Chauchat - Battlefield Performance

Battlefield Performance

The Mle 1915 Chauchat's performance on the battlefield drew mixed reviews from the users when the war was stagnating in the mud of the trenches in 1916. This brought about a survey, regiment by regiment, requested by General Pétain in late 1916 - the survey's essential conclusion was that the open sided magazines were defective and caused about two thirds of all stoppages. Loose earth, grit and other particles easily entered the gun through these open-sided magazines, an ever present risk in the muddy environment of the trenches. Its long recoil action is often cited as a source of problems for the shooter. However recent firing tests have demonstrated that it is the Chauchat's ergonomics and its loose bipod, rather than its recoil, that makes it a difficult gun to keep on target beyond very short bursts. On some of the Gladiator-made guns, the sights also made the Chauchat shoot systematically too low and to the right. Overheating after long continuous firings (about 300 rounds) dilated the recoiling barrel sleeve to the point where it refused to return forward until the gun had cooled off, thus creating a stoppage that could last 10 minutes. Hence, the manuals recommended firing only in short bursts or semi-auto and insisted that only good magazines should be used.

Several prototypes of dirt-proof, fully enclosed Chauchat magazines were successfully tested in May and June 1918, but came too late. Stronger but still open-sided standard magazines as well as tailored canvas gun covers protecting the gun against mud during transport had previously been issued to all Chauchat gunners in 1917. The initial two-man Chauchat team was also found insufficient and eventually grew to a four-man squad by October 1917 (the squad leader, the gunner, the assistant gunner who handled the magazines plus one additional magazine carrier).

Later on, during the German spring offensive of 1918, the war had moved out of the mud of the trenches and into open fields, thus making the guns more reliable and easier to maintain. Furthermore, French infantry regiments had been reorganized into multiple small (18 men) combat groups ("Demi-Sections de Combat"). Those were made up of a full Chauchat squad plus four VB (Viven-Bessiere) rifle grenade specialists and eight conventional grenadiers/riflemen. At this point in time, in 1918, the preserved French regimental records and statistics of medals given to Chauchat gunners document that they had contributed in no small part to the success of the new infantry tactics. Those were focused on the suppression of enemy machine gun nests by the combined action of portable (Chauchat) automatic fire plus the VB rifle grenades, always used within a range of less than 200 yards.