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Remembered Today:

Musketeen automatic rifle


RammyLad1

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Bob

Thanks for the input,it sounds as though you have quite a collection there.I cant imagine that happening round here!! How about putting some pictures up.I'm sure some of the collectors on this forum would be interested in seeing them.

Duncan

PS Is your collection better than Bert Gummers!!!

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BRMCII

What have you done to the code ? - your message is impossible to edit in a reply. - hilarious

Yes as generalisation all Mgs have these faults to some degree but what I was pointing out was that in these respects the Madsen suffered particularly especially with regard to its ingenious and unique mechanism and I feel your dismissal is fatuous rather than laughable (to return a compliment). In the right mode it was fine but in the role it was used it wasn't. Again I would point out off all the armies that bought it none adopted and used it in a general infantry Machine gun role. Somewhat of a coincidence?

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Ah....I don't know what I did to the codes! Sorry if it bodged up anything.

I am not in disagrement with centurion's comments, or the history that has been discussed here of the use of these LMGs, but the objections are so broad as to be somewhat meaningless, in my opinion. As for the fact that the Madsen was not front line in any armies, the Dutch used it in the KNIL, the Norwegians, etc and there are others, but that fact in itself is really very ambiguous. The example I gave of the Lewis really pinpoints the extremely complicated influences at work during the effort to get that gun approved for the US Army. Many MGs went through similar complex vetting procedures and often the gun that won was not the best. A good exmaple is the Chau Chau used by the USAEF when it went to France. The acceptance of a specific MG over another in any army doesn't really mean that the rejected MG is actually inferior, in my opinion. And, the records of why the gun was rejected seem to be more revealing about the failure of the acceptance commissions than the success of the particular MG that "won".

The US continues to go through this same process with the M16 and their choices of LMGs, and with so many divergent needs expressed by so many different users, it is a miracle that nay weapon gets chosen! The US M60 is a very good exmaple of an LMG that served well but was hindered in more efficient use by really, really bad design choices that should never have been adopted. An example is the bipod attached to the quick change barrel. With superb examples in existence, such as the battle proven MG42, it is absurd that the M60 was designed and manufactured with the bipod attahced to the barrel.

The rejection of Maxim's early guns by so many countries certainly didn't mean that it was not a superior weapon, as was clearly revealed when it was issued and used in roles for which it was approrpiate.

Anyway, as I noted above, my perspective is very specifically oriented from the point of view of my own experiences with the guns rather than what is written about them.

I will post some pics of some of my collection at some point, but the limitation on picture size has put me off for a while. I do see some medium format pics on other pages here, and will try to do that sometime in the future.

bob Naess

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Hi bob

Put the pics up whenever your ready.I noticed that your interests include Vincents ( the worlds fastest motorcycles) who bought out HRD motors started by Howard Raymond Davies who was shot down and captured by germans in 1917. A classic British Motorcycle

Duncan

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A fascinating thread, which I just dicsovered.

[*]The Chauchat a French weapon sometimes referred to as one of the worst ever made (there are some, but not me, who would dispute this). Made by cycle manufacturers whose adherence to tolerances seems to have been shaky, the magazine design encouraged the ingestion of dirt which did wonders for its performance. Numbers were captured by the Germans and used by special units. It appears that if you took an number, broke them down and reassembled a smaller number with the best manufactured parts, kept it away from mud and wet and hand picked the rounds when loading the magazine it wasn't bad.

As I have posted before, my father's Flammenwerfer company at Verdun adopted the Chauchat, as the army decided to allocate two MG 08/15's per flame company, and the flame troops generally wanted two LMGs per platoon. The men were paid a bounty for each Chauchat brought back from raids. I agree with TonyE (who must know 1000 times about guns than I do) that the Chauchat chambered for the more powerful .30/06 was absolutely useless, and for that reason has an awful reputation in the English literature, but the flame company, which were in barracks 95% of the time, used them in the French model, and could test-fire the captured weapons, tinker with them, clean them, and use them for 15 minutes in a surprise attack. My father told me that they fired them at the walk by clipping two rifle slings together end-to-end and to the LMG. Another advantage was that when they took a French position there usually would be a lot of ammunition there (I believe that it fired the std. French rifle ammunition), and you might find Chauchat magazines in the trenches as well. The guns would be used in pristine condition.

[*]The Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) only released to American forces just before the end of the war. Post war Clyde Barrow's favourite weapon (Bonny and Clyde). Dillinger also took a shine to it. Used in many theatres in WW2

I can date myself by mentioning that I trained on the BAR at Fort Devins, Mass. on ROTC field training. I probably did the best shooting of my life with it. We fired on something called the "1000 inch range", which replicated field firing by shooting on a 80+ foot range at a vertical rectangular target about 2" vertically and 1 1/2" wide, sort of like a torso at say 300 yards. (This was 50 years ago. Are those dimensions correct?) At any rate, with its considerable weight, and slow cyclical rate, on my one magazine fired for record (my only magazine) I put 18 out of 20 rounds into the little rectangle, on auto fire. The gun allowed auto bursts of two or three rounds each, brief enough to keep the gun from going somewhere before the end of the burst. Of course the considerable weight which allowed it to be so accurate would be a bit of a bother toward the end of a 20 mile march.

The Madsen, the Chauchat and the Mondragon all needed clean conditions and TLC which were not in plentiful supply in the trenches.

Got to sprint, will have more comments on things I have seen here.

Bob Lembke

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The argument about the Chauchat has been done in other threads so I'll merely content myself with pointing at the failure of the French advance on the Aisne April 1917 where all gains were lost due to the failure of the Chauchat to stem German counter attacks.
This is nonsense. This flies in the face of the extensive reports that were received by Pétain only weeks after the battle. Indeed, the Chauchat was praised by many users because it made consolidation much easier. Furthermore, the failures on the Chemin des Dames were far more complex than you suggest. It is akin to saying that the failures of British attacks were due to the failure of the Lewis gun to stem German counter attacks. It is surprising that you make this claim, having read the posts made on this subject in the past. For anyone else who has not read these extracts, they are available here.

Robert

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This is nonsense. This flies in the face of the extensive reports that were received by Pétain only weeks after the battle. Indeed, the Chauchat was praised by many users because it made consolidation much easier. Furthermore, the failures on the Chemin des Dames were far more complex than you suggest. It is akin to saying that the failures of British attacks were due to the failure of the Lewis gun to stem German counter attacks. It is surprising that you make this claim, having read the posts made on this subject in the past. For anyone else who has not read these extracts, they are available here.

Robert

I wish you'd read what I say before knee jerking. It was not the failure of the attacks I was referring to but the failure to hold the ground gained. I can quote various authorities but what's the point? Your mind is made up anyway.

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Returning to some earlier discussion, my understanding was that there were about three Musketen=Bataillione, first armed with the Madsen, and when they were dissapated (or transferred to Alpine troops), they were replaced with Lewis guns, not the MG 08 or MG 08/15. (Adoption of either German weapon would have fundamentally changed the nature and utility of the units; the Germans had lots of MG battalions at that time.) There should have been a steady supply of Lewis guns throughout the war. But I don't recall hearing about these units late in the war.

I also remember reading that the Russians used the Madsen as automatic rifles or LMGs for the cavalry, hence the limited number captured. There were interesting expert comments on the impossibility of converting the Madsen to 8 mm Mauser ammunition. But the Germans captured enormous ammounts of weapons and ammunition, especially at captured forts; at one alone they captured 1300 cannon (many junk), and 900,000 artillery shells, at another fort one Feuerwerk=Offizier supervised sending 100 50 car trailoads of captured, selected, and cleaned shells west in 50 days; many units on the west front had heavy artillery units armed with Russian heavy artillery happily firing this bonanza of captured ammunition away. So they must have captured a lot of ammunition and magazines for this limited number of guns.

Bob

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Returning to some earlier discussion, my understanding was that there were about three Musketen=Bataillione, first armed with the Madsen, and when they were dissapated (or transferred to Alpine troops), they were replaced with Lewis guns, not the MG 08 or MG 08/15. (Adoption of either German weapon would have fundamentally changed the nature and utility of the units; the Germans had lots of MG battalions at that time.) There should have been a steady supply of Lewis guns throughout the war. But I don't recall hearing about these units late in the war.

I also remember reading that the Russians used the Madsen as automatic rifles or LMGs for the cavalry, hence the limited number captured. There were interesting expert comments on the impossibility of converting the Madsen to 8 mm Mauser ammunition. But the Germans captured enormous ammounts of weapons and ammunition, especially at captured forts; at one alone they captured 1300 cannon (many junk), and 900,000 artillery shells, at another fort one Feuerwerk=Offizier supervised sending 100 50 car trailoads of captured, selected, and cleaned shells west in 50 days; many units on the west front had heavy artillery units armed with Russian heavy artillery happily firing this bonanza of captured ammunition away. So they must have captured a lot of ammunition and magazines for this limited number of guns.

Bob

I suspect that the "captured from the Russians" may have been a cover story for the diversion of a cargo of Madsens from Denmark by German Naval Intelligence (see The Dark Invader) which might in turn have been a cover for a German/Denmark deal (with Germany leaning on Denmark - as they did)

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duncan writes:

PS Is your collection better than Bert Gummers!!!

Sorry to say I am not familiar with the name or the collection......but would certainly like to see it! Is he in England, US or a European country?

Bob Naess

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duncan writes:

PS Is your collection better than Bert Gummers!!!

Sorry to say I am not familiar with the name or the collection......but would certainly like to see it! Is he in England, US or a European country?

Bob Naess

He's a fictional character from the movies and cable series Tremors.

http://tremors.wikia.com/wiki/Burt_Gummer

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It was not the failure of the attacks I was referring to but the failure to hold the ground gained.
I read your post and my response was to your point about failing to hold the ground gained. Just to be clear, I will expand on my comment for you - it is nonsense to suggest that the failure of French infantry units to hold ground gained in the Chemin des Dames offensive was due to failure of the Chauchat. Please quote primary sources, based on the French units involved, as my mind is not made up. I have referred you to French sources that indicate the Chauchat could be used effectively in this way, and was indeed used effectively in the aforementioned offensive. Furthermore, to assert that the Chauchat was the cause of the failures that did occur is tantamount to saying that the Lewis gun or the MG08/15 were not effective when the British and Germans respectively failed to hold ground against counter-attacks. Automatic rifles/LMGs were not the universal answer to preventing counter-attacks from succeeding.

Robert

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Ah....I don't know what I did to the codes! Sorry if it bodged up anything.

I am not in disagrement with centurion's comments, or the history that has been discussed here of the use of these LMGs, but the objections are so broad as to be somewhat meaningless, in my opinion. As for the fact that the Madsen was not front line in any armies, the Dutch used it in the KNIL, the Norwegians, etc and there are others, but that fact in itself is really very ambiguous. The example I gave of the Lewis really pinpoints the extremely complicated influences at work during the effort to get that gun approved for the US Army. Many MGs went through similar complex vetting procedures and often the gun that won was not the best. A good exmaple is the Chau Chau used by the USAEF when it went to France. The acceptance of a specific MG over another in any army doesn't really mean that the rejected MG is actually inferior, in my opinion. And, the records of why the gun was rejected seem to be more revealing about the failure of the acceptance commissions than the success of the particular MG that "won".

The US continues to go through this same process with the M16 and their choices of LMGs, and with so many divergent needs expressed by so many different users, it is a miracle that nay weapon gets chosen! The US M60 is a very good exmaple of an LMG that served well but was hindered in more efficient use by really, really bad design choices that should never have been adopted. An example is the bipod attached to the quick change barrel. With superb examples in existence, such as the battle proven MG42, it is absurd that the M60 was designed and manufactured with the bipod attahced to the barrel.

The rejection of Maxim's early guns by so many countries certainly didn't mean that it was not a superior weapon, as was clearly revealed when it was issued and used in roles for which it was approrpiate.

Anyway, as I noted above, my perspective is very specifically oriented from the point of view of my own experiences with the guns rather than what is written about them.

Bob,

all the German language period literature gives just one single reason for the adaption of the LMG08/15: ease of mass production due to the use of parts from the existing models. I have never found any claim that the weapon was superior to the Madsen or the Lewis either. But it was generally considered 'good enough' given the circumstances. As to the correct use of light machine guns - there is an interesting discussion about the topic and pre-war points of view in the book by Hans Linnekohl - do you read German. Then I would very much recommend it.

regards

Matt

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Thanks Matt. What is the title of Linnekohl's book?

Robert

Robert,

title is 'Vom Einzelschuss zur Feuerwalze' - roughly 'From single shot to creeping barrage'. On the outside it looks like a book about artillery but it includes a lot of infantry and combined arms stuff. 50% is technical information but the other half is concerned with tactics and application in the field.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vom-Einzelschuss-zur-Feuerwalze-Weltkrieg/dp/3763759662/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1306156127&sr=1-2

regards

Matt

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Super. Thanks Matt. I had left off an 'n' in the author's surname. Order placed via the Forum's Amazon link.

Robert

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Ah........Bert Gummers! Yes, I do know of him and have seen his arsenal. I'm a fan!

Posting a pic of one section of my collection. It is necessarily a small pic, and hopefully not to small to be intelligible.

I'll add some more pics in subsequent posts......

MGs in the way back on AA mounts are from left to right: SG43, MG34, ZB37, MG13, FINN M09/32

Bob Naess

post-61646-0-05265600-1306199955.jpg

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Bob

Fantastic

Far better than Gummers! Thanks for posting.

Duncan

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Couple more pics of other parts of the collection. I can do a couple more in a second post below. Easy to exceed the acceptable size limit.

Bob Naess

post-61646-0-91187800-1306263411.jpgpost-61646-0-20319700-1306263299.jpg

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Couple more pics of other corners of the room. Pic to the right is of the same guns as the first pic I posted above, but using the flash so the detail is better and closer.

Bob Naess

post-61646-0-34892000-1306263793.jpgpost-61646-0-58489600-1306263779.jpg

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Couple more pics of other corners of the room. Pic to the right is of the same guns as the first pic I posted above, but using the flash so the detail is better and closer.

Bob Naess

I like the armchair set up so that you can sit and survey machine guns as far as the eye can see.

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Automatic weapons and Vincents? You have expensive though discerning tastes, sir!

Simon

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simon writes:

>Automatic weapons and Vincents? You have expensive though discerning tastes, sir!<

Perhaps it appears that way today given the interest in both these types of machinery and their current values. Having had an interest in machine guns from the age of about 10, in the early fifties, and the addictive personality to pursue them I later bought a few DEWAT MGs when I was a young teenager. DEWATs are Deactivated War Trophies, rendered inoperable and thus not requiring registration under US law at the time. Eventually, motorcycles caught my fancy as well. Although there were a lot of illegal MGs around in private hands in the sixties, which I got to shoot now and then, once I discovered that live MGs could be privately owned, I decided to go through the legal process to buy live MGs rather than risking jail shooting illegal ones. As I said, I was addicted. So, in 1970 I started buying MGs. The transfer tax at the time was $200, and still is, but back then the tax was often three or four times tha cost of the MG, and my friends thought I was nuts to pay the government a tax like that. Addiction, again. MGs were considred junk and of little interest to the growing gun collecting community in the late sixties and seventies, so were very inexpensive and there were many, many interesting and rare MGs available.

I was living in California in the sixtes and riding a motorcycle as my transportation. Over the years there, I had a number of used Brit bikes of various makes, and there were a few Vincents around, so I was familiar with them. In 1970 I went to England on my way to Venice to work in a glass factory on Murano under an art grant, and while there saw a Vincent in the window of Conways MC shop, I believe in Sheppards Bush. That kindled the idea to find a bike with a sidecar for my girlfiend to ride in and and ride it to Italy. As luck would have it, we found a nice '48 Rapide with a suitable sidecar on it for about $600 US. The shop fellows made no secret that they thought I was crazy to take it "on the continent", but I had quite a few years of repairing bikes. That took most of our money, but being young and carefree, we bought it and that was my introduction to those bikes. After three months or so in Venice, we rambled around other countries for a few weeks and then back to England where I sold the sidecar and shipped the bike back to the US. I still have it. Some years later I bought several more that were disassembled and restored them and have kept them as well.

Neither MGs or Vincents were particularly of interest to many people when I acquired them, and so were not expensive at all. Basically it was a sort of dumb luck that I got involved with the Vincenrts, but I do like 'V' twins. Although I have paid some good sums for a few of the MGs that I've bought in the last ten years, some rare examples, most of them have cost me very little. For the last twenty-five or more years I've been licensed as a manufacturer and dealer in MGs and do repairs, restorations, buy, sell, etc. Still addicted......just can't shake it.

Hope this isn't inappropriate for this board.....

Bob Naess

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