The exception that perhaps proves the rule that French generals never really fired the rifles their soldiers used was Charles Mangin. Born in Lorraine annexed by the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war, he held a deep and bitter grudge against them for that. He would frequently go to the front line just to take shots at the Germans, and being wounded several times in the process did not discourage him.
+The Great War Oh yes, but an introduction, for as the war continues we will hear much more about General Charles Mangin. An extremely aggressive attacking general his greatest triumph came in 1918 at the 2nd battle of the Marne, commanding French and American troops to victory in open mobile warfare which suited his command style. However, in trench warfare battles (such as Verdun and Aisne) his tactics guaranteed heavy casualties, earning him the nickname: “The Butcher”. What he and General Nivelle did at Aisne led the French Army to mutiny in 1917.
C&Rsenal It's not just the firearms. It's an overall disconnect. To think that brass thought a bayonet charge was an effective tactic in the age of machine guns. Just overall bad generalship of this war boggles my mind every time I think about it!
Yannick Oliveres Inferior tactics, inferior equipment, old age thinking, inferior trenches, inferior officers, etc The two major powers weaker than France is Austria-Hungary (which says a lot considering how terrible they fought against both Serbia and Russia) and Italy (which also have similar problems against France. However, they didn't have support from UK and they have to attack positions which heavily favored the Austrians) After the Franco-Prussian war, France pretty much was inferior to Germany and UK in many areas. That inferiority gap grew during and after the war. Had the British remained neutral, Belgium would fall faster (or would allow transit rights for Germany) and France would crumble under German numbers, higher morale and superior tactics and equipment. The Schifflen Plan would have failed, but France would have been crippled so bad that it would eventually fall within a year. The non-involvement of the UK could persuade the Italians to join the Central Powers This would also affect the colonies as the Germans were able to tie down most of the UK South African troops for a long time. If the UK wasn't involve then the German colonies would have put pressure on the French colonies. German Navy and submarines would wreck the French. Without UK, France is useless in the seas!
It's glad to see the show has a mature audience. I came down here expecting at least half the top comments to be about the girl who was demonstrating the rifles
+Joshua Patterson "This is the only place on UA-cam where the comments don't suck" is what a fan once said. Might be a bit exaggerated but were are proud of our community.
I'm a bit disappointed though that Mae does not get a proper introduction as the test shooter for C&Rsenal. If you watch their full length episodes her job is pretty important for the complete review of each weapon.
Exploatores They simply didn't care. In their mind the bravery of the soldier was above all technical differences. This mindset also sealed the japanese defeat in ww2.
+Karst Reitsma i wouldn't exaggerate about the range, quite opposite by how long and how big those guns are you can see clearly that they thought about the rage and accuracy but not really about handling. When in fact as it was said in video individual soldier does not need such a long big rifle as he does not make use of that accuracy and range and would do much better with smaller gun with shorter range but with much better handling, Thats goes for both fronts but especially for war in trenches on western front.
Exploatores The French had a big army which meant even small changes required massive effort. When you committee every decision it is easy to shoot down new ideas and look smart. It's risky to chance new ideas and open yourself up to responsibility and criticism.
The Great War The demonstrating does Not show us the complete action of firing and reloading of cartridges. We didn't get a chance to see the lebel cartridge being extracted by the fierer.
Fractalfrenzy Hahahahaha! I know its sad but I'm laughing. Hahahahaha! You, sir, are soooooo right! Still, you forgot the "heroes" that cut the forests of the world and turn them into shameless waist lands.
I have to say I am loving this channel. Not many people really remember the Great War because of it being over shadowed by the scope and scale of WW2. Thank You so much for taking the time for these incredible videos.
In keeping with the military thoughts of the time, the three shot capacity was to keep troops from "wasting ammunition". Only late in the war did the French adopt the thought "Firepower Kills".
There are a few things that Orthais said that are incorrect or missing. The French were fully aware that their rifles (at least the Lebel) were not up to date, but they also had millions of them in stock. Their pre-war plan was to leapfrog the competition by developing a semi-automatic rifle, which they achieved in 1913 in the Meunier A6 rifle. Due to the war and the need completely overhaul production lines, those rifles were deemed not ready for manufacture and the plan was abandoned. There was another semi-automatic gas-powered rifle produced in France called the RSC M1917, but it was also only deployed on a small scale. Both of these weapons were technologically quite far ahead of the other powers that fought in the war. The French were aware their rifles weren't up to snuff, but they already had millions of them stockpiled. There were several attempts to improve them, but they were considered to be too difficult to mass produce, and not really worth it because they were supported by powerful machine gun designs.
About as late, but he also mentioned that most of the French rifles dated from the 1890s (or earlier). While that is true, it was also true of just about every single military of the time, European or otherwise
Great video! It really makes you think about how many thing that the soldiers had to worry about. It makes you remember that they weren't just numbers in a planning room, but people.
C&Rsenal Thanks for doing this series of videos for the Great War channel. I found this episode a little confusing (I hate to say misleading), and I would have liked to see a little bit more historical perspective. The years leading up to the Great War had seen a great deal of weapons development, with bolt-action military rifles (such as the Mauser and SMLE) being near the peak of their development. The clip-fed, box-magazine, smokeless-powder bolt-action had only been in use for, what, 20 years? 30? Compare that to the AR-15 and Kalashnikov rifles (really carbines) that came out in the 40s and 50s, and are still in use today, with only minor improvements. (One could also mention the long reign of the flintlock musket, but the pace of change was much slower in its day, so that may not be a fair comparison.) Also, the French rifles and carbines held 8 and 3 rounds, respectively, versus the Mauser, which split the difference at 5 (half the capacity of the SMLE). It seems obvious the Mauser was a better rifle than either of the French examples (though I'll admit I'm biased), but was it really a decisive difference? The Germans lost two world wars with it, not to mention the Spanish loss in Cuba, in 1898. It loaded faster than the French rifle in the video, and held more rounds than the carbine, but it was also a long, heavy rifle. Thanks again for the videos. I look forward to the next one. Loves me some Mausers!
I think it comes down to the soldier's perspective. Whether or not it wins a war, more fiddling and any failures of a rifle would be a source of extreme anxiety and even death. Ultimately the best rifle would have been the simplest to manufacture and yet still robust and accurate at 300 yards. This would have freed up resources for other, more decisive tools of war. We'll see this in the later stamp-steel revolution. That said, whether or not you win with a certain gun, going against an enemy with a superior rifle often has a severe effect on morale. Look at the fate of the US Krag after defeating Cuba!
+joshuabissey In WWI, Gewehr 98 was not a perfect rifle too. It's a full length infantry rifle (its size is near to the Lebel size), so not adapted to a trench warfare. Its wried rear sight, start only at 400 meters, which is far away from the average engagement distance, German soldiers often shot too high because of that (they produced a kind of enhanced front sight kits for solve the problem). French rear sights was much simple and at least better. During the war, the Lebel was considered by both sides, French and germans, as a bit more accurate than the gewehr 98 (maybe because of its sights ?). The true superiority of the Gew.98 was its 5 rds stripper clips, over the tube-magazine of the Lebel. When you run out of ammo with this gun you can reload fastly in few seconds, with a Lebel you only have to reload rounds one by one, and that takes way more time, it is painfull and slow. During this time you are vulnerable, and that can cause frustration and stress, as said Othais . But all on this is highly relative, depends a lot on circonstances and on the soldier, rather than the rifle itself (especially for accuracy). Success on battlefield is more a matter of strategy and commandment rather than a matter of infantry weapons or bravery or anything else. Napoleon won several battles with outnumbered troops. In big wars like these 2 world wars, there was other weapons and materials with a way higher strategic value than rifles, such artillery, machineguns, airplanes, tanks, and of course on alliances for win or loose a war. Most of the time, the quality of personal weapons carried by soldier didn't have a significant influence on the issue of the war. For exemple, stripper clips are always considered as superior to Mannlicher en-bloc clips (you still can load your rifle without clips). But do you think that make any difference on battlefield for the soldier ? In every case he will go to fight with his pouchs full of ammo well loaded in proper clips. Winning a war just because soldiers have a better personal weapons than their ennemies implies an overwhelming superiority, like in the battle of Blood River in 1838 (South Africa) against the Zulu, or the battle of Rorke Drift for British troops, still against Zulu, in 1879 (if you know the film "Zulu") ; superiority of weaponry played a crutial role. But such exemples are rare, maybe Prussian wars against Denmark in 1864 and Autro-Hungary in 1866 ? Prussian had a certain superiority on their ennemies with their Dreyse breech-loading rifles (versus muzzle loading rifles), but it's wrong to say that they win only because of their Dreyse rifles.
Love the Lee Enfield. Of all my bolt actions, I would say it's the only TRUE bolt action designed battle rifle (also count the M1917/Pattern 14 Enfield). The M1903 and Mauser 98's are nice, but as the saying goes; The Germans went to war with a hunting rifle, the Americans went to war with a target rifle, but the British went to war with a battle rifle.
The Springfield is known to be laser accurate and is widely renowned for being a great target rifle. On the quote I love the SMLE and it's a great rifle but I'm more of a Mauser person as the 98's action is legendarily tough and the rifle's themselves look powerful and intimidating.
Thanks to all the people at The Great War Channel. I really respect and appreciate what you are doing. Also a big shout out to Forgotten Weapons for informing us about The Great War Channel.
Very interesting stuff, great work as always and thanks for the link to Historic Guns! There were a couple videos on German and British anti-tank rifles over on Forgotten Weapons and now this! Drowning in world war one stuff this week, it's great :)
Forgotten Weapons Awesome, and also thank you for doing that machine gun video telling us about this channel. I sadly would probably never have known about it if it wasn't for your channel/site
wow so interesting especially the fact to see and to learn about what the soliders had to deal with at the time is fascinating to me (barrel getting hot, bolt action vs machinegun, ...) really enjoyed the relaxed talking and explaining style of the man with the cool beard, kudos to the everybody on the team! :D
At the start of the war, many French military thinkers, convinced that constant, relentless attacking would carry the day, considered a rifle to be just something onto which a bayonet was mounted. Little wonder not a lot of thought was given to making it a modern "shooter." BTW: great addition to the series.
You guys are doing a great job with this series- the "big picture" episodes which review the corresponding week a century ago, the specials on different events/significant people and now a focus on weaponry. It just keeps getting better and better. I do hope you do an episode on the building and development of the trench system by Allies and Germans. I'm particularly fascinated by the first development of the system- how on earth did they start them off when so close to each others lines?
Forgotten Weapons crossover-- the People demand it! I'm sure you've got a deal with Othais goin' on, but a cameo or name-drop wouldn't hurt, riiight? Forgotten Weapons is, after all, what got me subscribed to zees channel.
I wonder how many guys lost their lives because they got their rifles stuck in the mud or in some debris, or lost a shootout because the only had a 3 round clip.
+youtoob4life Yep, they needed shorter rifles, higher shot capacities, lighter weight, and have them be more enclosed so dirt and other crap can't easily get inside of it. All worth a small sacrifice in long-range accuracy.
A little fun fact: When the Lebel was used in WWI, almost everyone from the swanky Germans till the lowly armed Russians are using stripper clips, only the French troops are loading one round after another manually and with the new Spitzer round, it created panic out of France that if a French soldier was to drop the rifle or anyway, it would create a chain fire for the bullet to touch the primer in a row and it would start firing without pulling the trigger or worse... Explode due to all the 8 rounds firing at once. However, here's a catch. Lebel thought of it way earlier and to prevent that, he designed a catch just around the edge of the primer so when rounds are being loaded, the ring would catch the bullet and he made the cut deep enough that no matter how hard you jiggle the rifle, the round would not hit the primer nor if a gun like the Lebel which has no safety was dropped, it won't cause it to "explode".
Hello, I came by from the german channel (and I am sad, that its being stoped) and I hope, that you guys can continue this Channel the whole time of the war. Thanks again.
The C&Rsenal channel is awesome. Cool to see you folks working together. Some things to add: another reason for the length of the rifles was the notion that you wanted a soldier to have the longest possible reach for bayonet combat. You wanted him to stab the enemy before the enemy could stab him. You also wanted your soldier to be able to reach a guy on horseback. And it wasn't that, by this period, they'd figured out that "they didn't need that much accuracy" - rather, they knew there was a point of diminishing returns in terms of barrel length and accuracy. A Lebel or Berthier's barrel is far longer than it needs to be to get maximum performance out of the 8x50R Lebel cartridge. Speaking of accuracy, the pre-war emphasis on volley fire tactics by the French meant that their rifles have fairly crude sights compared to most of the other rifles, but especially those of the US. One last thing to add, regarding whether or not the French were aware of the deficiencies of their rifles. One reason the French rifles were so behind is that the Great War came when France was in the middle of testing and developing a semi-automatic rifle, the Meunier. Because of this, they neglected their bolt-action long arms because they thought they wouldn't need them. WWI interrupted these plans, and forced them to keep the outdated Lebel in service and supplement them with the somewhat better Berthier rifles. In the end, France's plans for semi-auto rifles in WWI had limited success. They struggled to get a working design that could stand up to the mud of the trenches, but the Mle 1917 and Mle 1918 rifles saw some service toward the end of the war and would go on to inspire certain features of the beloved American M1 rifle of WWII.
+fhsreelfilms Good points all around! I left off the "spear" aspect since it was a feature of early arms that was hard to justify any further. We're hoping to get a hold of an RSC at some point where I'll have the time and opportunity to point out that it and the Meunier were reasons why the French kept stalling, while excellent designs died in committee. Sadly, as you know, we'll see the same thing repeated until WWII.
C&Rsenal Yeah, the French really had bad luck. I wish they'd finished the Mle 1940 semi-auto about ten years earlier and actually distributed it to entire army. If I ever write a book about the French small arms industry and/or military in the first half of the twentieth century, I'm going to call it "Great Ideas at the Worst Times." They had lots of bad luck... and some obtuse leadership. A pity that the soldiers had to pay the price for that.
I just discovered this series, fantastic insight into WW1 weapons, I know a few others have already said but I'm looking forward to hopefully an ep on British Empire rifles. Keep up the great work!
Hey guys, came across your series not long ago and have been hooked ever since. . started watching in order around about 3months ago and this is where i am at :) . . i absolutely love that you are now making specials about the specific weapons / rifles etc used in the Great War . . amazing . this is without a doubt my favourite channel :)
Hi, I have a French M93 1886 Le Bell 8 X 50 mmR rifle and I do fire it on occasion for fun at military rifle events. A few things you didn't mention about this design. The first thing is that it has a cartridge (or round) cut off on the right side of the receiver just in front of the trigger guard. The rifles at that time, from most nations, had a feed cut off. The rifles were suppose to be used as a single shot rifle when firing at the enemy at long or normal range. To fire, you open the bolt drop 1 round or cartridge in the feed try and push the bolt forward, fire, pull back the bolt and repeat the process. Now the magazine tube that held 8 rounds of ammunition would have been loaded but cut off from feeding the ammo when the bolt was cycled and was there for an emergency reserve. The reasoning for this was from the officers that felt that loading one round at a time, the solder would be forced to take aim for each round (or bullet) fired. The magazine or tube that held the 8 rounds in reserve, was only to be used when the other side was moving in close and rapid unaimed fire became necessary. But in most cases, an order had to be given for rapid fire, before the cut off could be released. The British Enfield .303 rifle was also made originally with this feed or magazine cut off as where many others from various nations when first developing repeating magazine fed rifles. Now the other reason for this cartridge cut off, was to keep the Soldiers from wasting ammunition. The higher ranking officials, felt that if the soldiers had a rifle able to fire rapidly they would wast ammo without taking aim. Many of these officers felt that wasting ammo in rapid fire would lead to ammunition shortages. They also saw it as if a patrol or fort wasted ammo they could be easily over run and killed, captured or a battle or war would be lost. You have to remember, that at this time, many nations had outposts not easily supplied. An example of this would be the French Foreign Legion and British forces that had outposts in Africa. Many leaders at this time just could not grasp the understanding of this new technology, they were still living in the past. This is shown in these videos and others with the slaughter of millions all because the leadership of that era kept using tactics of a bygone era and didn't understand nor cared to keep up with new technology. It sounds silly today but back then most soldiers were conscripts or enlisted and not highly educated if they had any education at all. It was mostly the officers that had education, came from the upper classes and looked down on the lowly soldier or enlisted. You also have to understand that even though the cartridge ammunition had been around since about the mid 1860's, most rifles were still single shot. Remember, that neither France or Europe, had fought a big war for 40+ years. At that time, solders were still using muzzle loading rifles with loose powder and bullets. Also the lower ranks were trained to obey orders, to the letter and not doing so would reap severe punishment, even execution. Militaries are slow to adapt or buy new weapons and equipment, especially during times of peace or when there governments do not have the money to spend during budget cuts. I know I've been in the military all my adult life. A lot of people think militaries have an unlimited budget and that is simply not true. Military budgets are usually at the bottom of governmental funding and the first to be cut during budget shortfalls. It is expensive to arm an army, yet alone to modernize it when you have a lot of outdated weapons in storage or not in use, especially during times of rapid development and times of peace. Military equipping, even for back then is expensive and when you have several branches, such as a Navy, an Army and an Air Force all requiring and competing for new and updated equipment, like ships or aircraft or tanks or rifles or even sanitary necessities like toilet paper, it gets to be very expensive. It also gets hard for those outside of the military to understand the expense when items cost in the thousands, or millions, or billions and you are not fighting a war or haven't fought one in a long time. What people, governments and military leaders must understand is that there is a lag time for equipment to be designed, manufactured, tested and finally issued to the military. Then there is the lag time in training on how to use and service that equipment. Here in America for example, after the Civil War, the military needed to upgrade to the newer cartridge firing rifles, but they had stock piles of the older .58 caliber muzzle loading rifles and the government didn't have a lot of tax money to spend. The US army literately had to make what they had on hand work with the new cartridge and make it work as cheaply as they could. That is how they came up with the Trap Door Springfield Rifle. Even though there were lever action and early bolt action repeaters out on the civilian market, the Spencer Rifle being one example. Other things about the Le Bell rifle, it dose not eject a spent cartridge very well. It is not shown with the girl firing the M93, but you need to really jerk the bolt handle back on that rifle for 2 reasons. The first is to make sure that you get the spent brass to come out of the rifle or you had to remove it by tipping the rifle to one side or taking the brass out with your fingers. Also, if the spent brass didn't eject, it could fall on top of the new cartridge in the loading tray when feeding from the tube magazine. This could jam the rifle if not caught and cleared and one could lose a live round when clearing this jam when using the tube magazine during rapid fire. I've seen this in all of M93 Le Bells I've handled and have been told that this is normal and jerking the bolt back hard was part of the training. The other reason for this was to make sure that the loading tray, with a new cartridge from the tube magazine would pop up to the feed position. If this didn't happen, a soldier would push the bolt forward without loading a cartridge in the chamber of the rifle. Pulling the trigger, all you would get is a click, not a bang. In a panic situation, it was very easy to do this and never fire the gun. Also reloading that tube magazine after firing several rounds of ammo and especially after rapid fire of 8 rounds, you need gloves to reload it because it is so hot. I found out the hard way after shooting that thing and I never take it out with out a good pair of leather gloves. They did fix that problem when they got away from the tube magazine and modified the rifles to the enblock clip, but then they ran in to the rimed ammo jamming if they didn't load the clip the right way. Something else they had to deal with in the M93 Le Bell was when they went to the spitzer or pointed bullets when it was loaded in the tube magazine. The base of the 8mm Le bell cartridge, is made with a grooved ring stamped or machined around the primer. Even new ammunition has this ring around the primer. The reason for this is so the pointed bullet loaded behind the first in the tube magazine catches in that groove so it will not line up with the primer of the cartridge in front of it. If the point of the bullet was able to line up with the primer, it could set off a chain reaction when the bolt cycled. The spring pressure and the amount of movement, it had enough speed to set off all the cartridges in that tube magazine. This could injure the solders hand taking him out of action and disabling or destroying the rifle. One last thing, this was a new type of rifle and the first one out for a military so design problems should be expected. However the French are known for hanging on to weapons long after they are obsolete. This is shown by how the Germans saw the problems with a rimmed cartridge being used in a magazine fed rifle. They designed their 7.92X57mm or 8mm Mauser cartridge as a rimless cartridge. It feed faster and smoother and dose not have the jamming problems the rimmed cartridges have. The 8X50mmR Le Bell was a great cartridge at the time it was developed and was used by the French military long after WWI. Also, the French didn't have the manufacturing capabilities to rapidly manufacture this rifle. So the French contracted, rifle makers, like Remington here in the US to manufacture the M93 Le Bell and the 8X50mmR ammunition. After the war, there were large stocks of these rifles and ammunition here in America when France canceled contracts. Many were sold here in the 1920's as inexpensive hunting rifles and much of the ammunition was reloaded for that purpose. Many more were sold here when France dumped the M93 and it's modifications on the market after going to the standard NATO ammunition in the 1950's.
i just wanted to say, if people enjoyed these couple of videos on the french weapons, really take the advice and look at Oathias a@ c&rsenal channel. They are easily one of the most underrated channel on youtube. they put a ton of effort into their videos with excellent summarys of the wepons development, complete with mechanical cutaway animations and shooting tests. it pains me to see some of the videos in the sub 10,000 view range because it offers some of the best ww1 history on youtube
Please get Ian from Forgotten Weapons to do a few special episodes on the channel. Seeing as he is the reason I found this channel in the first place ;)
Time for profile one of the best weapons of the war, The Lee-Enfield Rifle. But Othais does a great job explaining the pluses and minuses of period weaponry and I hope to see more of his commentary on this channel.
One major item of note is that in this war many of the major combatants made their own firearms, even the Canadians had their own The Ross Rifle but after failures in the field went to the Lee-Enfield.
That's actually a very beautiful collection. Even that I'm not really into this technical part of the history of the war, this video was impressively informative and fun to watch. Thanks for this great work, guys.
To be fair to the French, before the war, they were hoping to leapfrog ahead of all of their rivals in terms of rifles with a semi-auto and they did succeed in fielding substantial numbers of their RSC-1917 semi automatic rifles before the end of the war.
I really enjoyed this episode, and am looking forward to future episodes like it. I've also subbed to C&Rsenal, so, cross promotion successful. If I could lodge a request, it would be to go beyond just the armaments of the involved national armies, and to take a look at the weapons used by the various partisan and resistance forces active during the war (unless it's the same?). What kind of pistol did Gavrilo Princip use, what rifles were the Bolsheviks overthrowing russia with? Did every army equip all their soldiers, or were some soldiers expected (or able) to equip themselves? Keep up the good work!
digitalbrentable partisan weapons would be very limited. Mostly they just took defectors guns so it would be all the same. Princip used an FN Model 1910. We will cover that in C&Rsenal and may on TGW as well in the future (probably rolled into a Belgian arms episode)
Only discovered this channel very recently and it's great. This may be the best system/medium for creating understanding on this subject. This segment is very good. The Great War gets better all the time. I'm sure I wouldn't have said that 100 years ago though.
I found this great channel because Ian at Forgotten Weapons gave you a shout out. And I'm glad he did. Very fascinating stuff. I'm also now a subscriber to C&Rsenal's channel thanks to you guys. Keep up the great work!
Personally, I'd say this is the most interesting video you guys have done so far. Are we going to see more videos like this? One for each major power's arsenal?
Another great video. You know how to fill in the holes(answer the questions) along the course of the series. Your videos helps me put myself in the shoes of the common soldiers more and more.
She got a huge smile on her face every time she was about to fire. You can tell she enjoys firing these old school rifles. I may be a pacifist now but there really is nothing like firing a military grade rifle of any era.
C&Rsenal Hi first of awesome hangout and now cool shorter video! Just a question i saw the Reichs revolver episode and i had one question,Mae had a significant trouble cocking the gun without moving her had in different grip place,thus making cocking a lot slower.But since she is shorter and probably has smaller hands,from the men this gun was designed for i wonder,you or someone else for example could you do it easily,or you had problems too?I mean it seems really stupid for them to make it so much harder to shoot. P.S.Not trying to be sexist or anything but as you said ,the natives who were shorter preferred the shorter gun,so i wonder would the average German had the problems Mae had?
Greg Makropoulos actually the gun is just that poorly thought out. Those old, large handles were for keeping the hand back from the blast. For some reason the style was held over. Mae is actually 5'7 and therefore one inch over the average height. Her fingers would be in the right range as well. Her upper body and grip strength would be lower but she also has fair experience with these mechanisms to compensate. Take a look at the 1883 pattern and you can see them trying to fix the mistake of the massive grip. Sometimes we see bad ideas float in arms. A good example is the all around superior Schofield was distrusted in favor of the much simpler Colt in the US. Or worse yet, Kijiro Nambus brilliant Type 38 rifle compared to his insanely wasteful Type 14 pistol.
I never even thought to ask about each countries standard issue firearms at the beginning of the war. The Russian forces mostly using the, 'Mosin' from the start through the entire war. The story behind it becoming the, 'Mosin Nagant' is well worth the read. As always another awesome video. I will make sure to catch the next live stream!
Othais isn't kidding when he talks about the need for hand-guards on rifles during firing! During my 32 years of service I had the honor of receiving much of my weapons training from the US Marine Corps.....as an example I went through what is known as "The High Risk Personnel Course" where for over a month we were involved among other things with learning all about and firing most of the individual/crew-served weapons used by the World's Military Forces. We fired everything from AK-47s to Sten Guns from WW2 to the M-14 to PKM machine-guns and the list goes on and on.....it was a "Gun Aficionado's wet dream come true!!.....I fired so many rounds apparently through my Beretta 9mm semi-auto handgun that it exposed a flaw in the metal to where the bloody slide busted (that's a lot of rounds!)!! What I remember to this day all these years later is how HOT the barrels became after only a few rounds had been sent downrange! The wooden hand-guards on the AK-47 for example would get unbearably hot to touch After firing one to no more than two ammo clips through it. I remember using rags to buffer the heat of the barrel while I fired. The Sten-gun of WW2 took special dedication to use I imagine since I saw how firing it burned a bunch our fingers.....as our Trainers pointed out though, they were better than nothing!!
Hi Claystead! As a matter of fact...YES, we did fire the G3 series among other World Class Weaponry. One particular H&K Weapon I became very familiar with was the MP-5 (initially known as the "HK54) which was developed as part of the G3's forth evolutionary design phase which fired a 9mm Parabellum round and is a favorite among the US Navy SEALS the German Federal Police, their Special Forces.....etc. The weapon had a remarkably light recoil which in my opinion helped give it its excellent accuracy for a Killing Instrument of its type. I'm not surprised that you were exposed to German based/created equipment since the Scandinavian Kingdoms have approached their defense planning very carefully to ensure of the most intelligently effective "Combined Arms Combination" (Army, Naval and Air Forces.....this is my opinion and my opinion only). This is why the three Kingdoms (including Sweden) choose the German "Leopard 2 Tank" for their Ground Forces while Norway and Denmark chose the F-16 for their Air Forces and Sweden introduced its legendary line of Saab "Grippen" Warplanes so in essence you picked and chose the best possible mix for as reasonable an expenditure possible.....this part, the $$$$s involved were as critical a factor in your selection choices as the equipment's capabilities since unlike the United States, you HAD TO live within your budget and not print up more $$$ when you hit a shortfall....as far as the M-1 Garand.....that is one battlefield weapon that I fired quite a bit since it fit so closely with the Marine philosophy of "One shot, one kill"! Speaking of "Oldies but Goodies" I went back in history by firing the The M1903 Springfield, formally the United States Bolt Action Rifle, Caliber .30-06, Model 1903 with which the Marines fought in WWI and even farther back to a Rifle you might find extremely interesting considering its and your birthplace, the Springfield Model 1892-99 Krag-Jorgensen rifle a Norwegian-designed bolt-action rifle, chosen for service as the main infantry rifle for the US Armed Forces at the end of the 19th Century.....although weapons training formed only part of the training, mixed in with defensive/offensive driving, ambush survival, house clearing, how to deal with Mines/IEDs...(I still see and hear the explosions in my head/mind....controlled but very, very realistic all the same!) and much, much more (from which I literally came out black and blue from top to bottom), the firing and explosive portions were my absolute favorite parts of the course.....I am sorry that I have written you a book here but, there is so much involved in this fascinating subject (at least to me) that if I'm not careful I will end up doing so....(SMILE)....
Excellent episode. There is so much more to see from other countries and as the war moves on. I'm looking forward to it! I will start my support on Patreon to help.
+AVKnecht the 1895 is definitely unique! You will be happy to know we have both a long rifle and stutzen handy in the original 8x50. Just have to load up some ammo now....
Gun stuff is dependent on Othais. Forgotten Weapons and a few other channels cover the autos but not necessarily as a WW1 feature. John Jacob Dingleheimer Browning did most of it anyway.
I am amazed how comment section is very polite. I've watched a lot of videos about France and Serbia, and it was a surprise how everyone is so glad and happy to see how those two countries handled in WW1. I'm used to see all bad comments, because they all think France is most coward country in the world, and Serbia is most evil and stupid country in the world. So i would like to thank all for being so nice and interested in history, and i would like to thank The Great War chanel for making fantastic videos.
François Calvaresi yes we will. For the French we have at least two lined up but they need repair for firing. This also takes a bit of time and money. Our budget at C&Rsenal just broke even for standard production, so we need some time to save up first is all. I hope the rifles and pistols of the coming countries will help!
"You always prepare for the last war." Absolutely true and the sad and pathetic thing is that the French again failed to learn anything from WW1 and suffered for it during WW2. Well, they did learn some things, but mainly they took away the wrong lessons. They saw the effectiveness of large forts and defensive lines (warding off large scale infantry assaults) and decided to build the wildly expensive Maginot Line, which failed miserably during WW2 when the Germans just went around it. The Germans initially built huge artillery guns to take those forts out (Schwerer Gustav), but never used them for those since using fast moving tanks and air support proved more effective. The Maginot Line fell without ever seeing any major action, because France had already lost most of the land battles while the men manning the line were twiddling their thumbs. Speaking of tanks, that's where the French failed again. They did use tanks during WW2 and their models (Char B1) were often feared by the Germans for their heavy armor and powerful guns, but they were slow as hell and followed the doctrine of the infantry tank, which was to protect the infantry instead of going on seperate operations. And they largely went back to the horse instead of motorizing their troops, despite having a powerful automobile industry. There was some initial cavalry action during the early days of WW2, but practically all sides stopped using cavalry units once they saw what happened to them. But where the French utterly failed was the implementation of rapid fire small arms, like machine pistols. Almost all models used were either imported Thompsons from America or captured German models. They themselves only developed on machine pistol (MAS-38), which saw very limited use.
the french learned a lot from WW1 actually, they issued a kaki uniform, their rifle was way shorter and very practical, the tanks were designed to take out forts and trench positions, the helmets were issued being thicker, a Frenchmen in 1940 was better equiped than the standart german, the german generals actually wanted to redoo the schlieffen plan, Hitler opposed it and said lets pass through the champagne woods (wich though to be impractical for tanks), even germans used WW1 tactics at the beginning of WW2. France lost because they were outsmarted, not because they never learned.
Excellent episode, Im now caught up. The rifles of the era were around 30 caliber, fired smokeless powder, and typically predate the widespread use of machine guns. They were therefore designed to be used in "volley fire", and were intended to kill both man and horse. This is part of the reason for the rifles having rifle sights regulated to several thousand yards/meters/arshins. Later guns would fire less powerful ammo, which saved weight and recoil-at the expense of power and range. But since most combat took place at closer range-this was seen as an acceptable compromise. With both lighter bullets and improvements in gun powder-the ammo was quite powerful and accurate, in fact the guns of the era are still known for these qualities.
The forgot to mention the lebel had a cut off function so you could only fire 1 round and had to reload wich was used alot on long ranges and when they go closer they would pretty much turn off the cutt off and empty the magazine
This was a gem of an episode. Colabs like this are a great idea! From a tech point of view, the youtube+hangout is a great idea to enable it on the cheap! S. Carolina represent, love me some Charleston! great work!
The videos in your feed are brilliant. Really informative. You can tell you have a serious amount of knowledge on the subject, which always shines through and makes the videos so engaging. I try to do the same when I produce The Bletchley Park Podcast.
I always thought the length of the M93 had to do with the French military thinking still prized the bayonet and it served as a good colonial weapon where troops with a long rifle topped with a bayonet could keep the colonial tribesmen/subjects in check. Never figured they still were thinking of firing in line like a Napoleonic era army.
+MarvelDcImage Honestly, short of firing in a line they were probably still betting on using the rifle+bayonet as a pike in order to stop cavalry charges.
+MarvelDcImage There is another video here about an early French battle where the French marched into battle with their fancy bright colored uniforms and I'm assume fife and drum corp.
Sadly I found all the data last year and just noted the general average was 5'6. I want to say the Germans had an extra inch and of course the Japanese were not as tall. Mostly I believe it had to do with available nutrition.
***** No apology necessary. Peer review is well worth it. It helps me hone my information and, rather often, correct my presentation to prevent misleading statements like that poorly structured answer.
The exception that perhaps proves the rule that French generals never really fired the rifles their soldiers used was Charles Mangin. Born in Lorraine annexed by the Germans in the Franco-Prussian war, he held a deep and bitter grudge against them for that. He would frequently go to the front line just to take shots at the Germans, and being wounded several times in the process did not discourage him.
+FireAssayDevil Interesting character. Thanks for introducing.
+The Great War
Oh yes, but an introduction, for as the war continues we will hear much more about General Charles Mangin. An extremely aggressive attacking general his greatest triumph came in 1918 at the 2nd battle of the Marne, commanding French and American troops to victory in open mobile warfare which suited his command style. However, in trench warfare battles (such as Verdun and Aisne) his tactics guaranteed heavy casualties, earning him the nickname: “The Butcher”. What he and General Nivelle did at Aisne led the French Army to mutiny in 1917.
In every aspect of this war, the disconnect between the military brass and reality is absolutely mind boggling!
Bob Azadi I honestly believe it was a matter of trying to get the most effect. Small changes to the rifles just did not seem important.
C&Rsenal It's not just the firearms. It's an overall disconnect. To think that brass thought a bayonet charge was an effective tactic in the age of machine guns. Just overall bad generalship of this war boggles my mind every time I think about it!
+Bob Azadi Again I would bet France would lose WW1 if the British didn't involve themselves in the War!
Yannick Oliveres
Inferior tactics, inferior equipment, old age thinking, inferior trenches, inferior officers, etc
The two major powers weaker than France is Austria-Hungary (which says a lot considering how terrible they fought against both Serbia and Russia) and Italy (which also have similar problems against France. However, they didn't have support from UK and they have to attack positions which heavily favored the Austrians)
After the Franco-Prussian war, France pretty much was inferior to Germany and UK in many areas. That inferiority gap grew during and after the war.
Had the British remained neutral, Belgium would fall faster (or would allow transit rights for Germany) and France would crumble under German numbers, higher morale and superior tactics and equipment. The Schifflen Plan would have failed, but France would have been crippled so bad that it would eventually fall within a year.
The non-involvement of the UK could persuade the Italians to join the Central Powers
This would also affect the colonies as the Germans were able to tie down most of the UK South African troops for a long time. If the UK wasn't involve then the German colonies would have put pressure on the French colonies.
German Navy and submarines would wreck the French. Without UK, France is useless in the seas!
***** The French held on well in Verdun, the Somme, etc.
It's glad to see the show has a mature audience. I came down here expecting at least half the top comments to be about the girl who was demonstrating the rifles
+Joshua Patterson "This is the only place on UA-cam where the comments don't suck" is what a fan once said. Might be a bit exaggerated but were are proud of our community.
Yhea she should go make a sandwich instead
I'm a bit disappointed though that Mae does not get a proper introduction as the test shooter for C&Rsenal. If you watch their full length episodes her job is pretty important for the complete review of each weapon.
Looking at the french uniforms and weapons, Did the french general staf hate their own Soldiers ?
The old mindset of them seems to carry that message sometimes.
Exploatores Thy thought that it was still 1815, with bright colourfull uniforms and guns with a range of 30 meters
Exploatores They simply didn't care. In their mind the bravery of the soldier was above all technical differences. This mindset also sealed the japanese defeat in ww2.
+Karst Reitsma
i wouldn't exaggerate about the range, quite opposite by how long and how big those guns are you can see clearly that they thought about the rage and accuracy but not really about handling. When in fact as it was said in video individual soldier does not need such a long big rifle as he does not make use of that accuracy and range and would do much better with smaller gun with shorter range but with much better handling, Thats goes for both fronts but especially for war in trenches on western front.
Exploatores The French had a big army which meant even small changes required massive effort. When you committee every decision it is easy to shoot down new ideas and look smart. It's risky to chance new ideas and open yourself up to responsibility and criticism.
This crossover episode was brilliant. I look forward to more to come!
killerfrenchy We're ready to keep going!
+killerfrenchy Thanks, glad you liked it.
I really like how Othais explains the evolutiion of the guns. Subscribed to his channel.
woot +1
I just did the same!
Woah. I'm following the episodes in chronological order, and is amazing how this guys just keep improving!
It just gets better and better ;)
me too up to this episode from the very start!
The Great War
The demonstrating does Not show us the complete action of firing and reloading of cartridges. We didn't get a chance to see the lebel cartridge being extracted by the fierer.
This channel should be on TV every day! At least on History or Discovery!
If they show this on history/discovery who would drill for crabs on the ice roads?
Fractalfrenzy
Hahahahaha! I know its sad but I'm laughing. Hahahahaha! You, sir, are soooooo right!
Still, you forgot the "heroes" that cut the forests of the world and turn them into shameless waist lands.
Yeah, what's up with that? And those crappy alien shows.
If they produce, there is an audience, but I wonder, what kind of people watch that shit?
As a gun/history nerd I really like seeing this!
+Latiqua LaTaytay Thank you!
+C&Rsenal Fantastic job! I subbed to your channel and look forward to more!
Happy to have you!
C&Rsenal No problem!
+Yannick Oliveres um whT
The lebel was so long (especially with the bayonet attached) it was nicknamed "the fishing rod" by the soldiers.
I have to say I am loving this channel. Not many people really remember the Great War because of it being over shadowed by the scope and scale of WW2. Thank You so much for taking the time for these incredible videos.
I love a woman that smiles when she shoots.
+Wolf Gear Thanks! It's hard not to smile while shooting these gorgeous relics :)
Your welcome! Must be awesome to be able to shoot them. I know I'd love the chance to shoot a M1 Grand, if I ever got one.
+Wolf Gear Best job ever.
Agreed.
Amen, brother. The M1 Garand is something I've always wanted to fire, especially for that iconic ping noise of the clip ejecting.
In keeping with the military thoughts of the time, the three shot capacity was to keep troops from "wasting ammunition". Only late in the war did the French adopt the thought "Firepower Kills".
Superb,this level of detail is rare in any popular series.Looking forward to future episodes in this gun series.
Hedge hog Thank you for taking the time to compliment. It means a lot!
+C&Rsenal No, thank YOU for taking the time to make the videos. This is really fun to watch.
+C&Rsenal this was really awesome, thanks a lot.
There are a few things that Orthais said that are incorrect or missing.
The French were fully aware that their rifles (at least the Lebel) were not up to date, but they also had millions of them in stock. Their pre-war plan was to leapfrog the competition by developing a semi-automatic rifle, which they achieved in 1913 in the Meunier A6 rifle. Due to the war and the need completely overhaul production lines, those rifles were deemed not ready for manufacture and the plan was abandoned. There was another semi-automatic gas-powered rifle produced in France called the RSC M1917, but it was also only deployed on a small scale. Both of these weapons were technologically quite far ahead of the other powers that fought in the war.
The French were aware their rifles weren't up to snuff, but they already had millions of them stockpiled. There were several attempts to improve them, but they were considered to be too difficult to mass produce, and not really worth it because they were supported by powerful machine gun designs.
About as late, but he also mentioned that most of the French rifles dated from the 1890s (or earlier). While that is true, it was also true of just about every single military of the time, European or otherwise
Great video! It really makes you think about how many thing that the soldiers had to worry about. It makes you remember that they weren't just numbers in a planning room, but people.
this is fascinating, huge thanks for more great content!
Providencenl happy to help edutain.
C&Rsenal Thanks for doing this series of videos for the Great War channel. I found this episode a little confusing (I hate to say misleading), and I would have liked to see a little bit more historical perspective.
The years leading up to the Great War had seen a great deal of weapons development, with bolt-action military rifles (such as the Mauser and SMLE) being near the peak of their development. The clip-fed, box-magazine, smokeless-powder bolt-action had only been in use for, what, 20 years? 30? Compare that to the AR-15 and Kalashnikov rifles (really carbines) that came out in the 40s and 50s, and are still in use today, with only minor improvements. (One could also mention the long reign of the flintlock musket, but the pace of change was much slower in its day, so that may not be a fair comparison.)
Also, the French rifles and carbines held 8 and 3 rounds, respectively, versus the Mauser, which split the difference at 5 (half the capacity of the SMLE). It seems obvious the Mauser was a better rifle than either of the French examples (though I'll admit I'm biased), but was it really a decisive difference? The Germans lost two world wars with it, not to mention the Spanish loss in Cuba, in 1898. It loaded faster than the French rifle in the video, and held more rounds than the carbine, but it was also a long, heavy rifle.
Thanks again for the videos. I look forward to the next one. Loves me some Mausers!
I think it comes down to the soldier's perspective. Whether or not it wins a war, more fiddling and any failures of a rifle would be a source of extreme anxiety and even death.
Ultimately the best rifle would have been the simplest to manufacture and yet still robust and accurate at 300 yards. This would have freed up resources for other, more decisive tools of war. We'll see this in the later stamp-steel revolution.
That said, whether or not you win with a certain gun, going against an enemy with a superior rifle often has a severe effect on morale. Look at the fate of the US Krag after defeating Cuba!
+joshuabissey In WWI, Gewehr 98 was not a perfect rifle too. It's a full length infantry rifle (its size is near to the Lebel size), so not adapted to a trench warfare. Its wried rear sight, start only at 400 meters, which is far away from the average engagement distance, German soldiers often shot too high because of that (they produced a kind of enhanced front sight kits for solve the problem). French rear sights was much simple and at least better. During the war, the Lebel was considered by both sides, French and germans, as a bit more accurate than the gewehr 98 (maybe because of its sights ?).
The true superiority of the Gew.98 was its 5 rds stripper clips, over the tube-magazine of the Lebel. When you run out of ammo with this gun you can reload fastly in few seconds, with a Lebel you only have to reload rounds one by one, and that takes way more time, it is painfull and slow. During this time you are vulnerable, and that can cause frustration and stress, as said Othais .
But all on this is highly relative, depends a lot on circonstances and on the soldier, rather than the rifle itself (especially for accuracy).
Success on battlefield is more a matter of strategy and commandment rather than a matter of infantry weapons or bravery or anything else. Napoleon won several battles with outnumbered troops.
In big wars like these 2 world wars, there was other weapons and materials with a way higher strategic value than rifles, such artillery, machineguns, airplanes, tanks, and of course on alliances for win or loose a war. Most of the time, the quality of personal weapons carried by soldier didn't have a significant influence on the issue of the war.
For exemple, stripper clips are always considered as superior to Mannlicher en-bloc clips (you still can load your rifle without clips). But do you think that make any difference on battlefield for the soldier ? In every case he will go to fight with his pouchs full of ammo well loaded in proper clips.
Winning a war just because soldiers have a better personal weapons than their ennemies implies an overwhelming superiority, like in the battle of Blood River in 1838 (South Africa) against the Zulu, or the battle of Rorke Drift for British troops, still against Zulu, in 1879 (if you know the film "Zulu") ; superiority of weaponry played a crutial role.
But such exemples are rare, maybe Prussian wars against Denmark in 1864 and Autro-Hungary in 1866 ? Prussian had a certain superiority on their ennemies with their Dreyse breech-loading rifles (versus muzzle loading rifles), but it's wrong to say that they win only because of their Dreyse rifles.
Brilliant idea! Keep these coming, I can't wait to see the lovely British Lee Enfield!
ArcticTemper We aim to please.
Love the Lee Enfield. Of all my bolt actions, I would say it's the only TRUE bolt action designed battle rifle (also count the M1917/Pattern 14 Enfield). The M1903 and Mauser 98's are nice, but as the saying goes;
The Germans went to war with a hunting rifle, the Americans went to war with a target rifle, but the British went to war with a battle rifle.
+C&Rsenal I see what you did there....
+1stFallschirmjagerRgt The Americans went to war with a target rifle?
The Springfield is known to be laser accurate and is widely renowned for being a great target rifle. On the quote I love the SMLE and it's a great rifle but I'm more of a Mauser person as the 98's action is legendarily tough and the rifle's themselves look powerful and intimidating.
Thanks to all the people at The Great War Channel. I really respect and appreciate what you are doing. Also a big shout out to Forgotten Weapons for informing us about The Great War Channel.
+Matt Johnson Thank you!
excellent topic!
Thanks!
Fredrik Douhan woo!
Incredible! Loved the episode. Can't wait to see the other parts!
+Justin Beveridge Glad you liked it.
This is why I love this channel, fun yet informative.
+crackage12567 Thank you.
I have to commend you for these videos. They are excellent and really informative. Thanks for posting them.
+ckolonko Thanks a lot!
+ckolonko Thanks!
+Dionoxsys Mostly finished. We had a flood down here so things got delayed a bit.
***** And the edited Version of our live stream will be out within the next 4-5 weeks.
+The Great War id like to know what the US did to make the french think differently about rifles and such
Very interesting stuff, great work as always and thanks for the link to Historic Guns! There were a couple videos on German and British anti-tank rifles over on Forgotten Weapons and now this! Drowning in world war one stuff this week, it's great :)
Tammy Silverwolf we are glad you are enjoying it.
Tammy Silverwolf I'm posting a Bethier vs P17 Enfield 2-Gun video this week as well. :)
Forgotten Weapons Great! You guys do a great job!
Forgotten Weapons Awesome, and also thank you for doing that machine gun video telling us about this channel. I sadly would probably never have known about it if it wasn't for your channel/site
Forgotten Weapons 1892, m15, m16?
'We always prepare for the last war'
I've never heard it before but based on my History student level knowledge it seems astonishly accurate
wow so interesting especially the fact to see and to learn about what the soliders had to deal with at the time is fascinating to me (barrel getting hot, bolt action vs machinegun, ...) really enjoyed the relaxed talking and explaining style of the man with the cool beard, kudos to the everybody on the team! :D
Luke Szpunar Thanks! We have more detail on each firearm if you get bored. Same beard though.
yep allready subbed and enjoying the vids!:)
At the start of the war, many French military thinkers, convinced that constant, relentless attacking would carry the day, considered a rifle to be just something onto which a bayonet was mounted. Little wonder not a lot of thought was given to making it a modern "shooter."
BTW: great addition to the series.
Rickinsf We appreciate it!
You guys are doing a great job with this series- the "big picture" episodes which review the corresponding week a century ago, the specials on different events/significant people and now a focus on weaponry. It just keeps getting better and better. I do hope you do an episode on the building and development of the trench system by Allies and Germans. I'm particularly fascinated by the first development of the system- how on earth did they start them off when so close to each others lines?
+knockshinnoch1950 Thanks! We will probably go back to the trenches for another special much later.
YES! I was just WAITING for this to happen, can't wait to see the next episodes.
Forgotten Weapons crossover-- the People demand it!
I'm sure you've got a deal with Othais goin' on, but a cameo or name-drop wouldn't hurt, riiight? Forgotten Weapons is, after all, what got me subscribed to zees channel.
+MrCantStopTheRobot Let's just say: Wait for it.
+The Great War Ohoho... the hype!
+MrCantStopTheRobot Exactly
I wonder how many guys lost their lives because they got their rifles stuck in the mud or in some debris, or lost a shootout because the only had a 3 round clip.
Yeah it's terrifying to think about.
+youtoob4life Yep, they needed shorter rifles, higher shot capacities, lighter weight, and have them be more enclosed so dirt and other crap can't easily get inside of it. All worth a small sacrifice in long-range accuracy.
you usually carry the berthierwhive the hand convering the exit port .
anyway , ww1 was won whive tank & artilery not rifle
druisteen tanks and artillery opened the victory. the riflemen secured it
A little fun fact: When the Lebel was used in WWI, almost everyone from the swanky Germans till the lowly armed Russians are using stripper clips, only the French troops are loading one round after another manually and with the new Spitzer round, it created panic out of France that if a French soldier was to drop the rifle or anyway, it would create a chain fire for the bullet to touch the primer in a row and it would start firing without pulling the trigger or worse... Explode due to all the 8 rounds firing at once.
However, here's a catch. Lebel thought of it way earlier and to prevent that, he designed a catch just around the edge of the primer so when rounds are being loaded, the ring would catch the bullet and he made the cut deep enough that no matter how hard you jiggle the rifle, the round would not hit the primer nor if a gun like the Lebel which has no safety was dropped, it won't cause it to "explode".
I normally don't comment, but this was an excellent video. Nice work!
GamersCorporation Thanks!
C&Rsenal I noticed that your webcam is a little off with your audio -- is that just me?
It was. We tried caching local video and audio and the encoder was... bad. We're working to fix it next time.
C&Rsenal No worries! Just wanted to make sure it wasn't just me.
Hello, I came by from the german channel (and I am sad, that its being stoped) and I hope, that you guys can continue this Channel the whole time of the war. Thanks again.
+Paul Schmidt Wir werden unser bestes geben.
Same here ;)
this is a great special!
great show in general.
thanks for all the effort you guys put in!
swapsplat Thanks for the compliments!
The C&Rsenal channel is awesome. Cool to see you folks working together. Some things to add: another reason for the length of the rifles was the notion that you wanted a soldier to have the longest possible reach for bayonet combat. You wanted him to stab the enemy before the enemy could stab him. You also wanted your soldier to be able to reach a guy on horseback. And it wasn't that, by this period, they'd figured out that "they didn't need that much accuracy" - rather, they knew there was a point of diminishing returns in terms of barrel length and accuracy. A Lebel or Berthier's barrel is far longer than it needs to be to get maximum performance out of the 8x50R Lebel cartridge. Speaking of accuracy, the pre-war emphasis on volley fire tactics by the French meant that their rifles have fairly crude sights compared to most of the other rifles, but especially those of the US. One last thing to add, regarding whether or not the French were aware of the deficiencies of their rifles. One reason the French rifles were so behind is that the Great War came when France was in the middle of testing and developing a semi-automatic rifle, the Meunier. Because of this, they neglected their bolt-action long arms because they thought they wouldn't need them. WWI interrupted these plans, and forced them to keep the outdated Lebel in service and supplement them with the somewhat better Berthier rifles. In the end, France's plans for semi-auto rifles in WWI had limited success. They struggled to get a working design that could stand up to the mud of the trenches, but the Mle 1917 and Mle 1918 rifles saw some service toward the end of the war and would go on to inspire certain features of the beloved American M1 rifle of WWII.
+fhsreelfilms Good points all around! I left off the "spear" aspect since it was a feature of early arms that was hard to justify any further.
We're hoping to get a hold of an RSC at some point where I'll have the time and opportunity to point out that it and the Meunier were reasons why the French kept stalling, while excellent designs died in committee. Sadly, as you know, we'll see the same thing repeated until WWII.
C&Rsenal Yeah, the French really had bad luck. I wish they'd finished the Mle 1940 semi-auto about ten years earlier and actually distributed it to entire army. If I ever write a book about the French small arms industry and/or military in the first half of the twentieth century, I'm going to call it "Great Ideas at the Worst Times." They had lots of bad luck... and some obtuse leadership. A pity that the soldiers had to pay the price for that.
I just discovered this series, fantastic insight into WW1 weapons, I know a few others have already said but I'm looking forward to hopefully an ep on British Empire rifles. Keep up the great work!
Thanks!
This is epic, still 5 years later!
This was great! I really like it. Can't wait to see more.
+Grubnar And you only have to wait 4 more hours!
Thanks for doing these, this is very cool!
+xAeternax Glad you liked it.
Agree these videos are awesome
Hey guys, came across your series not long ago and have been hooked ever since. . started watching in order around about 3months ago and this is where i am at :) . . i absolutely love that you are now making specials about the specific weapons / rifles etc used in the Great War . . amazing . this is without a doubt my favourite channel :)
Fantastic present and demo!
Thanks! Glad you liked it!
Just History,nothing more.Pure gold!
Amazingly interesting. Great episode!
+Mania497 Thanks!
Hi, I have a French M93 1886 Le Bell 8 X 50 mmR rifle and I do fire it on occasion for fun at military rifle events. A few things you didn't mention about this design. The first thing is that it has a cartridge (or round) cut off on the right side of the receiver just in front of the trigger guard. The rifles at that time, from most nations, had a feed cut off. The rifles were suppose to be used as a single shot rifle when firing at the enemy at long or normal range. To fire, you open the bolt drop 1 round or cartridge in the feed try and push the bolt forward, fire, pull back the bolt and repeat the process. Now the magazine tube that held 8 rounds of ammunition would have been loaded but cut off from feeding the ammo when the bolt was cycled and was there for an emergency reserve. The reasoning for this was from the officers that felt that loading one round at a time, the solder would be forced to take aim for each round (or bullet) fired. The magazine or tube that held the 8 rounds in reserve, was only to be used when the other side was moving in close and rapid unaimed fire became necessary. But in most cases, an order had to be given for rapid fire, before the cut off could be released. The British Enfield .303 rifle was also made originally with this feed or magazine cut off as where many others from various nations when first developing repeating magazine fed rifles.
Now the other reason for this cartridge cut off, was to keep the Soldiers from wasting ammunition. The higher ranking officials, felt that if the soldiers had a rifle able to fire rapidly they would wast ammo without taking aim. Many of these officers felt that wasting ammo in rapid fire would lead to ammunition shortages. They also saw it as if a patrol or fort wasted ammo they could be easily over run and killed, captured or a battle or war would be lost. You have to remember, that at this time, many nations had outposts not easily supplied. An example of this would be the French Foreign Legion and British forces that had outposts in Africa. Many leaders at this time just could not grasp the understanding of this new technology, they were still living in the past. This is shown in these videos and others with the slaughter of millions all because the leadership of that era kept using tactics of a bygone era and didn't understand nor cared to keep up with new technology.
It sounds silly today but back then most soldiers were conscripts or enlisted and not highly educated if they had any education at all. It was mostly the officers that had education, came from the upper classes and looked down on the lowly soldier or enlisted. You also have to understand that even though the cartridge ammunition had been around since about the mid 1860's, most rifles were still single shot. Remember, that neither France or Europe, had fought a big war for 40+ years. At that time, solders were still using muzzle loading rifles with loose powder and bullets. Also the lower ranks were trained to obey orders, to the letter and not doing so would reap severe punishment, even execution.
Militaries are slow to adapt or buy new weapons and equipment, especially during times of peace or when there governments do not have the money to spend during budget cuts. I know I've been in the military all my adult life. A lot of people think militaries have an unlimited budget and that is simply not true. Military budgets are usually at the bottom of governmental funding and the first to be cut during budget shortfalls. It is expensive to arm an army, yet alone to modernize it when you have a lot of outdated weapons in storage or not in use, especially during times of rapid development and times of peace. Military equipping, even for back then is expensive and when you have several branches, such as a Navy, an Army and an Air Force all requiring and competing for new and updated equipment, like ships or aircraft or tanks or rifles or even sanitary necessities like toilet paper, it gets to be very expensive. It also gets hard for those outside of the military to understand the expense when items cost in the thousands, or millions, or billions and you are not fighting a war or haven't fought one in a long time. What people, governments and military leaders must understand is that there is a lag time for equipment to be designed, manufactured, tested and finally issued to the military. Then there is the lag time in training on how to use and service that equipment.
Here in America for example, after the Civil War, the military needed to upgrade to the newer cartridge firing rifles, but they had stock piles of the older .58 caliber muzzle loading rifles and the government didn't have a lot of tax money to spend. The US army literately had to make what they had on hand work with the new cartridge and make it work as cheaply as they could. That is how they came up with the Trap Door Springfield Rifle. Even though there were lever action and early bolt action repeaters out on the civilian market, the Spencer Rifle being one example.
Other things about the Le Bell rifle, it dose not eject a spent cartridge very well. It is not shown with the girl firing the M93, but you need to really jerk the bolt handle back on that rifle for 2 reasons. The first is to make sure that you get the spent brass to come out of the rifle or you had to remove it by tipping the rifle to one side or taking the brass out with your fingers. Also, if the spent brass didn't eject, it could fall on top of the new cartridge in the loading tray when feeding from the tube magazine. This could jam the rifle if not caught and cleared and one could lose a live round when clearing this jam when using the tube magazine during rapid fire. I've seen this in all of M93 Le Bells I've handled and have been told that this is normal and jerking the bolt back hard was part of the training. The other reason for this was to make sure that the loading tray, with a new cartridge from the tube magazine would pop up to the feed position. If this didn't happen, a soldier would push the bolt forward without loading a cartridge in the chamber of the rifle. Pulling the trigger, all you would get is a click, not a bang. In a panic situation, it was very easy to do this and never fire the gun. Also reloading that tube magazine after firing several rounds of ammo and especially after rapid fire of 8 rounds, you need gloves to reload it because it is so hot. I found out the hard way after shooting that thing and I never take it out with out a good pair of leather gloves. They did fix that problem when they got away from the tube magazine and modified the rifles to the enblock clip, but then they ran in to the rimed ammo jamming if they didn't load the clip the right way.
Something else they had to deal with in the M93 Le Bell was when they went to the spitzer or pointed bullets when it was loaded in the tube magazine. The base of the 8mm Le bell cartridge, is made with a grooved ring stamped or machined around the primer. Even new ammunition has this ring around the primer. The reason for this is so the pointed bullet loaded behind the first in the tube magazine catches in that groove so it will not line up with the primer of the cartridge in front of it. If the point of the bullet was able to line up with the primer, it could set off a chain reaction when the bolt cycled. The spring pressure and the amount of movement, it had enough speed to set off all the cartridges in that tube magazine. This could injure the solders hand taking him out of action and disabling or destroying the rifle.
One last thing, this was a new type of rifle and the first one out for a military so design problems should be expected. However the French are known for hanging on to weapons long after they are obsolete. This is shown by how the Germans saw the problems with a rimmed cartridge being used in a magazine fed rifle. They designed their 7.92X57mm or 8mm Mauser cartridge as a rimless cartridge. It feed faster and smoother and dose not have the jamming problems the rimmed cartridges have. The 8X50mmR Le Bell was a great cartridge at the time it was developed and was used by the French military long after WWI.
Also, the French didn't have the manufacturing capabilities to rapidly manufacture this rifle. So the French contracted, rifle makers, like Remington here in the US to manufacture the M93 Le Bell and the 8X50mmR ammunition. After the war, there were large stocks of these rifles and ammunition here in America when France canceled contracts. Many were sold here in the 1920's as inexpensive hunting rifles and much of the ammunition was reloaded for that purpose. Many more were sold here when France dumped the M93 and it's modifications on the market after going to the standard NATO ammunition in the 1950's.
i just wanted to say, if people enjoyed these couple of videos on the french weapons, really take the advice and look at Oathias a@ c&rsenal channel. They are easily one of the most underrated channel on youtube. they put a ton of effort into their videos with excellent summarys of the wepons development, complete with mechanical cutaway animations and shooting tests. it pains me to see some of the videos in the sub 10,000 view range because it offers some of the best ww1 history on youtube
We couldn't agree more and that's why we are helping were we can.
+Henry G Wow, thank you! Seriously that was one of the best thumbs up we've ever gotten.
Always great to see and listen to someone who holds intense amounts of detailed knowledge.
Please get Ian from Forgotten Weapons to do a few special episodes on the channel. Seeing as he is the reason I found this channel in the first place ;)
One of the best videos outside of the weekly news so far!
Time for profile one of the best weapons of the war, The Lee-Enfield Rifle.
But Othais does a great job explaining the pluses and minuses of period weaponry and I hope to see more of his commentary on this channel.
We are currently working on more yes. The next one will probably be Italian rifles.
One major item of note is that in this war many of the major combatants made their own firearms, even the Canadians had their own The Ross Rifle but after failures in the field went to the Lee-Enfield.
Tom McDonald Othais made a whole episode about the Ross Rifle on his channel: ua-cam.com/video/2uGYSQ_-FJU/v-deo.html
+Tom McDonald also check out Ian's at forgotten weapons
That's actually a very beautiful collection. Even that I'm not really into this technical part of the history of the war, this video was impressively informative and fun to watch. Thanks for this great work, guys.
+Violeiro Solteiro Thanks, glad you liked it.
The French when they turned a 3 shot Berthier into a 5 shot rifle so it has the same capacity as almost every other rifle had:
ENOVAISHEN
To be fair to the French, before the war, they were hoping to leapfrog ahead of all of their rivals in terms of rifles with a semi-auto and they did succeed in fielding substantial numbers of their RSC-1917 semi automatic rifles before the end of the war.
@@ericamborsky3230 they also equipped a lot of Blue Devils with M1907s, which is a pretty effective rifle for trench raiding
well, i've now caught up with all the videos put up so far. but hey, there still three more years of content ahead. this channel is great!
+giomole We are aiming for 300 or so episodes.
I really enjoyed this episode, and am looking forward to future episodes like it. I've also subbed to C&Rsenal, so, cross promotion successful.
If I could lodge a request, it would be to go beyond just the armaments of the involved national armies, and to take a look at the weapons used by the various partisan and resistance forces active during the war (unless it's the same?). What kind of pistol did Gavrilo Princip use, what rifles were the Bolsheviks overthrowing russia with? Did every army equip all their soldiers, or were some soldiers expected (or able) to equip themselves?
Keep up the good work!
We thought about having an extra episode for exotic arms and this should fit right in.
digitalbrentable partisan weapons would be very limited. Mostly they just took defectors guns so it would be all the same.
Princip used an FN Model 1910. We will cover that in C&Rsenal and may on TGW as well in the future (probably rolled into a Belgian arms episode)
It's clear that you were just figuring out how to make this format work. Nice to see you come so far!
Great crossover content - really interesting!
John Walker I'm glad we could entertain.
Only discovered this channel very recently and it's great. This may be the best system/medium for creating understanding on this subject. This segment is very good. The Great War gets better all the time. I'm sure I wouldn't have said that 100 years ago though.
+Murray Cramp Thanks and welcome to the family!
Great video! Greetings from Schleswig-Holstein! Looking forward seeing the other Weapon-countries!
Germany is actually next. Glad you liked it.
I found this great channel because Ian at Forgotten Weapons gave you a shout out. And I'm glad he did. Very fascinating stuff. I'm also now a subscriber to C&Rsenal's channel thanks to you guys. Keep up the great work!
+Treasure Pirate Thanks and welcome to the family!
Personally, I'd say this is the most interesting video you guys have done so far. Are we going to see more videos like this? One for each major power's arsenal?
That's is just a great episode! It just give us a very interesting info. Thank u all for the hard work!
3:10 Ironically that's the Prussian Army. Or maybe not ironic since Fredrick the Great was a francophile.
Thank you for making this channel, its amazing.
+Hayden Foster Thanks for watching.
Another great video. You know how to fill in the holes(answer the questions) along the course of the series. Your videos helps me put myself in the shoes of the common soldiers more and more.
I love this new series!
Thanks!
Scary_Smurf We're glad to help!
C&Rsenal Are you going to cover machine guns? That would be great! I love old Maxim machine guns!
Scary_Smurf we are working on it. They can be harder to pile up and more expensive to fire so it takes more effort.
This is a really great idea and I encourage more programs like these
Sandy Addison On it!
She got a huge smile on her face every time she was about to fire. You can tell she enjoys firing these old school rifles. I may be a pacifist now but there really is nothing like firing a military grade rifle of any era.
Brandon Ottinger Mae does enjoy shooting. Hopefully we don't burn her out with all this summer filming.
C&Rsenal Hi first of awesome hangout and now cool shorter video!
Just a question i saw the Reichs revolver episode and i had one question,Mae had a significant trouble cocking the gun without moving her had in different grip place,thus making cocking a lot slower.But since she is shorter and probably has smaller hands,from the men this gun was designed for i wonder,you or someone else for example could you do it easily,or you had problems too?I mean it seems really stupid for them to make it so much harder to shoot.
P.S.Not trying to be sexist or anything but as you said ,the natives who were shorter preferred the shorter gun,so i wonder would the average German had the problems Mae had?
Greg Makropoulos actually the gun is just that poorly thought out. Those old, large handles were for keeping the hand back from the blast. For some reason the style was held over. Mae is actually 5'7 and therefore one inch over the average height. Her fingers would be in the right range as well.
Her upper body and grip strength would be lower but she also has fair experience with these mechanisms to compensate.
Take a look at the 1883 pattern and you can see them trying to fix the mistake of the massive grip.
Sometimes we see bad ideas float in arms. A good example is the all around superior Schofield was distrusted in favor of the much simpler Colt in the US. Or worse yet, Kijiro Nambus brilliant Type 38 rifle compared to his insanely wasteful Type 14 pistol.
Oh the boys tried it too. Othais found it easy with his bear-paw sized hands.
Cool insight!And thanks for the info!
Well as it seems some thinks are just poorly thought out,if at all!
the quality of this channel blows me away, you have my patreon. Keep up the great work!
ruuman Glad to entertain!
+C&Rsenal you have my subscription too, nice channel
ruuman aww yeah, level up.
+ruuman Thanks!
Very informative!
This kinda fills my knowledge about WWI a bit :)
I never even thought to ask about each countries standard issue firearms at the beginning of the war. The Russian forces mostly using the, 'Mosin' from the start through the entire war. The story behind it becoming the, 'Mosin Nagant' is well worth the read.
As always another awesome video. I will make sure to catch the next live stream!
great great show
+jesse p Thank you!
Othais isn't kidding when he talks about the need for hand-guards on rifles during firing! During my 32 years of service I had the honor of receiving much of my weapons training from the US Marine Corps.....as an example I went through what is known as "The High Risk Personnel Course" where for over a month we were involved among other things with learning all about and firing most of the individual/crew-served weapons used by the World's Military Forces. We fired everything from AK-47s to Sten Guns from WW2 to the M-14 to PKM machine-guns and the list goes on and on.....it was a "Gun Aficionado's wet dream come true!!.....I fired so many rounds apparently through my Beretta 9mm semi-auto handgun that it exposed a flaw in the metal to where the bloody slide busted (that's a lot of rounds!)!! What I remember to this day all these years later is how HOT the barrels became after only a few rounds had been sent downrange! The wooden hand-guards on the AK-47 for example would get unbearably hot to touch After firing one to no more than two ammo clips through it. I remember using rags to buffer the heat of the barrel while I fired. The Sten-gun of WW2 took special dedication to use I imagine since I saw how firing it burned a bunch our fingers.....as our Trainers pointed out though, they were better than nothing!!
Hi Claystead! As a matter of fact...YES, we did fire the G3 series among other World Class Weaponry. One particular H&K Weapon I became very familiar with was the MP-5 (initially known as the "HK54) which was developed as part of the G3's forth evolutionary design phase which fired a 9mm Parabellum round and is a favorite among the US Navy SEALS the German Federal Police, their Special Forces.....etc. The weapon had a remarkably light recoil which in my opinion helped give it its excellent accuracy for a Killing Instrument of its type. I'm not surprised that you were exposed to German based/created equipment since the Scandinavian Kingdoms have approached their defense planning very carefully to ensure of the most intelligently effective "Combined Arms Combination" (Army, Naval and Air Forces.....this is my opinion and my opinion only). This is why the three Kingdoms (including Sweden) choose the German "Leopard 2 Tank" for their Ground Forces while Norway and Denmark chose the F-16 for their Air Forces and Sweden introduced its legendary line of Saab "Grippen" Warplanes so in essence you picked and chose the best possible mix for as reasonable an expenditure possible.....this part, the $$$$s involved were as critical a factor in your selection choices as the equipment's capabilities since unlike the United States, you HAD TO live within your budget and not print up more $$$ when you hit a shortfall....as far as the M-1 Garand.....that is one battlefield weapon that I fired quite a bit since it fit so closely with the Marine philosophy of "One shot, one kill"! Speaking of "Oldies but Goodies" I went back in history by firing the The M1903 Springfield, formally the United States Bolt Action Rifle, Caliber .30-06, Model 1903 with which the Marines fought in WWI and even farther back to a Rifle you might find extremely interesting considering its and your birthplace, the Springfield Model 1892-99 Krag-Jorgensen rifle a Norwegian-designed bolt-action rifle, chosen for service as the main infantry rifle for the US Armed Forces at the end of the 19th Century.....although weapons training formed only part of the training, mixed in with defensive/offensive driving, ambush survival, house clearing, how to deal with Mines/IEDs...(I still see and hear the explosions in my head/mind....controlled but very, very realistic all the same!) and much, much more (from which I literally came out black and blue from top to bottom), the firing and explosive portions were my absolute favorite parts of the course.....I am sorry that I have written you a book here but, there is so much involved in this fascinating subject (at least to me) that if I'm not careful I will end up doing so....(SMILE)....
GREAT Show guys....Keep it up!!
+Jay Raxter thanks!
You guys just keep making this show better and better!
TheAmityboopfliction Thanks!
Subbed to you guy's channel right away. Great content ^^
That means a lot!
I liked the girl demonstrating the rifles. She had so much fun and it looked cool. Best part in the video! :)
This an amazing video !!!! Keep up the original work !!!!
thanks...lots of good info for us history buffs.
david peri I appreciate the compliment. It makes the work much easier.
Excellent episode. There is so much more to see from other countries and as the war moves on. I'm looking forward to it! I will start my support on Patreon to help.
Thank you! Ya'll are awesone!
Have you guys thought about doing a Machine gun episode?
+Matthew Arenson Othais is planning so.
I never leave comments; however, Othais deserves kudos for the excellent job that he did presenting this information. Very good.
+Stephen G. Largy Thanks! Come on by the channel for more if you like!
Can't wait for the Austrian episode. In my opinion the Mannlicher was the best rifle of WWI.
+AVKnecht the 1895 is definitely unique! You will be happy to know we have both a long rifle and stutzen handy in the original 8x50. Just have to load up some ammo now....
we share the opinions
K98k was WW2.
Excellent job guys!!!! Seriously! It was a real eye opener.
Why don't you don't do a special episode on the avancement of the fully automatic weapons in ww1 ?
If Othais gets his hands on them, we will do it.
Gun stuff is dependent on Othais. Forgotten Weapons and a few other channels cover the autos but not necessarily as a WW1 feature. John Jacob Dingleheimer Browning did most of it anyway.
worddunlap ok thanks im going to check the channel
Great variety of weapons. I really liked how you explained the reasoning and logic behind decisions in the rifle design. Very cool, thank you.
+Tyronious Thank you! We get into much more detail for each gun over at our main project page on YT.
that was crazy good
I am amazed how comment section is very polite. I've watched a lot of videos about France and Serbia, and it was a surprise how everyone is so glad and happy to see how those two countries handled in WW1. I'm used to see all bad comments, because they all think France is most coward country in the world, and Serbia is most evil and stupid country in the world. So i would like to thank all for being so nice and interested in history, and i would like to thank The Great War chanel for making fantastic videos.
Will you also talk about French machine guns like the Chauchat (the most widely manufactured automatic weapon of WW1) ?
Not sure yet but if we get the opportunity of course.
+The Great War Thank you ! Keep up the good work :)
François Calvaresi yes we will. For the French we have at least two lined up but they need repair for firing. This also takes a bit of time and money. Our budget at C&Rsenal just broke even for standard production, so we need some time to save up first is all. I hope the rifles and pistols of the coming countries will help!
Really awesome episode guys, cant wait for part 2! love it
Ryan McConnell Thanks!
"You always prepare for the last war." Absolutely true and the sad and pathetic thing is that the French again failed to learn anything from WW1 and suffered for it during WW2. Well, they did learn some things, but mainly they took away the wrong lessons.
They saw the effectiveness of large forts and defensive lines (warding off large scale infantry assaults) and decided to build the wildly expensive Maginot Line, which failed miserably during WW2 when the Germans just went around it. The Germans initially built huge artillery guns to take those forts out (Schwerer Gustav), but never used them for those since using fast moving tanks and air support proved more effective. The Maginot Line fell without ever seeing any major action, because France had already lost most of the land battles while the men manning the line were twiddling their thumbs.
Speaking of tanks, that's where the French failed again. They did use tanks during WW2 and their models (Char B1) were often feared by the Germans for their heavy armor and powerful guns, but they were slow as hell and followed the doctrine of the infantry tank, which was to protect the infantry instead of going on seperate operations.
And they largely went back to the horse instead of motorizing their troops, despite having a powerful automobile industry. There was some initial cavalry action during the early days of WW2, but practically all sides stopped using cavalry units once they saw what happened to them.
But where the French utterly failed was the implementation of rapid fire small arms, like machine pistols. Almost all models used were either imported Thompsons from America or captured German models. They themselves only developed on machine pistol (MAS-38), which saw very limited use.
But the Germans were a whole different beast.
The maginot line was good but the germans flanked it making it useless
Remember Dunkirk ......
druisteen A great example of the terrible chain of command Germany had.
the french learned a lot from WW1 actually, they issued a kaki uniform, their rifle was way shorter and very practical, the tanks were designed to take out forts and trench positions, the helmets were issued being thicker, a Frenchmen in 1940 was better equiped than the standart german, the german generals actually wanted to redoo the schlieffen plan, Hitler opposed it and said lets pass through the champagne woods (wich though to be impractical for tanks), even germans used WW1 tactics at the beginning of WW2.
France lost because they were outsmarted, not because they never learned.
Excellent episode, Im now caught up. The rifles of the era were around 30 caliber, fired smokeless powder, and typically predate the widespread use of machine guns.
They were therefore designed to be used in "volley fire", and were intended to kill both man and horse. This is part of the reason for the rifles having rifle sights regulated to several thousand yards/meters/arshins.
Later guns would fire less powerful ammo, which saved weight and recoil-at the expense of power and range. But since most combat took place at closer range-this was seen as an acceptable compromise. With both lighter bullets and improvements in gun powder-the ammo was quite powerful and accurate, in fact the guns of the era are still known for these qualities.
The forgot to mention the lebel had a cut off function so you could only fire 1 round and had to reload wich was used alot on long ranges and when they go closer they would pretty much turn off the cutt off and empty the magazine
+MrAsakill I believe Othais is mentioning that in his detailed video about the Lebel on his cahnnel.
+The Great War thx i will surely check it out keep up the good work love the series i always prefered ww1 over ww2
+The Great War nice vidoe
I was thinking about this too.
This was a gem of an episode. Colabs like this are a great idea! From a tech point of view, the youtube+hangout is a great idea to enable it on the cheap! S. Carolina represent, love me some Charleston! great work!
+Russ Trotter Thanks man!
+Russ Trotter Thanks, glad you liked our more experimental form.
Our shooter is much better looking than the 'average soldier' of France's WWI infantry man.
That was awesome! Been waiting for this kind of stuff for a while but this is really well done, looking forward to the next one :D
Glad you liked it and we will have more of those just not every week.
The Great War Cant wait :)
I discovered C&RSENAL through the writer Sizemore and really glad they have hooked up with The Great War hooked.
Mark Cotton Thanks for being a fan! Where did he mention us?
I'm pretty sure it was Instagram, but I can't find it now for the life of me.
Either way, happy to have you!
The videos in your feed are brilliant. Really informative. You can tell you have a serious amount of knowledge on the subject, which always shines through and makes the videos so engaging. I try to do the same when I produce The Bletchley Park Podcast.
Mark Cotton pooh what is that? Link me
Great episode. Thanks!
Mr Spof thank You!
I always thought the length of the M93 had to do with the French military thinking still prized the bayonet and it served as a good colonial weapon where troops with a long rifle topped with a bayonet could keep the colonial tribesmen/subjects in check. Never figured they still were thinking of firing in line like a Napoleonic era army.
+MarvelDcImage Honestly, short of firing in a line they were probably still betting on using the rifle+bayonet as a pike in order to stop cavalry charges.
+C&Rsenal Right!
+MarvelDcImage There is another video here about an early French battle where the French marched into battle with their fancy bright colored uniforms and I'm assume fife and drum corp.
Great, now I found the next youtube channel to watch once I'm through with all of your episodes :D Thanks!
What was the average height of a soldier?
quepacho64 Roughly 5'6 depending on country.
C&Rsenal Who had the shortest and the tallest soldiers? I must know now.
Sadly I found all the data last year and just noted the general average was 5'6. I want to say the Germans had an extra inch and of course the Japanese were not as tall. Mostly I believe it had to do with available nutrition.
***** sorry, the difference between Japan and the rest was not food. I meant the differences I Europe.
***** No apology necessary. Peer review is well worth it. It helps me hone my information and, rather often, correct my presentation to prevent misleading statements like that poorly structured answer.
After watching so many episodes of Forgotten Weapons I think I've caught Ian's fondness for French made firearms.