting and unusual arms on display.
One of the perennial challenges facing authors of firearms reference books is balancing the very technical nit-pickery with the broad historical view of a gun and its context in world events. The emphasis is usually tending towards the technical, but Neil Alpinshaw has done an excellent job of balancing the two, and made the development of the Martini-Henry an engaging story at the same time (a rare feat in this genre!). His new book The Martini-Henry: For Queen and Empire mixes vivid descriptions of British troops fighting across the far-flung corners of the world with their trusted Martinis with a history of the development and modernization of the rifles (and carbines).
Most interesting to me personally was the section on the Martini-Enfield, which was to be the improved version of the Martini-Henry. Chambered for a smaller-bore .402 caliber cartridge and fitted with sights for rapid close-in combat as well as long-range volley fire and sporting a quick-loading magazine attached to the receiver, this is a fascinating look at the highest evolution of the single-shot black-powder military rifle. Its development was dashed by the bolt action Lee and the development of smokeless powder, and the many thousands initially produced were converted into other patterns before seeing service.
Aspinshaw also tackles many of the long-standing myths about the Martini, and particularly its weaknesses. He takes his information directly from period investigations and after-action reports, and avoids the common hearsay. He does not let his own personal passion for the subject prevent him from articulating the true problems the rifles had, but clears away the misconceptions that have become prevalent (like the impossible-to-open ammunition boxes).
Published by International Military Antiques, the cover price is $60, and it is worth every penny for anyone interested in the grand Victorian British Empire or the Martini as a firearms family.
In 1884, Hugh Silver and Walther Fletcher patented a system to rapidly unload a gate-style revolver. They negotiated an agreement to have their system integrated into Webley revolvers (specifically the New Model RIC) as an option, and sold about 350 of them, including some to both the Royal Irish Constabulary and the Metropolitan London Police, under the name “The Expert”. Not so different from today’s tactical widget market, eh? The practical use of the system was to bypass the glacially-slow manual ejector rod and instead unload a cylinder full of empty cases simply by pulling the trigger six times in rapid succession. To avoid the obvious potential safety hazard this entailed, they also added a safety to retract the firing pin. It’s this firing pin safety that people usually notice when seeing the guns, as it is much more visible than the ejection mechanism.
The system could also be used to eject empty cases one by one as the gun was fired, although doing so required leaving the loading gate open while firing. The Webley revolvers made with the system are devoid of Webley company markings, although they do have both a Webley serial number (most being in the 33,000 – 36,000 range) and a Silver & Fletcher number (between 1 and about 350).
The Liberator is one of those interesting artifacts of WWII; an extremely simple single-shot .45 caliber pistol made by the boxcar-load (a million, specifically) with the intention of being dropped en masse across Europe to promote civilian sabotage against German occupation forces. They were manufactured by the Guide Lamp division of GM in record time – just 10-11 weeks for a literal million-gun production run. However, as they were being manufactured, shipped, and put into storage the motivation behind the project largely evaporated. British SOE ultimately decided not to distribute any in France, and only distributed a small number to partisans in Greece.
In the US, the Army stockpile of Liberators was transferred to the OSS, and a fair number were actually distributed in India, China, and the Philippine Islands – although they did not ultimately have any measurable impact on the war effort.
After World War One, the British looked at how to apply the lessons of the war to development of a new infantry rifle. Even before the war, a decision had been made to move to an aperture type rear sight — which would have been used on the Pattern 1913 Enfield, had the war no interrupted adoption of that model. So after the war, trials were made on some MkIII SMLE rifles refitted with rear aperture sights. These trials were successful enough to justify production of a substantial number of rifles for troop trials. This would be designated the No1 MkV rifle, and 20,000 of them were made between 1922 and 1924.
The magazine cutoff was retained in the MkV rifles, as were the volley sights in the initial production — along with an aperture rear sight marked out to 1500 yards. Following concerns about the durability of the sight and its adjustment latch, it was redesigned slightly, and the new version only went out to 1400 yards. On this second variation, the volley sights were omitted.
The new rifles was taken to Bisley and input was sought from both military units and civilian marksmen from the British NRA. The feedback that was received was that the sight was too fragile, its adjustments were too coarse, and the barrel was too light. These changes were implemented in the No1 MkVI rifle which would ultimately be adopted as the N4 MkI; the classic World War 2 version oft he Lee Enfield.
The first prototype Thompsons submachine guns (and it was Thompson who coined that term, by the way) were produced in 1919 and dubbed the “Annihilators”. The gun was intended to be a military weapon to equip American soldiers in World War One, but by the time the gun was developed the war had ended. Still, Thompson and his Auto-Ordnance company contracted with Colt to manufacture 15,000 of the guns. These were the Model of 1921, and they were marketed to both the US military and as many European armies as Thompson and his salesmen could reach. They found few takers in the climate of the early 1920s, however, and sales were slow.
This is the first in a 5-part series about the development of the Thompson, concluding with a trip to the range to fire three different patterns side by side…
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The Bazooka — or rather the Launcher, Rocket, 2.36″, M1 — was introduced by the United States in 1942, the result of a fast development by two Army officers, Captain Leslie Skinner and Lt. Edward Uhl. The US had no infantry antitank weapon at that point, and it had become quite clear that such a thing was needed. The Bazooka offered a theoretical effective range of 300 yards, throwing a 1 pound hollow-charge projectile capable of penetrating 4 inches of armor plate. The 2.36 inch bore measurement, incidentally, was chosen as the inch equivalent of 60mm, to match the common mortar size.
In October of 1943, an improved M9 version was introduced, using a magnet firing system instead of the unreliable batteries of the original. A followup M9A1 variant was adopted in June of 1944, which broke down into two parts for easier transportation, and the T90 optical sight was added in September of 1944. These were effective weapons against armor early in the war, but the heavier tanks introduced late in the war were too heavily armored for the Bazooka to be very effective — although it remained a valuable tool for attacking pillboxes and other fortified positions. It would continue to see extensive service in the Korean War, although its limited armor penetration was particularly acute in that conflict.
Note that the inert M6 rocket in the video is not being sold with the Bazooka.
Roller delayed blowback originated in the Mauser company R&D department when engineers were attempting to design a roller-locked version of the G43 rifle. They found that when the bolt bounced in automatic fire, the system would sometimes work without being fully locked. With some refinement, this became the roller delayed system, and would have been used in the StG-45 rifle if the war had gone longer. After the war, the system was applied to prototype French arms, then to the Spanish CETME program which eventually became the German G3 rifle. The system would see use primarily as the basis of a whole family of arms from Heckler & Koch, although it has been used in a few other places.
Mechanically, the system uses an angled “locking” wedge to put a mechanical disadvantage on a pair of rollers that must retract into the bolt head before it can move rearward. The combination of the wedge angle and the mass of the bolt carrier assembly are carefully calculated to delay the action from opening until pressure is reduced to a safe level. These systems do typically open faster than locked actions, though, and generally require the use of chamber fluting to ensure reliable extraction.
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While rifle-launched grenades date back hundreds of years, they first came into widespread use during World War One, on all sides of the conflict. The first years of the war saw the use of rod grenades, but their downsides (mediocre accuracy, bulkiness, and a propensity to damage rifle bores) led to the British adopting a 2.5” cup grenade discharger in late 1917. This new launcher used slightly modified Mills bomb hand grenades, and could launch them with significant accuracy from 80 to 200 yards. They would become a staple of WWI combined arms infantry tactics, and be used clear through WW2 until replaced by the 22mm NATO style spigot grenades.
John Browning developed the Browning Automatic Rifle for use by American troops in World War One, taking inspiration from the other light automatic weapons in service including the Chauchat, Lewis, and MG08/15. Rather than being used as a light machine gun as we would understand it today, the BAR was an “automatic rifle”, intended to be used in much the same way as the Germans would use the Sturmgewehr in WWII. It would be fired in semiautomatic mode from the shoulder or hip while advancing on the enemy, using steady fire to keep them pinned down. Once troops broke into close contact, the gun could be switched to fully automatic to provide overwhelming firepower for the final assault on a position. While the walking fire from the hip was not particularly realistic in practice, the fully automatic firepower was a huge boon to the infantry. While it filled the game role as the Chauchat, the BAR was a much more refined weapon and much easier to use effectively.
The BAR was showed to the US Ordnance Department in 1917, and the first order for them was placed with Colt in July of 1917. In short order further contracts would be placed with Winchester and Marlin-Rockwell, although it would take many months to fabricate the production tooling and perfect the design for mass production. A few hand-fitted guns were ready in February 1918 for a public demonstration, but significant quantities were not being built until July of 1918.
These guns would be shipped to France for use by the AEF, but not actually put into combat service until the Meuse-Argonne offensive in late September of 1918, due to General Pershing’s desire to keep them secret from the Germans until a large number could be used at once. As a result, the guns saw only very limited use before the war ended on November 11th. In total 102,173 BARs would be built, about half of them being finished into 1919, after the armistice. They would go on to be changed and updated for use in World War Two, but that is a discussion for another day. This particular gun is an excellent example of an M1918 BAR in correct World War One configuration, which is a rare find today.
The Canadian infantry that went to Europe in the early years of World War One were equipped primarily with the Ross MkIII rifle. The Ross would become quite the scandal, and was replaced in service with the SMLE in 1916 — but as a sniper rifle the Ross excelled. Its problems in service were largely based on poor quality ammunition, and this was not an issue for the sniper corps. In addition, Great Britain was having enough trouble equipping its own snipers to have any extra scoped rifles to hand over to the dominions.
And so, the Canadians modified 500 Ross rifles into a sniper configuration using American-sourced Warner & Swasey M1913 “Musket Sight” scopes. These were 5x magnification prismatic scopes, also used by American forces on the M1903 sniper rifle and the M1909 Benet-Mercie machine guns. The scope was not very good, suffering from fogging and other issues, but it was available. The Canadian rifles were made in two batches of 250 each, one in 1915 and one in 1917. This was actually more rifles than needed, and many of them (including the two in this video) remained in Canada for training (and were used at least until 1942).
Canadian Warner & Swasey scopes can be identified by three elements. They have elevation dials marked out to 2400 yards, serial numbers between 1 and 500, and no data plate on top. Canadian scope cases are marked with the serial numbers of the scope and the rifle they were issued with.
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The General Electric M134 “Minigun” is essentially an electrically-powered Gatling gun — the conceptual operation of the gun is identical to Dr. Gatling’s original creation. What has changed, however, is the chambering (it’s in 7.62 NATO), the power source (an electric motor), and the feed mechanism (belt-feed using M60 links instead of the Gatling’s Accles, Broadwell, or Bruce feeds). The weapon was a scaled down version of a 20mm rotary powered cannon devised for aircraft armament after WW2, hence the “mini” name. It was used primarily as helicopter armament, although it has found its way only ground vehicles as well. Firing between 3000 and 6000 rounds per minute, the Minigun is ideal for aerial engagements where the gunner only has a brief moment on target and needs to fire as much as possible during that moment.
It is a truly awe-inspiring weapon, and quite an experience to fire! In addition to destroying a truck with it, we will look at disassembly and functioning of the minigun — the delinking mechanism is really the most complex part of the weapon, and a very interesting device.
Thanks to Modern Arms of Tempe, AZ for providing the Minigun for this video! They offer the gun for rental, if you are interested in trying it out yourself.
