I wonder what P.O. Ackley would think of that, because he couldn’t get rifles to blow up when firing oversized projectiles. Read his hand book on the subject.
Nobody knows how bad it was. French military bureacracts hid the costs of the accidents (medical care, disability pensions, widow's benefits etc.) in the budget for WW1 casualties.
Still looking for one of these. Poulin had one paired with a Lebel M93 sniper (just to piss me off it seems) so the bidding went quite high. If it were on it's own, I could've gotten it. This video will hold me over till I do get one.
Over the course of Ian's videos on French rifles, I've gone from having little interest in them to having a profound need to own one. Has anyone else experienced this?
At first Ian's pronunciation of Tulle had me confused, wondering why the Russians (Tula arsenal) were doing these conversions. Soon it became apparent that he was talking about Tulle, which is pronounced something like 'tool'. The 'e' is silent. That said, I love Ian's videos on these cool old rifles.
@TheSkipjack95 It's normal to have difficulities to pronounce sounds that does'nt exist in your native language. English is really weird for a french, lest's compare a bit : English 25 consonnants 13 short vowels 5 long vowels 8 diphtongs 5 triphtongs 56 phonems 12 different pronunciations for A 11 different pronunciations for U 9 different pronunciations for E Mute vowel The sound[u] can be written in 18 different ways And the tonic accents can change a word's signification French 23 consonnants 16 short vowels No more long vowels The number of diphtongs is debated No triphtongs No tonic accents 39 phonems @ Brian Taylor They invented the duck confit, a lot of delicious things with duck, so it forgives all! :D
Thanks for the video! Hard to believe, but I found myself writing down the fact that I needed M27 research not two days ago to add to a writing project, and was understandably more than surprised when this came out.
Oh, thanks for asking! It's just a casual programme of mine to write and compile various 'takes' on as many firearms as possible so that I can easily compare sources and increase my beginner's knowledge of firearms in general. With so many sources today, with alot of information unreliably placed into and taken from wikipedia (particularly with scarce guns like this interwar Lebel), means that a hands-on source such as this video carries a greater weight. Comparing notes taken from this video with those from the French website (unfortunately currently offline) armesfrancaises.free.fr, gives me a better feel for what the Lebel M27 would actually be like--as opposed to just reading wikipedia, which hardly mentions this very important rifle at all!
In the first five for the first time!, I love your videos and think your work is great Ian!, you’ve helped me build a foundation and love for knowledge on weapons of all types!
Interesting that the M27 was salvaged into a feasible test-bed for concepts that were intended to help other rifle development. It seems to me like the French procurement system (or at least this portion of it) was significantly more holistic and well-thought-out than that of many other national militaries which presented more like a "mad-house feeding frenzy to see who gets a shot at the trough of .gov contracts." Could a comparison be drawn to the Cold War Soviet small arms development process? Several more-or-less coordinated major state arsenals in a system of small arms development conducted through iterative improvements as opposed to wholesale revolutionary changes?
I actually ran across a Mas-36 in a gun shop last week. Unfortunately the importer had converted it to .308 which I was informed fired fine, but accuracy could be expected to be less than impressive. Still it was a nice feeling and well balanced rifle imo.
Ian - super interesting as ever. I know you love detail, so do not feel pedantic to highlight the fact that Tulle is not pronounced 'Tula', but nearer 'Toul', the vowel sounding more like 'ooo'. Thanks for everything!
Around 6:50 when you speak about the "pas" in this context it doesn't mean "step" like you said, but "pitch" refering to the threading of the barrel. And the "G" should stand for "gauche", left.
and in the end... the Berthier still in the 8mm lebel is what saves every one letting them get out of Europe to keep fighting because all the mas 36 and converted 7.5 rifles get captured when the Maginot line is simply surrounded by Germany....
It was cheap to change barrels/ammo in black powder and single shot rifles. The people making the decisions about refitting guns thought that it was still the case.
Does Ian just memorize all of this before the video or is there a whiteboard behind the camera with notes? Either way, I am constantly impressed by the dedication to detail and accuracy in all of his videos :)
What about the Lebel converted to 3-shot Carbines ( Tube Loaders) still in 8mm? Also, any complete parts replaced would have been sent to "Spares", rather than Scrapped...in order to continue maintaining existing Lebel Rifles ( Bolt heads, Forestocks, Rear sights, even Good Barrels, etc...just like the Italians...recycled everything, even the 6,5 barrels to 7,35!!!. I know about the M34 Berthiers, but the M86/27 was new to me! Great video...BTW...G. is Gauche, Left hand Twist...during development of the MAS 36 Rifle and the 7,5x58 Ammo, they Utilised the basics of the Enfield P14 and M1917 for Stong Rifle design. P14 had LH Twist ( as all Enfields...) DocAV
The "maquis" is just a biome typical in south France, that is a sort of semi-arid bushland. The resistance people were called the "maquisard" because they lived hidden in the "maquis".
If someone were to have one of these to sell, what kind of price range are we talking? Bore in great shape, all numbers matching except for the bolt. Decent shape overall...of course just looking for a ball park range.
toomanyaccounts I wondered because I could imagine the 7.5 working well in Mauser action, the Mauser was widely respected and the French probably had a significant number of captured ones, Mauser 98 were being produced in Belgium, and I wondered if it would have appealed to colonial forces. Also it seems like the French realized the bolt action was nearing its end and rather spending funds trying to reinvent the wheel they might simply adopt a Mauser pattern (like England did with the Pattern P13/14 and the US did with the 03 & 1917 and the Japanese did with the Arisaka) and instead devote those resources to advancing the development of their semi automatic more quickly. The FN 49 could have been ready for 1940 with that sort of support.
Cool conversion. But the logistics of a conversion is insane. Surprised it went as far as it did. And says something, negative, about the French bureaucracy as a whole. -Marky
I'd disagree - all experimental and scientific endeavors end up running into dead ends here and there. If they don't, I'd question whether the engineers and scientists involved were approaching their problem with an open mind. Certainly the French didn't "Trapdoor Springfield" this into service over a clearly superior tool, and I'd argue that using the already mangled rifle as an experimental testbed was a more efficient use of sunken costs than simply dropping it and either 1) developing a completely separate experimental rifle or 2) screwing around with a standardized / in-production service rifle.
Hey Ian you said before your dad was really into Japanese rifles. Do you have any or all of his rifles? If so what do you have more of french or Japanese firearms?
With the Lebel's strong receiver, I'm surprised the French Army didn't adopt the M27 as a squad level grenade launcher. Issuing the rest of the riflemen the Berthier M34.
I have wondered about the costs of conversions before. This conversion appears pretty obviously not financially viable. However, how does this apply to more modern firearms? For example the British SA80 which has been substantially modified, and which with modern manufacturing (with stamped components, moulded plastics and with machined parts being easier to produce with CNC equipment) is probably easier to make in the first place than a Label. Are the savings from heavily modifying an existing weapon significant over just producing a new weapon I understand a large part of the cost of a major change is weapon storage, training, etc, but these costs are the same whether existing weapons are upgraded or instead newly manufactured.
Thanks for the responses. It’s always good to learn. The reason I asked was because they were doing the detachable magazines with pistols at that point, I believe.
Already using stripper clips. To convert to magazines and adapt all existing rifles to use the magazines and possibly different magazines for different rifles as opposed to a uniform type of stripper clip is quite an undertaking.
The magazine conversion looks rather interestingly like a double stack single feed magazine system. Is that correct? Or does it just sort of look that way?
Hi Ian, just a thought, and I hope you don't find it insulting, however your accent is not very Arizona-ish and your sense of humour is quite dry and sarcastic, (and long may it remain so and more akin to a Brit) also your fondness for the French rifles........... are you then a bit Canadian.? :-)
Hi Ian, I can't really make out the word you're saying at 0:17. The automatic subtitles says "mo defeat" but that's not a word (and it lends itself to ridiculously overused jokes). So yeah I tried to find out what the "M" of M27 stands for. The two candidates being the more likely "modification (de) (19)27" (= modification (of) (19)27) or the less likely "modifié (en) (19)27" ( = modified (in) (19)27). You might have said something completely different. But it sounded like you said "modifit" or "modific". Something really small and relatively insignificant in the greater scheme of things but I don't like to miss out on some information about some random weird and interesting guns. I NEED TO KNOW WHICH ONE IT IS ! :) Anyway, I watch every single one of your video and I like them all. You are making an incredible job of shedding some light on these guns which are badly deserving it. Thanks.
Hi Ian, I am trying to start a WW1 themed gun collection (among other things) and I was planning on starting with France and was wondering, which rifle would have been more commonly seen in the trenches, the lebel or the berthier? I know both were used extensively during the war but if I wanted to go with the majority which rifle would I go for?
Well I had plans on getting what rifle was used more instead of what I could find easily, my criterias are already hindering my ability to find exactly what im looking for so either way it will be difficult to find what im looking for.
Because you want your colonial troops to be better armed than any rebels: Who would have access to WW1 surplus wepons. Often more modern than 8mm Lebel.
toomanyaccounts umm, my second question is french having logistical problems for having that much cartridge, because if you are using the 8mm mauser and your teammates are using 7.5mm french then you ran out of ammo in your stash then how can you load your rifle if your friends are using a diff cartridge.
Time for a trial between the three 7.5mm rifles of the same length, the M27, M34 Berthier and MAS 36 (prewar) shoot them against each other, maybe invite Karl along, and choose your 1,2 and 3.
Great vid, as always (interesting history bits etc.) - but I still don't get the damned shirt joke :( so, please explain it to the uninformed German! :) (I mean we have our damned French military jokes as well, like "Why do French tanks have rear-view-mirrors? - So you can see the war!"
DreamingFlurry - The joke is that “I have a sale on >insert nationality< rifles. Lightly used, and only dropped once!” e.g. the one time the rifles were dropped was when >insert nationality< dropped them to surrender. Ian’s shirt turns the “only dropped once” on it’s head, by listing the bloody hard-fought battles in WWI where the French did NOT surrender, and the reason the rifles were dropped was because those men died fighting for their home soil.
'k, thank you, I get that and while the French really were overrun in WW2 (then again: Most nations in Europe that weren't prepared for a German attack were, so the French aren't "special" that way, despite some people claiming that they are bad soldiers because of WW2 etc.) and weren't great in Vietnam it's not like they really are poor soldiers! Hell, they have a better military than Germany does now! Their equipment for the most part works, while ours is ATM not ready to fight anybody (half of our tanks are out of commission because of missing parts, the new transport plain doesn't fly (spends more time in the shop than flying because of problems nobody seems to have seen while the thing was in development), our submarines stay in dock because of missing parts for certain upgrades/repairs, same for a lot of the Eurofighter-Jets etc. etc.)...the few soldiers that are deployed in other countries (a few thousand, less than 10% of the entire military) have problems getting equipment delivered and keeping the stuff working that they have etc. etc. so ATM Germany has a worse military compared with France...luckily a war in Europe is unlikely and we still beat the French economically, not to mention that we've turned our arch-enemy into one of our best friends (Germany and France more or less rule Europe IMHO, especially since the British are withdrawing from the EU - no other nation in the EU is close in economical power to us and France )
So the conversion required replacing the barrel, receiver, trigger group, bolt, magazine, nose cap, barrel band. Basically you can keep the wood from the stock you need to modify it and add a hand guard. Yeah, not sure that could be classified as a conversion anymore. I honestly did not know that the main cost of a gun was the wood for the stock.
The whole mess of converting french rifles seems pointless. My opinion is that maximizing the production of new rifles would of have been more beneficial. Push the old rifles into the rear area and supply the front line with new rifles.
Further explanation: The shirt rebukes the myth by listing the major battles of World War I that involved French soldiers, most of which are well ingrained in the minds of anyone with a casual knowledge of World War I. The graphic centerpiece is the rifle in the traditional "memorial" presentation used to honor a fallen soldier: bayonet affixed, stabbed into the ground, with a helmet on top. Underneath is the phrase most associated with the myth... the new implication being, "This rifle (and the French soldier wielding it) fought in the most brutal battles of World War I and was dropped only when its wielder died in combat."
The joke/myth was that the French soldiers were cowards and dropped their rifles at the sight of the Germans during WWII. The French also gained a reputation for selling firearms after the World Wars so the quip "Only dropped once" arose as a sarcastic selling feature for their firearms to mock the French army's performance during WWII. They gained this reputation because the French were quickly defeated by the German blitzkrieg during WWII. It is an unfair assessment, because French lost almost an entire generation during WWI and never fully recovered. As such, they weren't in any state to effectively repel the German advance. Ian's shirt rebukes this myth by using the same phrase but changing its meaning. He insinuates that the rifles were indeed "only dropped once" not by cowards, but by brave French soldiers killed in battle during WWI (and he includes the names of several major battles where they died on the shirt). This also implies that nations such as the US, who were virtually untouched by comparison during the First World War, would need to contribute more to the Allied cause as a result of the losses other nations endured during WWI. Additionally, the French have always been a major military power dating back to the early-Middle Ages. All the best!
KyleOfCanada I have a problem with your mention of French losses in WWI being the reason they could not field a proper defense against the Germans in WWII because of one simple thing: German losses in WWI were atrocious as well. Seriously, 12 year old boys were a normal thing to see in German trenches at the end (well, they were less common than 14-16 year old boys, but they were still very much a thing). Blame the Generals dismissing the fact that the Ardennes forest had a lot of roads and trails cut through it so it was much more easily passable by an Army before WWII than it had been during WWI. There are a few other things that you could bring to the table, but French casualties in WWI is not one. Maybe say that their fighting spirit had been broken in the aftermath of WWI, but that would be proving the point of the saying.
Hi Jeremiah90526, Fair enough. There is some validity to your criticisms, but I still stand by my assessment for the most part. I wasn't exactly trying to write a graduate thesis on the subject, but rather a concise explanation of the phrase without repeating what those above had already said. :P That being said, I love these sorts of discussions, so here goes: [Thesis] Ultimately, I would contend that, like most historical events, there were a variety of factors at play that together contributed to the way things played out to greater or lesser degrees, including those you mentioned. While both sides suffered enormous casualties during WWI, there were factors at play in the post-war years that enabled Germany to recover from their losses while France did not. The casualties suffered was arguably the underlying cause of the French defeat in WWII because the failure of France to recover and rebuild its military in the wake of these losses while Germany succeeded in this regard; this set the stage for history to play out as they did via the other factors you mentioned. *As such, French (and German) casualties during WWI was an important factor to bring to the table. However, even taking the weakened fighting spirit of the French into account, this does not prove the point of the previously mentioned saying despite first appearances.* [Part 1] Despite comparable casualties, why the difference in recovery? One of the main differences, in my opinion, would be that Germany found a charismatic leader in Hitler whose personal leadership and National Socialist policies ensured the resurgence of radical nationalism and militarization that he escalated to fanatical levels (due to the context of the aftermath of WWI, especially reparations and the failure of Wiemar Germany). As such, the Germans wanted to rekindle a fight that the rest of the west thought was (and wanted to be) over, hence an emphasis on re-militarization that France utterly lacked. Also consider that France (and its military) also had a global empire to maintain that Germany didn't. Don't forget to take into account as well that despite the comparable loss of life, none of the fighting took place in Germany, but all in France (Belgium, etc.), whose citizens witnessed the devastation firsthand and had to rebuild economically and socially in the wake of it in a way different from Germany who also had to recover in these areas; this would contribute to their poor defense as well since their leaders, who were not anticipating a war, were likely prioritizing an economic recovery rather than replacing military losses, hence the war reparations. The Germans also weren't supposed to be re-militarizing but they did anyways. Most Germans also didn't understand why the lost the first war and wanted to avenge what they saw as a political injustice; a flame that Hitler eagerly stoked. Compare that with the French, whose wounds from the first war had yet to heal, who had no desire to fight, and therefore were not prepared to fight. Anyways, I'm sure there were many other factors too (but this post is already getting long). In the end, all of the factors resulted in Germany desiring and preparing for war despite the losses they suffered while France did not. In other words, despite enduring a comparable loss of life, France was no where near as focused on or capable of rebuilding its military as Germany in the wake of WWI (due to the various factors discussed by both of us above) which would make their loss of life a significant factor affecting their capacity to repel the German invasion. Despite a popular desire to avoid war, I would not go so far as to say that this proves the point of the saying however. [Part 2] Is the quip justified by the factors that contributed to the French defeat? Not at all. The original saying, "(Never fired;) only dropped once," alludes to cowardice and a lack of martial ability on behalf of the French soldiers/military in general which is often ignorantly applied to French military history too (at least when I've come across someone using it). I would contend still that such an assessment (even just of French soldiers in WWII) would be unfair because it fails to take into account both the past historical context and the present historical context leading up to the Second World War. Given that Germany wasn't supposed to have much of a military, it would kind of be like if two kids were having a snowball fight when told to stop by a teacher. One child gets in trouble while the other gets rewarded by the teacher because the first allegedly started it. The angry kid who got in trouble starts hoarding snowballs and ambushes the other kid to get even. The second kid who was rewarded didn't make any more snowballs himself because the first kid wasn't supposed to be either and he thought that he won and the battle over. It would be unfair for the latter kid to forever gain a reputation as a poor snowball fighter despite his past accomplishments and the immediate context. Consider that France had always been a major military power going as far back as Charlemagne with a history of military achievements and leaders from Louis XIV to Napoleon, from liberating the Holy Land from Muslim aggression for several hundred years to conquering nearly all of Europe. Arguing that the average French soldier was a coward or poor at his job is unfair and unfounded; if one argued that this was *the* (or even "a") factor that led to their defeat, they would be making a baseless claim. Even if France was trying to avoid war, the desire to fight was clearly made evident by the efforts of the French Resistance that immediately sprang up and persisted once the government and military collapsed. If the French were truly so cowardly and inept, there would not have been a major guerilla war going on there for the duration of the war. Given the immediate context, licking one's wounds after a brutal fight that wiped out most of a generation and failing to rebuild one's military in the wake of this to the same degree as one's fanatical neighbours does not equate to cowardice or lack of skill, nor would fairing poorly against an attack you didn't anticipate from an opponent who was prepared. That would reflect more on poor military planning and international political insight by the leadership than to the martial prowess of the average soldier, which is what the insulting phrase was about. [TL;DR/Conclusion] Ultimately, while there were many factors that contributed to the French defeat; general cowardice or incompetence among the enlistees wasn't one of them. All the best, Kyle of Canada PS - I'd be happy to debate or discuss this more. PPS - Something tells me that the OP will get more than he bargained for by the time this thread dies out.
+KyleOfCanada I was actually pushing it more to poor military planning than anything else (the whole "broken fighting spirit" was for arguments sake with where you had started leading). I actually don't have too much of a problem with the individual fighting French man for most of the invasion. Did some troops perform poorly, yes, they were mostly the conscripted militia guys that did not want to be there in the first place and really should not have been there. War is best fought with willing professional soldiers, not impressed bread makers, and the differences in how the professional French troops and the militia troops performed shows this to be true. Honestly, I am not even mad at these militia guys that would surrender or withdraw at a much earlier point than the professional soldiers, because they were not trained thoroughly enough to get that instinct for self preservation out of their heads. The thing that probably pissed off Brits the most (though I am an American, not a Brit) is that something like 80% of the French soldiers that were evacuated off the beaches of Dunkirk went back to France right after it fell, and just took whatever the Germans gave them. Many of these guys were executed, put in prison, or crossed the lines and joined the Vichy French Army, and these were guys that Britain put lives on the line to evacuate, and took the place of Commonwealth soldiers who would have go on to fight in North Africa. That does seem a little pissy to me. I am not calling all Frenchmen cowards here, I am not calling the enlistees incompetent (though I am calling the higher ups incompetent, and I am pretty sure nobody disagrees with that), I am saying that a defense could have been better organized. Now on to the whole "France had a worldwide empire that they were having to deal with, so they had less of an emphasis on military than the Germans" thing. They had a whole lot of troops that were seasoned troops they could have called home to defend France when it became obvious that Germany was done with the Poles and was going to turn its eye on France. But the Germans did kind of spike the LE (Legion Entengere (French Foreign Legion)) with a whole lot of German troops, but they could have tried recruiting more heavily from indigenous populations and done a bit less weeding of the troops to have more men manning the lines. Also, because they had a large empire, shouldn't they have put more effort into keeping their army supplied with the best? This is not the complete thought, but it is late, and I need to sleep, hope to get a response so we can continue discussion.
Yeah, I know how it works. Still, it seems to me that selling old rifles to other countries and buying new stuff would be better option than conversion. It however depends on type of conversion... Recalibrating bolt-action rifle is rather cheap, but making a good self-loading rifle from bolt-action, not so much.
235G... to the right? That doesn't make much sense... "Right" in French is "Droit". "Left" is "Gauche"... you sure that's rifling to the right? ;)
Yeah, I meant left.
The other right! right, ;-)
Was going to post the same comment, glad to see someone caught it too :D
G is for the other right, for sure ;)
From the delivering or the receiving end? ;)
'Droite' is right, not 'droit'. 'Droit' is law, or right (as in constitiutional). Different gender too!
"Guns blew up and it was bad." Classic Ian.
I wonder what P.O. Ackley would think of that, because he couldn’t get rifles to blow up when firing oversized projectiles. Read his hand book on the subject.
Nobody knows how bad it was. French military bureacracts hid the costs of the accidents (medical care, disability pensions, widow's benefits etc.) in the budget for WW1 casualties.
Honestly? This is probably one of the most beautiful bolt action rifles ive ever seen
The lebel is one of the most beautiful bolt-action rifles ever made
Still looking for one of these. Poulin had one paired with a Lebel M93 sniper (just to piss me off it seems) so the bidding went quite high. If it were on it's own, I could've gotten it. This video will hold me over till I do get one.
I swear I read every comment you make on these videos in Mike's voice
Over the course of Ian's videos on French rifles, I've gone from having little interest in them to having a profound need to own one. Has anyone else experienced this?
Yup
just had that experience today
Yeah, it did cost me approx. 4000€ to this day.
Indeed.
This is why I like this channel. I play Hunt Showdown, and I really really like learning about all the guns in it!
Whenever ppl say small arms I think of a T-Rex trying to shoulder a rifle.
Jesse Spika lol
Jesse Spika lmao thank you for that wonderfully terrifying image.
Gotta love how modify existing rifles basically ended up becoming a completely new rifle.
At first Ian's pronunciation of Tulle had me confused, wondering why the Russians (Tula arsenal) were doing these conversions. Soon it became apparent that he was talking about Tulle, which is pronounced something like 'tool'. The 'e' is silent. That said, I love Ian's videos on these cool old rifles.
Roughly, people living North of Loire will say Tull'. In this case the final e is mute. But South of Loire people will prononouce it with the final e
The e is indeed silent, but Ian's pronunciation of the u was correct. French is strange.
Well, the people south of Loire are just wrong :-) (Joking!)
Also, there's no "e" in Tula. :D
@TheSkipjack95
It's normal to have difficulities to pronounce sounds that does'nt exist in your native language.
English is really weird for a french, lest's compare a bit :
English
25 consonnants
13 short vowels
5 long vowels
8 diphtongs
5 triphtongs
56 phonems
12 different pronunciations for A
11 different pronunciations for U
9 different pronunciations for E
Mute vowel
The sound[u] can be written in 18 different ways
And the tonic accents can change a word's signification
French
23 consonnants
16 short vowels
No more long vowels
The number of diphtongs is debated
No triphtongs
No tonic accents
39 phonems
@ Brian Taylor
They invented the duck confit, a lot of delicious things with duck, so it forgives all! :D
Thanks for the video! Hard to believe, but I found myself writing down the fact that I needed M27 research not two days ago to add to a writing project, and was understandably more than surprised when this came out.
Oh, thanks for asking! It's just a casual programme of mine to write and compile various 'takes' on as many firearms as possible so that I can easily compare sources and increase my beginner's knowledge of firearms in general. With so many sources today, with alot of information unreliably placed into and taken from wikipedia (particularly with scarce guns like this interwar Lebel), means that a hands-on source such as this video carries a greater weight. Comparing notes taken from this video with those from the French website (unfortunately currently offline) armesfrancaises.free.fr, gives me a better feel for what the Lebel M27 would actually be like--as opposed to just reading wikipedia, which hardly mentions this very important rifle at all!
In the first five for the first time!, I love your videos and think your work is great Ian!, you’ve helped me build a foundation and love for knowledge on weapons of all types!
Love this Channel, usually have them playing on loop whilst i work.
I think Ian and Karl should do a 2 gun action match using a Lebel and a Berthier
Gabemando My money's on the Berthier
My Channel Lacks Originality make it interesting, Karl with a Lebel and Ian with a 3 shot Berthier
I suppose Ians love for french rifles would give him an unfair advantage ;-)
Koefti that's why you must keep the Lebel away from Ian if you catch my drift
Interesting that the M27 was salvaged into a feasible test-bed for concepts that were intended to help other rifle development. It seems to me like the French procurement system (or at least this portion of it) was significantly more holistic and well-thought-out than that of many other national militaries which presented more like a "mad-house feeding frenzy to see who gets a shot at the trough of .gov contracts."
Could a comparison be drawn to the Cold War Soviet small arms development process? Several more-or-less coordinated major state arsenals in a system of small arms development conducted through iterative improvements as opposed to wholesale revolutionary changes?
Ian's hard-on for talking about French small arms is getting contagious
If they made a Lebel like this from the start ;-;
lordDenis16 The French always have strange solutions
Herba&Guns Hindsight is 20/20.
just sticking to 8mm Mauser would have been too easy
I actually ran across a Mas-36 in a gun shop last week. Unfortunately the importer had converted it to .308 which I was informed fired fine, but accuracy could be expected to be less than impressive. Still it was a nice feeling and well balanced rifle imo.
"Ian talks about french rifles for another 16 minutes"
Aw yiss time to get comfy
Very good presentation.
Thanks
Ian - super interesting as ever. I know you love detail, so do not feel pedantic to highlight the fact that Tulle is not pronounced 'Tula', but nearer 'Toul', the vowel sounding more like 'ooo'. Thanks for everything!
Oh right, yep Ian is an expert in patois too, silly me.
Like it. This video ties in well with his Mas-36 video.
Damn these must be rare to find
So good watching again
A master piece !
Around 6:50 when you speak about the "pas" in this context it doesn't mean "step" like you said, but "pitch" refering to the threading of the barrel. And the "G" should stand for "gauche", left.
and in the end... the Berthier still in the 8mm lebel is what saves every one letting them get out of Europe to keep fighting because all the mas 36 and converted 7.5 rifles get captured when the Maginot line is simply surrounded by Germany....
Man, it really makes you wonder if it was really worth it to convert the rifles to the new caliber rather than create a new rifle from the ground up.
Theblastback, the French really loved their conversions.
It was cheap to change barrels/ammo in black powder and single shot rifles. The people making the decisions about refitting guns thought that it was still the case.
They were, these were done as a "hey let's convert these see how they work, maybe get some use out of our older stock of guns"
I love this French series. Love the french designs.
Does Ian just memorize all of this before the video or is there a whiteboard behind the camera with notes? Either way, I am constantly impressed by the dedication to detail and accuracy in all of his videos :)
Looks like a bunch of guys who were told to make a Lebel into a box magazine rifle in 7.5 and did. Regardless of cost.
How well does it handle and shoot? Is it a big improvement over a Lebel 8mm? How much better would a say...MAS-36 be?
One small error, German invasion of France was in 1940, not 1939. Great videos!
I was unaware, I stand corrected.
What about the Lebel converted to 3-shot Carbines ( Tube Loaders) still in 8mm? Also, any complete parts replaced would have been sent to "Spares", rather than Scrapped...in order to continue maintaining existing Lebel Rifles ( Bolt heads, Forestocks, Rear sights, even Good Barrels, etc...just like the Italians...recycled everything, even the 6,5 barrels to 7,35!!!.
I know about the M34 Berthiers, but the M86/27 was new to me!
Great video...BTW...G. is Gauche, Left hand Twist...during development of the MAS 36 Rifle and the 7,5x58 Ammo, they Utilised the basics of the Enfield P14 and M1917 for Stong Rifle design. P14 had LH Twist ( as all Enfields...)
DocAV
The "maquis" is just a biome typical in south France, that is a sort of semi-arid bushland. The resistance people were called the "maquisard" because they lived hidden in the "maquis".
What would be the purpose of taking existing weapons (Lebel, Berthier) and rechamber them instead of taking new weapons?
Supposedly cheaper, though I doubt that it actually worked out that way.
That is not a conversion. That is a new rifle that uses a few surplus parts, ha.
Still more of a “conversion” than the 1917 self-loader
If someone were to have one of these to sell, what kind of price range are we talking? Bore in great shape, all numbers matching except for the bolt. Decent shape overall...of course just looking for a ball park range.
Was any Mauser 98 pattern rifles ever chambered in 7.5 French?
toomanyaccounts I wondered because I could imagine the 7.5 working well in Mauser action, the Mauser was widely respected and the French probably had a significant number of captured ones, Mauser 98 were being produced in Belgium, and I wondered if it would have appealed to colonial forces. Also it seems like the French realized the bolt action was nearing its end and rather spending funds trying to reinvent the wheel they might simply adopt a Mauser pattern (like England did with the Pattern P13/14 and the US did with the 03 & 1917 and the Japanese did with the Arisaka) and instead devote those resources to advancing the development of their semi automatic more quickly. The FN 49 could have been ready for 1940 with that sort of support.
Cool conversion. But the logistics of a conversion is insane. Surprised it went as far as it did. And says something, negative, about the French bureaucracy as a whole.
-Marky
I'd disagree - all experimental and scientific endeavors end up running into dead ends here and there. If they don't, I'd question whether the engineers and scientists involved were approaching their problem with an open mind. Certainly the French didn't "Trapdoor Springfield" this into service over a clearly superior tool, and I'd argue that using the already mangled rifle as an experimental testbed was a more efficient use of sunken costs than simply dropping it and either 1) developing a completely separate experimental rifle or 2) screwing around with a standardized / in-production service rifle.
Hey Ian you said before your dad was really into Japanese rifles. Do you have any or all of his rifles? If so what do you have more of french or Japanese firearms?
ua-cam.com/video/mOnH_deRTHw/v-deo.html he's got a lot of both
The cocking pieces look different visually, you didnt mention any change there
Was this a significant change?
With the Lebel's strong receiver, I'm surprised the French Army didn't adopt the M27 as a squad level grenade launcher. Issuing the rest of the riflemen the Berthier M34.
They made it the rifle it should have and could have been in the 1880s.
I have wondered about the costs of conversions before. This conversion appears pretty obviously not financially viable.
However, how does this apply to more modern firearms? For example the British SA80 which has been substantially modified, and which with modern manufacturing (with stamped components, moulded plastics and with machined parts being easier to produce with CNC equipment) is probably easier to make in the first place than a Label. Are the savings from heavily modifying an existing weapon significant over just producing a new weapon
I understand a large part of the cost of a major change is weapon storage, training, etc, but these costs are the same whether existing weapons are upgraded or instead newly manufactured.
An interesting rifle. One wonders why they didn't just make the magazine removable?
Because it wasn't a common thing to do I think.
Soldiers losing detachable magazine on the field was a military concern at the time, so it was reloaded using stripper clip instead of spare mag.
Thanks for the responses. It’s always good to learn. The reason I asked was because they were doing the detachable magazines with pistols at that point, I believe.
Mainly only officers with pistols, they didn't trust the grunts not to loose stuff.
Already using stripper clips. To convert to magazines and adapt all existing rifles to use the magazines and possibly different magazines for different rifles as opposed to a uniform type of stripper clip is quite an undertaking.
thank you ian (:
I don't get how the mag protruding by that small amount would be a problem to the troops
Did they reuse the trigger gaurds or fabricate new ones?
The magazine conversion looks rather interestingly like a double stack single feed magazine system. Is that correct? Or does it just sort of look that way?
The ammo for this thing is unobtainium.
Which means you need a FFL or a friend that does. Walmart is not going to carry it.
Will there be a video on the really short Lebel conversion? Can't remember the name.
Word of the day: "Logistics". The reason they only made 1500.
8:23 Mauser type ? Are you sure it’s not Mosin type box mag ?
Both mags are the same type, the Mosin mag doesn't sit flush become of the rimmed cartridge
but the mosin is single stack single feed while the Mauser is double stack double feed?@@vrisbrianm4720
oh Tulle, not Tula. That makes a little more sense.
Hi Ian, just a thought, and I hope you don't find it insulting, however your accent is not very Arizona-ish and your sense of humour is quite dry and sarcastic, (and long may it remain so and more akin to a Brit) also your fondness for the French rifles........... are you then a bit Canadian.? :-)
Hi Ian, I can't really make out the word you're saying at 0:17. The automatic subtitles says "mo defeat" but that's not a word (and it lends itself to ridiculously overused jokes). So yeah I tried to find out what the "M" of M27 stands for. The two candidates being the more likely "modification (de) (19)27" (= modification (of) (19)27) or the less likely "modifié (en) (19)27" ( = modified (in) (19)27).
You might have said something completely different. But it sounded like you said "modifit" or "modific".
Something really small and relatively insignificant in the greater scheme of things but I don't like to miss out on some information about some random weird and interesting guns. I NEED TO KNOW WHICH ONE IT IS ! :)
Anyway, I watch every single one of your video and I like them all. You are making an incredible job of shedding some light on these guns which are badly deserving it. Thanks.
I want that shirt.
Hi Ian, I am trying to start a WW1 themed gun collection (among other things) and I was planning on starting with France and was wondering, which rifle would have been more commonly seen in the trenches, the lebel or the berthier? I know both were used extensively during the war but if I wanted to go with the majority which rifle would I go for?
Well I had plans on getting what rifle was used more instead of what I could find easily, my criterias are already hindering my ability to find exactly what im looking for so either way it will be difficult to find what im looking for.
Why not just leave the Lebel unconverted to the new cartridge and just give it to colonial troops in the colonies
To have everyone using the 7.5mm rounds.
Because you want your colonial troops to be better armed than any rebels: Who would have access to WW1 surplus wepons. Often more modern than 8mm Lebel.
The problem with this conversion is that the level had to be remade into a totally different gun.
and no one thought ... well if the mag is gonna protrude might as well make it 10-15 rounds ?.... damn tulle .... underachivers^^
Why didn't the french just adopt the 8mm mauser than make a new cartridge? wouldn't they suffer for having many cartridges.
toomanyaccounts umm, my second question is french having logistical problems for having that much cartridge, because if you are using the 8mm mauser and your teammates are using 7.5mm french then you ran out of ammo in your stash then how can you load your rifle if your friends are using a diff cartridge.
Time for a trial between the three 7.5mm rifles of the same length, the M27, M34 Berthier and MAS 36 (prewar) shoot them against each other, maybe invite Karl along, and choose your 1,2 and 3.
I never understood why they didn't simply adopt the proven 8mm mauser cartridge (save national pride). It was already in the supply chain..
13:51 Facebook notification.
Where did you found these????
Vive la France!!!!!!!!!!!
Great vid, as always (interesting history bits etc.) - but I still don't get the damned shirt joke :( so, please explain it to the uninformed German! :) (I mean we have our damned French military jokes as well, like "Why do French tanks have rear-view-mirrors? - So you can see the war!"
DreamingFlurry - The joke is that “I have a sale on >insert nationality< rifles. Lightly used, and only dropped once!” e.g. the one time the rifles were dropped was when >insert nationality< dropped them to surrender. Ian’s shirt turns the “only dropped once” on it’s head, by listing the bloody hard-fought battles in WWI where the French did NOT surrender, and the reason the rifles were dropped was because those men died fighting for their home soil.
'k, thank you, I get that and while the French really were overrun in WW2 (then again: Most nations in Europe that weren't prepared for a German attack were, so the French aren't "special" that way, despite some people claiming that they are bad soldiers because of WW2 etc.) and weren't great in Vietnam it's not like they really are poor soldiers! Hell, they have a better military than Germany does now! Their equipment for the most part works, while ours is ATM not ready to fight anybody (half of our tanks are out of commission because of missing parts, the new transport plain doesn't fly (spends more time in the shop than flying because of problems nobody seems to have seen while the thing was in development), our submarines stay in dock because of missing parts for certain upgrades/repairs, same for a lot of the Eurofighter-Jets etc. etc.)...the few soldiers that are deployed in other countries (a few thousand, less than 10% of the entire military) have problems getting equipment delivered and keeping the stuff working that they have etc. etc. so ATM Germany has a worse military compared with France...luckily a war in Europe is unlikely and we still beat the French economically, not to mention that we've turned our arch-enemy into one of our best friends (Germany and France more or less rule Europe IMHO, especially since the British are withdrawing from the EU - no other nation in the EU is close in economical power to us and France )
Don't worry my friend we've the same issues as your military in france, by the way germany is selling HK 416 to replace the famas.
it's more a money issue tbh
It's as if these are two entirely different guns.
France was not invaded in 1939!
French mods are quite a hard one.
So the conversion required replacing the barrel, receiver, trigger group, bolt, magazine, nose cap, barrel band. Basically you can keep the wood from the stock you need to modify it and add a hand guard. Yeah, not sure that could be classified as a conversion anymore. I honestly did not know that the main cost of a gun was the wood for the stock.
Wait.. What was that scratched into the butt plate?... "Othias waz here"?
The whole mess of converting french rifles seems pointless. My opinion is that maximizing the production of new rifles would of have been more beneficial. Push the old rifles into the rear area and supply the front line with new rifles.
Ian should ask for a french green card.
id buy a shirt if it was in black. im not a big fan of the gray.
I seen that. The one he showed in the video was black so i was wondering if maybe he had some black ones in stock again.
1939? you mean 1940?
certainly have, studied that quite a bit, but I was referring to May 10th 1940
For the algorithm!!!
At least wore gloves for professional inspection, to preserve.
(14:00) ...ze Germans invaded in 1940 !!!!
Lol I live in this region of france and I never knew that until today.
You'd think at a certain point they'd think "hohoho we might as well just make a brand new rifle, oui oui baguette etc. etc."
:)
Explain shirt joke rebuke.
Further explanation: The shirt rebukes the myth by listing the major battles of World War I that involved French soldiers, most of which are well ingrained in the minds of anyone with a casual knowledge of World War I. The graphic centerpiece is the rifle in the traditional "memorial" presentation used to honor a fallen soldier: bayonet affixed, stabbed into the ground, with a helmet on top.
Underneath is the phrase most associated with the myth... the new implication being, "This rifle (and the French soldier wielding it) fought in the most brutal battles of World War I and was dropped only when its wielder died in combat."
The joke/myth was that the French soldiers were cowards and dropped their rifles at the sight of the Germans during WWII. The French also gained a reputation for selling firearms after the World Wars so the quip "Only dropped once" arose as a sarcastic selling feature for their firearms to mock the French army's performance during WWII.
They gained this reputation because the French were quickly defeated by the German blitzkrieg during WWII. It is an unfair assessment, because French lost almost an entire generation during WWI and never fully recovered. As such, they weren't in any state to effectively repel the German advance.
Ian's shirt rebukes this myth by using the same phrase but changing its meaning. He insinuates that the rifles were indeed "only dropped once" not by cowards, but by brave French soldiers killed in battle during WWI (and he includes the names of several major battles where they died on the shirt). This also implies that nations such as the US, who were virtually untouched by comparison during the First World War, would need to contribute more to the Allied cause as a result of the losses other nations endured during WWI.
Additionally, the French have always been a major military power dating back to the early-Middle Ages.
All the best!
KyleOfCanada I have a problem with your mention of French losses in WWI being the reason they could not field a proper defense against the Germans in WWII because of one simple thing: German losses in WWI were atrocious as well. Seriously, 12 year old boys were a normal thing to see in German trenches at the end (well, they were less common than 14-16 year old boys, but they were still very much a thing). Blame the Generals dismissing the fact that the Ardennes forest had a lot of roads and trails cut through it so it was much more easily passable by an Army before WWII than it had been during WWI. There are a few other things that you could bring to the table, but French casualties in WWI is not one. Maybe say that their fighting spirit had been broken in the aftermath of WWI, but that would be proving the point of the saying.
Hi Jeremiah90526,
Fair enough. There is some validity to your criticisms, but I still stand by my assessment for the most part. I wasn't exactly trying to write a graduate thesis on the subject, but rather a concise explanation of the phrase without repeating what those above had already said. :P That being said, I love these sorts of discussions, so here goes:
[Thesis]
Ultimately, I would contend that, like most historical events, there were a variety of factors at play that together contributed to the way things played out to greater or lesser degrees, including those you mentioned. While both sides suffered enormous casualties during WWI, there were factors at play in the post-war years that enabled Germany to recover from their losses while France did not. The casualties suffered was arguably the underlying cause of the French defeat in WWII because the failure of France to recover and rebuild its military in the wake of these losses while Germany succeeded in this regard; this set the stage for history to play out as they did via the other factors you mentioned. *As such, French (and German) casualties during WWI was an important factor to bring to the table. However, even taking the weakened fighting spirit of the French into account, this does not prove the point of the previously mentioned saying despite first appearances.*
[Part 1] Despite comparable casualties, why the difference in recovery?
One of the main differences, in my opinion, would be that Germany found a charismatic leader in Hitler whose personal leadership and National Socialist policies ensured the resurgence of radical nationalism and militarization that he escalated to fanatical levels (due to the context of the aftermath of WWI, especially reparations and the failure of Wiemar Germany). As such, the Germans wanted to rekindle a fight that the rest of the west thought was (and wanted to be) over, hence an emphasis on re-militarization that France utterly lacked. Also consider that France (and its military) also had a global empire to maintain that Germany didn't. Don't forget to take into account as well that despite the comparable loss of life, none of the fighting took place in Germany, but all in France (Belgium, etc.), whose citizens witnessed the devastation firsthand and had to rebuild economically and socially in the wake of it in a way different from Germany who also had to recover in these areas; this would contribute to their poor defense as well since their leaders, who were not anticipating a war, were likely prioritizing an economic recovery rather than replacing military losses, hence the war reparations. The Germans also weren't supposed to be re-militarizing but they did anyways. Most Germans also didn't understand why the lost the first war and wanted to avenge what they saw as a political injustice; a flame that Hitler eagerly stoked. Compare that with the French, whose wounds from the first war had yet to heal, who had no desire to fight, and therefore were not prepared to fight. Anyways, I'm sure there were many other factors too (but this post is already getting long). In the end, all of the factors resulted in Germany desiring and preparing for war despite the losses they suffered while France did not.
In other words, despite enduring a comparable loss of life, France was no where near as focused on or capable of rebuilding its military as Germany in the wake of WWI (due to the various factors discussed by both of us above) which would make their loss of life a significant factor affecting their capacity to repel the German invasion. Despite a popular desire to avoid war, I would not go so far as to say that this proves the point of the saying however.
[Part 2] Is the quip justified by the factors that contributed to the French defeat? Not at all.
The original saying, "(Never fired;) only dropped once," alludes to cowardice and a lack of martial ability on behalf of the French soldiers/military in general which is often ignorantly applied to French military history too (at least when I've come across someone using it). I would contend still that such an assessment (even just of French soldiers in WWII) would be unfair because it fails to take into account both the past historical context and the present historical context leading up to the Second World War.
Given that Germany wasn't supposed to have much of a military, it would kind of be like if two kids were having a snowball fight when told to stop by a teacher. One child gets in trouble while the other gets rewarded by the teacher because the first allegedly started it. The angry kid who got in trouble starts hoarding snowballs and ambushes the other kid to get even. The second kid who was rewarded didn't make any more snowballs himself because the first kid wasn't supposed to be either and he thought that he won and the battle over. It would be unfair for the latter kid to forever gain a reputation as a poor snowball fighter despite his past accomplishments and the immediate context.
Consider that France had always been a major military power going as far back as Charlemagne with a history of military achievements and leaders from Louis XIV to Napoleon, from liberating the Holy Land from Muslim aggression for several hundred years to conquering nearly all of Europe. Arguing that the average French soldier was a coward or poor at his job is unfair and unfounded; if one argued that this was *the* (or even "a") factor that led to their defeat, they would be making a baseless claim. Even if France was trying to avoid war, the desire to fight was clearly made evident by the efforts of the French Resistance that immediately sprang up and persisted once the government and military collapsed. If the French were truly so cowardly and inept, there would not have been a major guerilla war going on there for the duration of the war.
Given the immediate context, licking one's wounds after a brutal fight that wiped out most of a generation and failing to rebuild one's military in the wake of this to the same degree as one's fanatical neighbours does not equate to cowardice or lack of skill, nor would fairing poorly against an attack you didn't anticipate from an opponent who was prepared. That would reflect more on poor military planning and international political insight by the leadership than to the martial prowess of the average soldier, which is what the insulting phrase was about.
[TL;DR/Conclusion]
Ultimately, while there were many factors that contributed to the French defeat; general cowardice or incompetence among the enlistees wasn't one of them.
All the best,
Kyle of Canada
PS - I'd be happy to debate or discuss this more.
PPS - Something tells me that the OP will get more than he bargained for by the time this thread dies out.
+KyleOfCanada I was actually pushing it more to poor military planning than anything else (the whole "broken fighting spirit" was for arguments sake with where you had started leading). I actually don't have too much of a problem with the individual fighting French man for most of the invasion. Did some troops perform poorly, yes, they were mostly the conscripted militia guys that did not want to be there in the first place and really should not have been there. War is best fought with willing professional soldiers, not impressed bread makers, and the differences in how the professional French troops and the militia troops performed shows this to be true. Honestly, I am not even mad at these militia guys that would surrender or withdraw at a much earlier point than the professional soldiers, because they were not trained thoroughly enough to get that instinct for self preservation out of their heads. The thing that probably pissed off Brits the most (though I am an American, not a Brit) is that something like 80% of the French soldiers that were evacuated off the beaches of Dunkirk went back to France right after it fell, and just took whatever the Germans gave them. Many of these guys were executed, put in prison, or crossed the lines and joined the Vichy French Army, and these were guys that Britain put lives on the line to evacuate, and took the place of Commonwealth soldiers who would have go on to fight in North Africa. That does seem a little pissy to me.
I am not calling all Frenchmen cowards here, I am not calling the enlistees incompetent (though I am calling the higher ups incompetent, and I am pretty sure nobody disagrees with that), I am saying that a defense could have been better organized.
Now on to the whole "France had a worldwide empire that they were having to deal with, so they had less of an emphasis on military than the Germans" thing. They had a whole lot of troops that were seasoned troops they could have called home to defend France when it became obvious that Germany was done with the Poles and was going to turn its eye on France. But the Germans did kind of spike the LE (Legion Entengere (French Foreign Legion)) with a whole lot of German troops, but they could have tried recruiting more heavily from indigenous populations and done a bit less weeding of the troops to have more men manning the lines. Also, because they had a large empire, shouldn't they have put more effort into keeping their army supplied with the best?
This is not the complete thought, but it is late, and I need to sleep, hope to get a response so we can continue discussion.
Kinda neat,the French have a different way of doing things some good some bad, the worst being Postmodernism.
When you rifle becomes obsolete, just throw it away. Don't bother converting it.
Agnar, new rifles are expensive. Converting old rifles can be less expensive. You don't need a degree in mathematics to grasp the concept.
Yeah, I know how it works. Still, it seems to me that selling old rifles to other countries and buying new stuff would be better option than conversion. It however depends on type of conversion... Recalibrating bolt-action rifle is rather cheap, but making a good self-loading rifle from bolt-action, not so much.
your ability to become sidetracked left me feeling very unsatisfied
it feels like a proto MAS36.