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U.S. Chauchat Automatic Rifle, Caliber .30, Model of 1918
U.S. Service Weapons Using .30-06
The U.S. was ill-equipped when it entered
World War I in 1917 and was particularly lacking
in automatic weapons. With less than
1,100 automatic weapons in inventory, consisting
of four types in two different calibers,
these guns were needed in the U.S. for training
the new army. When U.S. divisions arrived
in France, they had no automatic weapons.
The French, at war since 1914, had an arms
industry in full force. Thus, U.S. troops in
eighteen divisions were issued the French
Model 1914 Hotchkiss heavy machine gun
and the Model 1915 Chauchat automatic rifle:
both chambered in 8mm Lebel. The French
quickly developed the Chauchat to fill the immediate wartime need of France and consisted of fabricated steel tubing of standard sizes and
stampings. The only parts requiring extensive machining were the barrel and bolt. The long-recoil operation, cheap materials, unorthodox
enclosed design and hurried production produced a gun that had poor reliability and worse accuracy. But, it was all that was available.
To help alleviate a two-cartridge supply nightmare, the U.S. asked the French manufacturer, C.S.R.G., to produce the gun in .30-06. Good
idea, bad execution. The gun was simple in its design and conversion was easy: change the barrel, replace the semicircular magazine with a
detachable box magazine, change the angle of the bipod and change the graduations on the rear sight. However, the already poor reliability of
the gun went from bad to worse.
The more powerful, straight cased, rimless .30-06 cartridge was very difficult to extract. With its violent action, the M1918 Chauchat tore
the cartridges instead of extracting them and the more powerful .30-06 caused major stress on all the working parts causing failures. Additionally,
the gun heated up very quickly causing the action to freeze until it had cooled. Due to the enclosed design, clearing stoppages and jams was
almost impossible. The gun, in a single word, was awful.
The U.S. nevertheless quickly adopted it as the Chauchat Model of 1918 and bought and paid for 25,000; taking delivery of 19,241. There
is no record of M1918s being used in combat and were relegated to training use. They were so bad, that immediately after the war, the U.S.
ordered them to be destroyed.
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