I ran across an interesting couple of photos while looking for illustrations of this particular gun.

 

Background:  In 1915, the French Army adopted the Chauchat (or CSRG after th initials of the approval board).  The Chauchat was an automatic rifle chambered for the 8x50R Lebel rifle cartridge -- a bottlenecked, steeply tapered case, rimmed cartridge.  The automatic or machine rifle (as it was called) was a long-recoil operated arm with a 20-round, semi-circular magazine.  The magazine has two kidney-shaped slots cut in the side for cartridge counting purposes.  Cyclic rate, when the gun worked, was about 250 rounds per minute.

 

In reality, the gun was made by numerous subcontractors and little attention was paid to quality control.  Part interchaneability was about nil and keeping the gun operational in the trenches was no small effort in the wall-to-wall mud of the trench.

 

There was only one thing that made a marginal machine gun worse -- it was rechambered to the American .30-06 (7.62x63) cartridge.  The American cartridge was more powerful than the French cartridge.  It put a lot of stress on an already bad design.  Parts broke more frequently.  The magazine housing was redesigned for a new 16-round magazine for the American cartridge.

 

When USMC units arrived in France in 1917, their M1916 Lewis light machine guns were taken from them and replaced by the M1915 Chauchat in 8x50R.  Follow-on American Army troops were also issued the Chauchat.  This presented the Americans with the problem of an extra cartridge in the logistics chain.  Hence, the conversion to the standard .30 caliber U.S. cartridge.

 

Problems with the Chauchat led to the reissue of the M1916 Lewis guns to the American infantry.  Lewis guns also played a prominent role in arming Allied aircraft, either as observer's guns on a twin-gun ring mounting in back of the pilot or on a track above the wing so it could fire above the propeller arc.

 

When the famous M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle became available in mid-1918, the French Chauchats were quickly discarded.

 

The Great War Association is a World War 1 re-enacting group located in Pennsylvania.  Both Allied and Central Powers are represented. 

 

 

 

Above:  Re-enactor L.R. Smith of the 8th Battalion Chasseurs a Pied (8BCP) shooting an actual M1915 Chauchat modified to fire blanks.

 

 

 

Above: A re-enactor corporal of the 107th Regiment AEF firing the same blank-fire Chauchat.  The tube above the butt stock contains the bolt return spring.  The prominent cocking handle and the slotted magazine are well-shown in this photo.  Note the unique forward grip ahead of the conventional pistol grip and trigger guard -- another recognition point for the Chauchat.

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 Above:  A right side view of a replica "Chauchat" made from a Chinese SKS 45 carbine.  This "Chauchat" is used by the 8BCP for re-enactments.  It fires the cheaper, easier to find 7.62x39 blank cartridges.

 

Below:  A left side view of the replica "Chauchat" based on the SKS carbine.  Compare the replica with the original.  The obvious differences are the lack of a flash hider and the rear sight base sits higher than the original.  However, the replica probably works better in in semi-automatic than the original ever did in full-automatic!

 

  

 

 

Epilog:  The Chauchat was the most numerous light machine gun or automatic rifle or machine rifle of World War 1.  It was in production by the French from 1915 to 1924.  In 1924 it was superseded by the Chatellerault M1924/29 light machine gun in 7.5mm French.  The Chatellerault was very similar to the famous Czech ZB-26/30 and British BREN ligh machine guns of World War 2 with their top mounted magazines.  The Chatellerault was the French equivalent to the American M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle in the rifle squad. 

 

Below:  The Lewis M1916 light machine gun in U.S. caliber .30 or its British equivalent in caliber .303, was probably the best of its type in World War 1 and post-war.  [The last Lewis guns were retired in 1945.]  The Lewis had a distinctive sound that the Germans called "the Belgian Rattlesnake" based on negative experiences with early models of the Lewis employed by Belgian troops in 1914.  At 27 pounds, the Lewis was very mobile, was gas-operated, and fed from a 47-round pan magazine mounted on top.  The large tube around the barrel is a "radiator" that was designed to draw in cooling air from the outside and exhaust hot air by convection.  The forward part of the "radiator" also served as a flash hider.  Todays M60-series General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) employs the gas operating and bolt system of the Lewis and the feed mechanism of the German MG-42 machine gun.