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The "Chauchat" or CSRG M1915 was one of the first light machine guns designed to be carried and fired by a single operator and an assistant, without a heavy tripod or a team of machine gunners. It set a precedent for several subsequent 20th century firearm projects, being a portable automatic weapon built inexpensively and in very large numbers. It combined a pistol grip, an in-line stock, a large-capacity detachable magazine, and selective-fire capability in a compact package of manageable weight (20 pounds) for a single soldier. It could be fired from the hip and also while walking. In the muddy trenches of northern France several operational problems came to light. Most of these were a side effect of the economical construction and in particular of the open-sided, semi-circular magazines. Those allowed for the ingress of dirt and were the cause of 2/3 of all stoppages. Immediately after the war, the French replaced the Chauchat with the Mle 1924 and later with the Mle 1924/29 light machine gun. The American Expeditionary Forces in France (the AEF) eventually replaced it with the superior Browning Automatic Rifle, or BAR, which appeared on the front lines of northern France in September 1918, barely two months before the Armistice of November 11. Over time the Chauchat's poor reputation and short service life have led many modern experts to describe it as perhaps the "worst machine gun" ever fielded in the history of warfare. Period reports, soldiers' memoirs, as well as US Divisional Histories (1917 � 1918) tend to be more moderate in tone. The reason for the blanket condemnation of all Chauchat machine-rifles, including the CSRG M1915 and the CSRG M1918, is due in very large part to the disastrous service record of the CSRG M1918 (in .30-06) and to the ignorance of the useful service provided by the CSRG M1915 (in 8mm Lebel) during World War I. |
