A Short History of the Chauchat
The Chauchat is named after its principal designer, Colonel Louis Chauchat. Its official French designation was Fusil Mitrailleur Mle 1915 CSRG — “Machine Rifle Model 1915 CSRG” — after the consortium of firms that developed and produced it.
Its roots lie in the pre-war Chauchat-Sutter machine rifle, which had already been tested and designed around the French 8mm Lebel cartridge. When the war made the need urgent, that existing, proven design was the fastest road to a weapon a single soldier could carry forward. The French Army adopted it in 1915, and it reached the front in 1916.
Armies were learning that machine guns ruled the battlefield, but most machine guns were heavy, needed a tripod, and could not move with an assault. The Chauchat was built to change that. One man carried it; a second carried ammunition. It could be fired from the hip while walking forward, a tactic the French called feu en marchant — walking fire.
More than two hundred thousand were made. Besides France and the United States, the armies of Belgium, Finland, Greece, Italy, Poland, Romania, Russia and Serbia all used it in numbers.
The Gun, Part by Part
- Muzzle. The flared cone at the end of the barrel jacket.
- Front sight. A blade on a collar clamped round the jacket.
- Barrel jacket. The slim forward tube, pierced with cooling vents.
- Front band and sling swivel. Carries the bipod hinge and the front sling loop.
- Receiver. The long tube at the heart of the gun. Barrel and bolt recoil together inside it, the full length of the stroke.
- Rear sight. A block on top of the receiver, with a folding leaf.
- Rear cap. Closes the back of the receiver tube.
- Bipod. Two long, light legs hinged at the front band.
- Magazine. The half-moon: twenty rounds of 8mm Lebel.
- Forward grip. A turned wooden knob for the left hand.
- Trigger and guard. A plain trigger in a narrow loop guard.
- Pistol grip. Grip panels on a stamped steel frame.
- Buttstock. Wood, held by a steel tang along the receiver.
The Gun Field-Stripped
Taken down, the Chauchat comes apart into a handful of groups. This is the plate to keep open when a box of parts turns up and you need to know what is in it.
- Barrel and receiver group. The long tube with the barrel inside it, sights still fitted.
- Anti-aircraft rear sight. The folding “spider-web” ring, raised.
- Rear sight. The block on top of the receiver.
- Cooling vents. Holes through the barrel jacket.
- Front sight. With the folding anti-aircraft foresight raised above it.
- Cocking handle. Draws the action back to make the gun ready.
- Buttstock and tang. The steel tang carries the stock’s screws.
- Magazine. The half-moon, seen from its windowed side.
- Pistol grip and trigger group. Comes away from the receiver as one unit.
- Forward grip. The wooden knob and its clamp.
- Return spring and guide. The long coil spring and its guide rod.
- Bipod. Legs folded together.
- Small parts. The little pieces that go missing first.
Specifications
| Designation | Fusil Mitrailleur Mle 1915 CSRG |
|---|---|
| Operation | Long recoil, with a gas assist |
| Cartridge | 8mm Lebel; a US version in .30-06 for the American Expeditionary Forces |
| Magazine | 20 rounds in a half-moon magazine, with windows in its side |
| Length | 1,143 mm (45 in) |
| Weight | About 20 lb (9 kg) loaded |
| Rate of fire | About 250 rounds per minute |
| Production | More than 200,000 |
Why It Looks the Way It Does
Almost every odd feature answers a question of weight or speed of manufacture. The heart of the gun is one long tubular receiver. When it fires, barrel and bolt recoil together inside it, locked, the full length of their stroke; then the barrel runs forward on its own and the bolt follows to chamber the next round. That long-recoil principle came from a John Browning patent of 1900, and it is why the Chauchat fires so slowly. The magazine is a half-moon because the 8mm Lebel cartridge has a wide rim and a steep taper, and a curve that tight is what twenty of them stack into.
The windows in the magazine let a soldier see his remaining rounds at a glance. They also let in the mud of the Western Front, which is a fair summary of the whole weapon.
Timeline
- Before 1914
The Chauchat-Sutter prototype is tested, designed around the 8mm Lebel cartridge. - 1915
The French Army adopts the Fusil Mitrailleur Mle 1915 CSRG as its standard light machine rifle. - 1916
It reaches French front-line units. Soldiers find it powerful, portable and temperamental. - 1917–1918
Used widely by the French and by the American Expeditionary Forces, who designate it the “Automatic Rifle, Model 1915 (Chauchat)” and call it the sho-sho. Eight other nations field it too. - 1918
The American Browning Automatic Rifle arrives, built on the same walking-fire idea the Chauchat tried first. - Today
Survivors sit in museums and private collections, and the gun appears in games such as Battlefield 1 and Battlefield V, which is how a good many collectors first meet it.
The Reputation
The Chauchat is routinely called the worst machine gun ever fielded. The charge is not baseless. Its long-recoil action could seize as the barrel heated under sustained fire, and rushed, stamped construction meant jams were common. The American .30-06 version was worse than the French original, chambered badly enough that many were close to useless.
But the fairer verdict is the one most collectors reach. It was an early, serious attempt at something no army yet had: a machine gun one man could carry into an attack. It was light, it was made in enormous numbers when France needed numbers, and the lessons it taught shaped every light automatic that followed, the BAR included.
Soldiers who used it well were often fond of it. That is worth remembering when the internet tells you it was junk.
Sources & Further Reading
- Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons on the Chauchat machine rifle, and the Commons file pages for period photographs.
- Military-history references on the Fusil Mitrailleur Mle 1915 CSRG.
- Museum collections, including the Arizona Military Museum in Phoenix and the Prague Military Museum.
- Contemporary accounts from the American Expeditionary Forces, which should be read with their frustrations in mind.