Chauchat The Chauchat ( pronounced ) , named after its main contributor Colonel Louis Chauchat , was the standard machine rifle or light machine gun of the French Army during World War I ( 1914 – 18 ) . Its designation in the French Army was Fusil Mitrailleuse Mle 1915 CSRG ( in English : " " Machine Rifle Model 1915 CSRG " " ) . Beginning in 1916 , it was placed into regular service with French infantry where the troops called it the FM Chauchat . The Chauchat machine rifle was also extensively used in 1917 - 1918 by the American Expeditionary Forces where it was officially designated as the " Automatic Rifle , Model 1915 ( Chauchat ) " . The armies of eight other nations , notably : Belgium , Finland , Greece , Italy , Poland , Romania , Russia and Serbia , also used the Chauchat machine rifle in fairly large numbers during and after World War I . A grand total of 262 , 000 ( two hundred and sixty two thousand ) Chauchat machine rifles were manufactured between December 1915 and November 1918 , including 244 , 000 chambered for the 8mm Lebel service cartridge , making it the most widely - manufactured automatic weapon of World War I . Besides the 8mm Lebel version , the Chauchat machine rifle was also manufactured in U . S . . 30 - 06 Springfield and in 7 . 65×53mm Argentine caliber to arm the American Expeditionary Forces and the Belgian Army respectively . Whereas the Belgian military did not experience difficulties with their Chauchats in 7 . 65mm Mauser , kept in service into the early 1930s , the version in U . S . . 30 - 06 proved to be an instant failure . The Chauchat machine rifle was one of the first light , automatic rifle caliber weapons designed to be carried and fired by a single operator and an assistant , without a heavy tripod or a team of gunners . It set a precedent for several subsequent 20th century firearm projects , being a portable yet full power automatic weapon built inexpensively and in very large numbers . The Chauchat combined a pistol grip , an in - line stock , a detachable magazine , and a selective fire capability in a compact package of manageable weight ( 20 pounds ) for a single soldier . Furthermore , it could be routinely fired from the hip and while walking ( marching fire ) . The muddy trenches of northern France exposed a number of flaws in the Chauchat ' s design . Construction had been simplified to facilitate mass production , resulting in low quality of many metal parts . The magazines in particular were the cause of about 75 % of the stoppages or cessations of fire . They were made of thin stamped metal and open on one side , allowing easy ingress of mud and dust . The weapon also ceased to function when overheated , the barrel sleeve remaining in the retracted position until the gun had cooled off . Closed - sided magazines were evaluated but never placed into actual service . The A . E . F . in France eventually replaced the Chauchat at least partially , with the M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle which appeared on the front lines of northern France in September 1918 , only two months before the Armistice of November 11 . After World War I , the French army replaced the Chauchat as the standard light machine gun with the more effective and gas operated Mle 1924 light machine gun . The Chauchat is the only full automatic weapon actuated by long recoil , a Browning designed system already applied in 1906 to the Remington Model 8 semi - automatic rifle : extraction and ejection of the empties takes place when the barrel returns forward , while the bolt is retained in the rear position . Over time , the Chauchat machine rifle ' s just passable performance in its dominant version ( the Mle 1915 in 8mm Lebel ) and the failure of its limited version in U . S . 30 - 06 ( the Mle 1918 ) , have led some modern experts to assess it as the " worst machine gun " ever fielded in the history of warfare . History . The design of the Chauchat dates back to 1903 and its long recoil operation is based on the John Browning designed Remington Model 8 semi - automatic rifle of 1906 , not ( as so often repeated in the past ) on the later designs ( 1910 ) of Rudolf Frommer , the Hungarian inventor of the commercial Frommer Stop pistol . The Chauchat machine rifle project was initiated between 1903 and 1910 in a French Army weapon research facility located near Paris : the " Atelier de Construction de Puteaux ( APX ) " . This development was aiming at creating a very light , portable automatic weapon served by one man only , yet firing the 8 mm Lebel service ammunition . The project was led from the beginning by Colonel Louis Chauchat , a graduate from Ecole Polytechnique , assisted by the weapon designer Charles Sutter . Not less than eight trial prototypes were tested at APX , between 1903 and 1909 . As a result , a small series ( 100 guns ) of 8 mm Lebel CS ( Chauchat - Sutter ) machine rifles was ordered in 1912 , then manufactured between 1913 and 1914 by Manufacture d ' armes de Saint - Étienne ( MAS ) . Because they were light , they were used temporarily during the early part of World War I to arm observation crews on French military aircraft . None of these CS machine rifles have survived , either in public museums or in private collections . Only a fairly complete photographic record of their past existence remains . In 1914 , when World War I broke out , French troops did not operate any light machine gun . It was clear that this type of weapon had become indispensable in modern warfare , because of the increase in firepower it could provide to an infantry section . Spurred by General Joseph Joffre , it was decided to adopt the Chauchat , above all else because the pre - war CS ( Chauchat - Sutter ) machine rifle was already in existence , thoroughly tested and designed to fire the 8mm Lebel service ammunition . Furthermore , due to its projected low manufacturing costs and relative simplicity , the newly adopted ( 1915 ) CSRG machine rifle could be mass - produced by a converted peacetime industrial plant . The term CSRG is made up of the initials of Chauchat , Sutter , Ribeyrolles and Gladiator , four terms which are self - explanatory . Paul Ribeyrolles was the general manager of the Gladiator company , a peacetime manufacturer of motor cars , motorcycles and bicycles located in Pre - Saint - Gervais ( a northern suburb of Paris ) . The fairly large Gladiator factory was thus converted into an arms manufacture in 1915 and became the principal industrial producer of Chauchat machine rifles during World War I . Later on , in 1918 , a subsidiary of Compagnie des forges et acieries de la marine et d ' Homecourt named SIDARME and located in Saint - Chamond , Loire , also participated in the mass manufacture of CSRGs . Design details . The Chauchat machine rifle or " automatic rifle " functioned on the long barrel recoil principle with a gas assist . The chronology of the patents makes it clear that Louis Chauchat had simply borrowed the mechanical principles of an already existing long barrel recoil , semi - automatic rifle filed by John Browning in his milestone of October 16 , 1900 . This precursor was the Remington Model 8 semi - automatic rifle which was successfully marketed ( 80 , 000 ) between 1906 and 1936 . The Chauchat machine rifle ( CSRG ) delivered to the French Army fired the 8mm Lebel cartridge at the slow rate of 250 rounds per minute . At , the gun was much lighter than the contemporary portable light machine guns of the period , such as the Hotchkiss M1909 Benet - Mercie machine gun and the Lewis Gun . It was a selective fire weapon , either on automatic or semi - automatic mode . The Chauchat ' s construction was composite thus not fully consistent in terms of parts quality . The recoiling barrel sleeve as well as all the bolt moving parts were precision milled from solid steel and always fully interchangeable . The barrels were standard Lebel rifle barrels that had been shortened from the muzzle end . The barrel radiators were made of ribbed cast aluminum . On the other hand , the outer breech housing was a simple tube and the rest of the gun was built of stamped metal plates of mediocre quality . Side plate assemblies were held by screws that could become loose after prolonged firings . The sights were always misaligned on the Gladiator - made guns , creating severe aiming problems that had to be corrected by the gunners . The exact number on record of Chauchat machine rifles manufactured between 1916 and the end of 1918 is 262 , 300 . The Gladiator factory manufactured 225 , 700 CSRGs in 8 mm Lebel plus 18 , 000 in the U . S . caliber . 30 - 06 between April 1916 and November 1918 . SIDARME manufactured 18 , 600 CSRGs , exclusively in 8mm Lebel , between October 1917 and November 1918 . The SIDARME manufactured Chauchats were generally better finished and better functioning than those made by Gladiator . The French Army had a stock of 63 , 000 CSRG ' s just before the Armistice . The French military at the time considered the Chauchat ' s performance as inferior in comparison to the reliable heavy Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun . However , whereas the Hotchkiss was a weighty , tripod - mounted weapon , the Chauchat was a light portable gun that could be mass - produced quickly , cheaply and in very large numbers . It was also never intended to take the role of static defense of the heavy machine gun . On the contrary , " it was designed to be a light thus highly portable automatic weapon that would increase the firepower of infantry squads while they progressed forward during the assaults " . A significant plus is that it could easily be fired while walking ( marching fire ) , by hanging the Chauchat ' s sling over a shoulder hook located onto the gunner ' s upper left side of his Y – strap . Battlefield performance . Chauchat Mle 1915 . 8mm Lebel . The Mle 1915 Chauchat ' s performance on the battlefield drew decidedly 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 half - moon magazines were defective and caused about two thirds of all stoppages . For instance , it was common practice for the gunners to oil up the inside of the magazines to facilitate movement of the 8mm Lebel rounds . Also , 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 . An insistence on using only good , undeformed magazines with strong springs was the most practical solution to this problem . Chauchat gunners were also known to load their magazines with 18 or 19 rounds instead of the maximum 20 in order to avoid the dreaded first - round failure to feed . The Chauchat ' s long recoil system is often cited as a source of excessive stress on the gunner when he fired this weapon . However recent and extensive 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 most of the Gladiator - made guns , the sights also made the Chauchat shoot systematically too low and to the right , a failing which was soon recognized but never corrected . Overheating during long periods of fire ( about 300 rounds with the 8mm Lebel version ) often resulted in the barrel sleeve assembly locking in the rear position due to thermal expansion , causing stoppage of fire until the gun had cooled off . French and US Army manuals recommended firing in short bursts or semi - auto only . Battlefield Performance . Chauchat Mle 1918 . US 30 - 06 . While rate of fire restrictions ( 250 rounds / minute ) made the gun manageable in its 8mm Lebel version , the U . S . . 30 - 06 version fired more powerful cartridges that exacerbated the problems of overheating . Furthermore , the 18 , 000 Chauchats in . 30 - 06 caliber delivered to the A . E . F . were not conversions of the French model . Rather , they were newly manufactured guns which had been delivered directly to the A . E . F . by the Gladiator factory . As documented from the original American and French military archives , most of these Mle 1918 Chauchats in . 30 - 06 were flawed from the beginning , due to incomplete chamber reaming and other dimensional defects acquired during the manufacturing process at the Gladiator factory . How could this happen on such a scale in 1918 and be largely uncorrected at the time remains unexplained to this day . Thus very few . 30 - 06 Chauchats reached the front lines of northern France . When they did , it was reportedly not uncommon for U . S . units to simply discard their Chauchats in favor of M1903 Springfield rifles and cease to function as an auto - rifle squad altogether . Whereas instruction manuals in both French and English dealing with the 8mm Chauchat are still commonly found today , instruction manuals for the US 30 - 06 " American Chauchat " have never been found in the U . S . or French military archives . Improvements . Several prototypes of dirt - proof , fully enclosed Chauchat magazines were successfully tested in May and June 1918 , but came too late to be placed into service . Stronger open - sided standard magazines as well as tailored canvas gun covers protecting the gun against mud during transport had previously been issued in late 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 ) . Both the gunner and the assistant gunner carried at all times a . 32 ACP Ruby pistol with three magazines , each one loaded with 9 rounds , as part of their regular equipment . The squad leader and the magazine carrier were both equipped with a rifle or with a Berthier carbine . While the additional men provided assistance in carrying loaded magazines , helping manage malfunctions and protecting the gunner , it also negated one of the Chauchat ' s primary innovations : the ability to provide highly mobile automatic fire without the need for the 4 - man team inherent to the Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun . 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 French regimental records and the statistics of medals given to Chauchat gunners document that they were an essential contribution to the success of these updated infantry tactics . Those were applied to suppress enemy machine gun nests by the combined action of Chauchat automatic fire coming from the sides and VB rifle grenades lobbed from the front , within less than 200 yards ( 182 . 9 meters ) . Comparison . The Chauchat was not comparable to the submachine gun s of World War I , which used pistol rather than rifle ammunition and were thus less powerful . Compared to the Chauchat , the early submachine guns were used in relatively small numbers ( thousands rather than hundreds of thousands ) , and had much shorter effective ranges . Unlike much heavier air - cooled and water - cooled machine guns ( such as the Hotchkiss machine gun and the various belt - fed Maxim gun derivatives ) , but in common with the Lewis Gun , the Chauchat was not designed for sustained defensive fire from fixed positions . " The tactical edge expected from the light and portable Chauchat machine rifle was to increase the offensive firepower of advancing infantry during the assaults " . This particular tactic became known as marching fire . Colonel Chauchat had already formulated this tactical vision since the early 1900s , in his many proposals to the highest levels of the French military command structure including General Joffre . Chauchat in American service . After the United States had entered World War I in April 1917 , the American Expeditionary Force ( A . E . F . ) arrived in France without automatic weapons or field artillery . Consequently it turned to the French ally to purchase ordnance . General Pershing chose the Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun and the Chauchat machine rifle ( designated as " Automatic Rifle , Model 1915 ( Chauchat ) " by the A . E . F . and nicknamed the " Sho - Sho " by the troops ) to equip U . S . infantry . Between August 1917 and the November 11 , 1918 Armistice with Germany , the Gladiator factory delivered to the A . E . F . 16 , 000 Chauchats in 8 mm Lebel and , late in 1918 , 18 , 000 Chauchats in . 30 - 06 . While the performance of the M1915 Chauchat in 8 mm Lebel was combat effective , judging by the numbers of decorated U . S . Chauchat gunners found in the U . S . Divisional Histories , the performance of the M1918 Chauchat in . 30 - 06 was soon recognized as abysmal ( and in large part the reason for the gun ' s bad reputation ) . The most common problem was a failure to extract after the gun had fired only a few rounds and became slightly hot . A modern - day firing test of the M1918 30 - 06 Chauchat was performed at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in July 1973 but no particular problem was described in the official report which is accessible on open file . Conversely , an exhaustive firing test of the M1918 Chauchat in . 30 - 06 was also carried out in 1994 near Chambersburg , Pennsylvania , by R . Keller and W . Garofalo . Their testing , which is reported in " The Chauchat Machine Rifle " volume , did expose severe extraction problems caused by incorrect chamber measurements and other sub - standard manufacturing . During World War I , in 1918 , the preserved U . S . archival record also documents that American inspectors at the Gladiator factory had rejected about 40 % of the . 30 - 06 Chauchat production while the remaining 60 % proved problematic whenever they reached the front lines . Supplies of the newly manufactured and superior M1918 Browning Automatic Rifle ( BAR ) were allocated sparingly and only very late , during the Meuse - Argonne offensive which begun in late September 1918 . Therefore about 75 % of the U . S . Divisions were still equipped with the Chauchat - in its original French M1915 version in 8 mm Lebel - at the time of the Armistice of November 11 , 1918 . It is also well documented that General Pershing had been holding back on the BAR until victory was certain , for fear it would be copied by Germany . However , it is also known that the very first BARs delivered had improperly tempered recoil springs and had these guns been prematurely introduced during the summer of 1918 , their employment may also have been problematic . One of the most significant accounts of the Chauchat ' s poor performance was from then - lieutenant Lemuel Shepherd who was quoted saying : As documented by World War I veteran Laurence Stallings ( in " The Doughboys " , 1963 ) and by U . S . Divisional Histories , the Medal of Honor was awarded to three American Chauchat gunners in 1918 : 1 ) Private Nels Wold ( 35th Division , 138th Infantry ) . 2 ) Private Frank Bart ( 2nd Division , 9th Infantry ) and 3 ) Private Thomas C . Neibaur ( 42nd Division , 107th Infantry ) . The CSRG 1915 Chauchat was operated with " Balle D " 8mm ammunition which was standard for the French until 1932 when they went to an improved " Balle N " 8mm Lebel cartridge . The Chauchats , as they were retired , were not converted to the " Balle N " and as a result do not operate well with the " Balle N " cartridge ( French World War I weapons converted to " Balle N " will have a noticeable " N " markings ) . Only " Balle D " 8mm should be used in the Chauchat 1915 . The quickest way to identify the different cartridge is that the " Balle D " bullet is brass colored while the " Balle N " is a shiny silver . A number of captured Chauchats were used by German front - line infantrymen in flamethrower units because they had no light machine guns of their own until the portable Maxim MG 08 - 15 light machine guns were issued to them during early 1917 . The Belgian Army , which held a large sector of the Western Front , acquired nearly 7 , 000 Chauchats for its infantry . About half of those Belgian Chauchats were successfully converted to fire their standard 7 . 65 mm Mauser ammunition and were also fitted with better protections against mud and dust . Poland received French military assistance , notably infantry weapons and artillery , after World War I . As a part of those French weaponry transfers , Poland received over 2 , 000 Chauchats which they used extensively during the Polish – Soviet War ( 1919 - 1921 ) . After that war Poland bought more of them and their numbers reached 11 , 869 , becoming a standard Polish light machine gun ( the " RKM wz 15 " ) . Eventually about half of them were successfully converted during the mid - 1920s to 7 . 92×57mm Mauser ( or 8mm Mauser ) and kept in service until the early 1930s . One remaining specimen of these Polish Chauchats in 8mm Mauser is preserved and visible in the MoD ( Ministry of Defence ) National Firearms Center which is a part of the Royal Armouries in Leeds , Great Britain . Later , in 1936 - 1937 , some 2 , 650 Chauchats were sold abroad by Poland , some to Republican Spain and also on the international surplus weapon market . During the Winter War between Soviet Union and Finland , over 5 , 000 surplus Chauchats were donated by France to Finland which was short on automatic weapons . These Chauchats remained virtually unused by the Finns during the Winter War and many of them ended up on the American surplus weapon market in 1955 , after having been imported by Interarms . Some remnants of the Chauchat machine rifle are reported to have appeared in the 1960s during the Vietnam War . Replacing the Chauchat : the " Fusil - Mitrailleuse ( FM ) Model 1924 - M29 " . As early as November 6 , 1918 the French Government had approached the United States for the purchase of 15 , 000 Browning Automatic Rifle s . However , acquiring the Browning Automatic Rifle as a Chauchat replacement became a less pressing issue after the Armistice of November 11 , 1918 . Instead , the French military decided to upgrade to a more reliable light squad automatic weapon that would be designed and manufactured nationally . Experimentation was carried out at the Manufacture d ' Armes de Châtellerault during the early 1920s , culminating in the adoption of the FM Mle 1924 . The new light machine gun ( in French : " fusil - mitrailleuse " ) had been designed by Lt . Colonel Reibel and Controller Chosse and was gas operated , like the Browning Automatic Rifle ( BAR ) which had inspired the new gun ' s internal features . The venerable 8mm Lebel round , which was one of the major handicaps of the Chauchat , had been discarded for a 7 . 5 mm rimless cartridge resembling a necked down 7 . 92mm Mauser round . The F . M . Mle 1924 featured a bipod in front , a removable support pillar under the in - line stock , a pistol grip , a top - mounted detachable 25 round magazine and a bolt hold - open after the magazine ' s last round had been fired . Protection of all the openings against mud and dust was excellent . The cyclic rate was 450 rounds per minute . It was modified in 1929 to accept a slightly shorter 7 . 5mm cartridge that could not be mistaken for a German Mauser round . The new weapon and modern rimless ammunition had finally corrected all the problems associated with the Chauchat . The sturdy and reliable FM Mle 1924 - M29 was manufactured in large numbers ( 232 , 000 ) and widely used by the French Army until the late 1950s . The National Gendarmerie used it until the late 90s when it was phased out after all 7 . 5mm ammunition stocks were depleted .