Alrighty, we are going to do some Chauchat testing today.
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we're out here at the range with a Chauchat.
We're going to do some shooting with it, and what I want to do is see if I can actually make hits
under what would have been sort of the appropriate combat circumstances.
So you hear a lot with guns like the Chauchat (mostly the Chauchat), about walking fire.
And I've been doing some reading of some of the original manuals, and yes, walking fire was a thing.
Now, it was recognised that your accuracy is not very good with walking fire. That wasn't really the point.
The purpose of walking fire was, as the troops are closing in on an enemy trench,
you kinda can't really have your main heavy machine guns keep firing into that trench,
because your guys are right in front of it.
So instead the idea was you'd have Chauchat gunners in the very front wave of the attack
who would continue firing to get the enemy to assume that, you know, they were still under barrage,
under bombardment, and there weren't troops arriving yet.
It was basically a way to help give the first wave of attacking troops the element of surprise.
Now there were some other situations in which the Chauchat was to be used,
I have some original manuals in English. One in particular in English, a US Army manual for use of the Chauchat
that's really pretty cool, because it describes exactly how this thing was meant to be used.
So in the defensive the idea was that basically, you have a front line trench where you know
the enemy can take it, if they really want to. Anywhere. They can always take the first trench.
The question is, can they then break through your second line trenches?
And the idea with the Chauchat was you could use this automatic rifle as a way to give your front line trench
a lot of firepower without having a lot of men. So the front line trench could be more or less empty,
and then your men ... are a lot safer from artillery bombardment. And if there is an attack, those guys with the Chauchats
have a substantial amount of firepower even though there aren't that many of them around.
And they can basically give you warning that an attack is coming and do a number of things there.
Now in the offensive I think ... that's more of what we're looking at here.
The Chauchat, the automatic rifle, was intended to be a support weapon in the offensive.
So you would put them largely on the flanks of the attack in order to help support the attack.
And they'd be there, especially at the end of the war, because the Germans tended to have
MG 08/15s, light machine guns, like everywhere.
And what better way to suppress an MG 08/15 than with an automatic rifle like a Chauchat?
So, what I have done is set up a target 150 yards back up there.
and it is two IDPA silhouettes, but I've bent them off like halfway up.
So ... my goal is to sort of represent a German 08/15 team lying prone behind their gun.
There's not that much of them sticking up, and from 150 yards I want to see if I can actually hit them with a Chauchat.
So, I'll finish loading up some mags here and then we can get to work.
Alright, so the first interesting thing about this is ... in the French manual it says you want to be off at like a 45 degree angle from the gun.
In the US manual it actually says exactly the opposite, it says you want to be as close to in line with the sight as possible.
(... There we go.)
So I have a steel plate set up there, and I'm gonna put a couple shots on that first to make sure that
I've got the sighting in, which I think is appropriate.
A wartime gunner would definitely know where his automatic rifle is sighted, and I've got this set to semi-auto.
OK.
Alrighty, I am going to load a mostly full magazine, a new magazine. I'm loading these to 16 because,
come on, the magazines are over 100 years old. The springs are original. These were delicate mags in the first place.
They were originally loaded to 18, I'm gonna go with 16.
And let's see what I can get on my 150 yard German machine gun position with 16 rounds in semi-auto.
Alright, so what I got here is extractor issues, this has happened to me before. Again, it's a 100 year old gun.
And I'm out. So 14 rounds, let's go see how many hits we made.
Hopefully at least I got decent hits, or this will be really embarrassing.
So, ooh.
Not as many as I hoped. I got three hits! Three whole hits on these guys. Two on there, one on this one.
Ah, and this guy is no longer square because I hit the target stand there as well.
Let's tape these up and do a little more.
Now in Project Lightening we did this all in burst fire, in full-auto.
And really, historically speaking, that wasn't necessarily how you would want to actually use a Chauchat.
... The advantage it offers is it's a 18 round semi-automatic rifle, as well as a machine gun.
And when I'm trying to hit a small discrete target I'm much better off using semi-auto.
So that's what I'm gonna do here. And this run through I'm gonna ... be a lot more careful
lining up my sights, focus on the sight, and try and improve my marksmanship fundamentals,
and see if that helps with the performance
Alright, I'm now going to switch to the right hand target. Try and get them both.
What do I have left there? Couple of rounds.
Guys are kind of in a shadow, and yup, we got one more.
OK, let's try this a second time.
Looks like maybe I'm hitting a little bit low. OK.
Alright, so this time 14 rounds. 1, 2,
3, 4, 5, 6, 7 clean hits, maybe 8.
I don't think that's two. So and then 9, 10, 11.
11 out of 14 hits is not so terrible.
These guys almost certainly hit something a little lower down in here and skipped up.
Now on a proper target range you'd say, "Well, that doesn't count."
But in a combat range that absolutely counts, that totally works.
It's not so bad.
Now I am getting a nice little bit of a shiner here. When I said that cheek thing was not a big deal, well
OK, you got your face climb a little too close up the gun and then it does kind of smack you around.
Interestingly ... it's a second hand account, but I have a second hand account that I heard from an American,
a World War One vet, interviewed by a guy 20 or 30 years ago, who said
they actually took pieces of burlap or canvas and wrapped them around the back end of the gun.
So that they could get right in behind the gun and get a good sight picture.
Because that's what you benefit from. If you can get close in, especially on that back, smaller diameter tube,
you have a much better sight picture.
And then they would wrap cloth around so they could do that and not get quite so beat up by it.
OK, I'm gonna switch this guy to full-auto. We're going to see how this goes.
This would not be my choice for effective point fire. Suppression fire, sure.
And in fact, for what is worth, in the manual they identify three different modes.
There is short burst, which is 2 to 3 rounds, long burst
which is 4 to 6, and what they actually refer to as "clip fire", which is mag dumping.
All three specified in the manual, although they don't make any recommendations for when you should use which.
All right, that was 16 rounds, which is what I'm loading my mags to. I think I said 14 earlier, but it's actually 16.
Let's see what that did.
That does not look super impressive.
Alright, well, I clearly hit something because I moved this guy out of position again.
That hole is brand new, and then 1, 2.
And nothing whatsoever on this guy. I have not been counting hits below here, so I haven't been taping them up.
Alright, so if we're not gonna count that guy, that is
2 out of 16 shots hit.
I was doing my best to actually start the burst low
hoping that it would climb up and maybe I'd get a ricochet into the target and then a hit in the target. That did not work out.
This is a gun that you can actually make hits with in semi-auto.
And I think that's an interesting element to it, that people think, "Oh, it's a machine gun, it's meant to be fired in full-auto."
When in World War One that's not necessarily the case.
Yeah, especially an open bolt light gun that recoils like a mofo, like that thing,
semi-auto is by far the more combat-effective way to shoot that thing in most circumstances
if you need to make direct actual hits on a point target.
It's a really nice gun once you get to know it.
Alright, so there is more to "la gifle", the slap, here than I may have given it initial credit for after a couple magazines through the gun.
I can totally see why American troops would wrap this.
Like I said, the French doctrine was to come off of it at a pretty sharp angle, like a 45 degree angle. That works for some people.
The US manual specifically notes that men with high cheekbones will have to angle their bodies weirdly to get a good sight picture.
And for me the sight picture is just so much better back here,
that it's worth looking like I walked into a door in order to be able to shoot the thing a little more accurately.
I plan to do more shooting with this. I really do enjoy this for what it is.
I think it's a fascinating gun to examine. It is one of the world's first light machine guns.
Not the best, that would for this time period definitely go to the Lewis gun, but
it really is a very fun and interesting gun to shoot.
So hopefully you guys enjoyed a little bit of insight here. If you would like to read through the original official US Army manual,
for not just disassembly and maintenance but also combat use of the Chauchat,
you can check that out at ForgottenWeapons.com. I have a link to a page where I've got actually three manuals,
one of them is particularly good, but three English language manuals on the Chauchat. So check the description for that.
Thanks for watching.