one poor intern engineer with a french-english dictionary, a fistful of slide rules, and a gallon of coffee

The issue of metric/imperial industrial production was a big thing about the British FAL production, I'm not making fun of it, just saying we all know that's the reason the French Army insisted on getting compatible rifles and why Remington had issues with making compatible rifles. That's also a good argument against staying with Imperial measurements in heavy industries.

The Russians had the same issue when they copied the B-29 Superfortress, and they couldn't make 1/4" aluminum for the exterior fuselage.

Dumbfuckistan at it again

Murika sill habin trouble wid metric .nuf problem wid feels.

Exophis Praise the Lord!

MrPete8680 ...Cordite Be Thy Name! 💥🔫

gun jesus lmao

The Swiss Gunsmith They were silly because they considered it to be temporary, in some cases years and millions of lives later. Oh, the last hundred offensives have done nothing? I'm sure the next one will work! That is ridiculous and nonsensical, one might even say insane considering that you're paying for every defeat in the lives of people, if nothing else destroying the military and economic might of your nation. They were silly because they were in many cases playing at war based on ideals rather than looking at what the statistics bear out. Long distance marksmanship as well as volley sights were definitely used and occasionally useful, but those do not preclude a shorter standard weapon which is going to be more useful in mobile warfare anyway. It's not looking at it with modern eyes, it's looking at it with some modicum of sense. Ffs.

Before the Great War, and since you could say you had "rifles" -- call it 1860 to 1915 (because the Great War didn't _start_ with a continuous front!) 90% of casualties are caused by rifle fire. Immense effort goes into optimizing rifles for open-field war of maneuver[1] and there you're doing two things. You're in a range contest with your infantry opposition (if your troops are better trained and get hits at 500 metres and the other fellow needs to be at 300 metres, you win; see "Boer War", a very recent influence when the Great War breaks out) and you must be able to stand off cavalry, which is tricky, because being in a dense formation is _not_ what you want against other infantry. The long rifle and the long bayonet worked in Napoleonic times and keep working in all the wars between then and the now of 1915; you _might_ be able to do it with volume of fire now that you've got repeating rifles generally issued but let's not take any rash chances. And when it comes to that range contest with the opposing infantry, long barrels are more range which is just what you want. Then the Great War happens and there's two new things on the earth. Thing one -- 10% mobilization backed by industrial economies that can keep those armies in the field. There's a continuous front from Switzerland to the sea. You can't flank; no war of maneuver. There's never been an extensive continuous front before and nobody has the least idea how to assault layers of trenches with massive depth and effectively infinite flanks; the experience is with sieges, where you're fighting whatever can be crammed into a city, not an entire army group with intact rail transport in its rear. It breaks three entire centuries of tactics since Gustavus Adolphus invented combined arms with horse, guns, and foot as complementary branches of a fielded military force. It takes several years to figure out what to do even on the part of those who were being smart about it. That's partially because of thing two; artillery with effective explosive fillers. All of a sudden, a massive proportion of casualties are due to artillery, not rifles. Fully-mobilized industrial economies can make a astonishing amount of artillery and artillery ammunition and it's a sudden awkward ramp from the initial, 76mm is our standard gun, field force to "we have 12" naval guns serving as corps-level artillery because we're in a range contest here, too". Anything you can see, the guns can grind up, and you've got observation balloons and aircraft so the guns can see a long way. This is completely new in the world. Nobody had really been expecting it. (Even the technophile navies were just starting to shift to director fire control, for example.) So the two things you know in 1916 are that one, rifles aren't a decisive arm[3] right now, and two, you have no real idea what might be effective. You're in a condition of logistical overstrain trying to make enough rolling stock, aircraft engines, artillery barrels, artillery shells, and small arms cartridges because you never expected the war to last this long -- it couldn't, Imperial Germany is cut off from their sources of nitrates, they should be out of ammo and farm fertilizers by now! [2] -- and you didn't expect just how much ammo machine guns were going to require, either. Getting inventive with rifles under those circumstances is not to be expected; the problem is to make sure you have enough in the field, because you sure didn't expected sustained 10% mobilization, either. (which means you've got food issues, clothing issues, and general economic problems and threatened social collapse; it's not far off to point out that the Great War destroyed the system of government of every major combatant.) [1] post-Boer war P14/Service Rifle No. 3 (Ian has a video!) doesn't quite make it into British service; the improved cartridges don't quite make it into French service, either. [2] Haeber-Tropsch artificial nitrogen fixation, instead of getting nitrates by mining bird guano. Went from lab toy to massive production very, very fast. Didn't keep the RN blockade from working eventually, but it sure did keep anybody from being home by Christmas. [3] rifles have never been a decisive arm since, either.

Graydon Saunders And generally you are correct with a few modifying factors. A few things: longer barrels don't mean a greater range using smokeless powder, and as shown with modern firearms actually create a number of problems with accuracy at greater ranges. A greater maximum effective range, but full size rifle cartridges already have ranges beyond even the extremely optimistic iron sights of the time (those designed for direct fire, as with volley fire you just need it to be within lethal range not effective range). Range beyond a few hundred meters only matters for rifles when they aren't outranged by artillery anyway, so I'd say aside from specialists, short carbines would be fine. The smart thing with rifles was to just produce as many of the easiest to make carbines you have and drop the long rifles as standard where possible, as well as to refocus production like seemingly the french did. Save money and time, make a more convenient gun. Because the long rifles are inappropriate as a standard issue longarm if you aren't engaging in long distance rifle duels (a silly thing to do in the first place if there is artillery avaliable; even at the time just slap volley sights on shorter rifles and be done with it by being able to treat every unit as light artillery, then don't bother). Cavalry? Just shoot them ffs. Small arms haven't been a decisive arm since due to the proliferation of decent armament and a lack of many major changes since (can't think of any examples of pure bolt action armies going up against those with assault rifles), as well as a lack of similar wars because why put men in danger when you can just shell them or drop a bomb especially in what are mostly bush wars or wars of production? But if someone comes out with something truly revolutionary, there's a possibility. A lot of this seems to be the confluence of established military tradition as well as the assumptions therein, and the reality of the time which disagreed with it. But that is the entire nature of that war, a war of misconceptions and entrenched thought as well as men. Most who could do something seemed to assume that nothing could change and that the way they saw the world was correct; when confronted, they were slow to adapt and therefore afterwards the changes destroyed them. They did not look to what was happening as well as the statistics and draw conclusions off of it, they looked at what they thought was going on and drew circular conclusions off of that. It's not that they didn't look forward, but when the time came they refused reality. "They didn't expect" or "couldn't adapt" is the mainstay of your comment, and that's the whole point. They were not flexible, and even years after it was proven conclusively to not work out were actively destroying their countries by killing millions of their countrymen. The rifles are just one example of it. That is idiocy.

Excellent overview of a vast bubject. Thank you.

farmerboy916 You can't expect anybody in 1916 to know what we know now, though. (No computing machinery! Rather limited mechanical calculators. Statistics is very, very slow and painful when you're tabulating things by hand. Not enough high speed anything, no ability to do the fluid dynamics math; look at meplat sometime, it was "well, hell, that matters" and a massive exercise in empiricism.) And they quite sincerely associated longer barrels with more range because they knew you got more muzzle velocity from a longer barrel. (There was a big and ongoing effort to make longer, in calibers, artillery tubes for just that reason.) The mental-model switch to recognizing that you are after effective range instead of maximum range still hasn't entirely happened today. At the time? _Three hundred years_ of horse, guns, and foot. Two whole generations of march tables and marksmanship as *the* way to win. Just a decade previously, it had taken a ridiculous investment of money and manpower for the British Empire to beat the Boers in south Africa because the Boers had had better effective rifle range. Ten years later, quite suddenly, no. Not like that. You can't just stop; the other side's objectives include destroying you, at least politically. (Imperial Germany's war aims were territorial, not political. The customs of the time made it very hard to recover territory the other side was standing on. From the French perspective, this has to be fought to a decision or they don't get important parts of their country back; there might not be a France afterward.) You quite literally don't know what to do, or how to do it. And whatever you try, you can't lose. Both individual people and social organizations have a limited ability to change. (For a really easy example, watch the generational and class components of how smartphones are viewed socially today.) And _everything_ had to change, because while the mythology of the Western Front is one of pointless stalemate, what actually happened was a whole bunch of almost losing. It came close to a battlefield decision several times, in both directions, and it was obvious by 1915 that it was a fight for survival. (for "being on the losing side was expected to result in complete destruction of the losing political system" values of survival, not "general nuclear exchange" values of survival.) It was decided by logistics and social collapse in the end, but little tiny amounts either way could have led to a decisive battlefield result. (You can argue that the Imperial German social collapse was a result of their battlefield defeats, rather than a cause, too. It was all interconnected.) Everyone was aware of "we almost lost", aware of the degree of social strain, and aware that they were destroying their cultural norms to not lose in ways they didn't understand. (Women's suffrage comes in post-Great War in large part because you can't keep making "weaker sex" arguments after women have run the picric acid shell filling production lines. It's just not possible without a complete disdain for facts.) The social machinery and literal physical machinery aren't there; someone has to build it, right now, without be sure what works. (Hitler's War avoids shell shortages -- a massive ongoing concern all through the Great War -- by having having automated factories ready to go. The Great War solution involved teaching a whole bunch of women how to use a lathe. The capacity for the automation was built later, in response; it doesn't exist in 1916.) So, sure, is it more optimal to have a shorter, lighter, handier long arm during the Great War? Absolutely. Is this important enough to get to the top of the priority production queue when you never expected to need gas masks? No. Not even close. You're going to keep making what you were making because that's the cheapest way to get enough rifles and you suddenly need all this other unexpected stuff. (One of the "unexpected stuff" things is a completely different banking system, and thus economy. Can't run a war of sustained national mobilization on the gold standard...) This is all stuff that never happened to the US, as well; the United States is pretty much unique out of "First World" countries in not having been defined as a modern country by what happened to it during the Great War. It can make it difficult to apply an American perspective.

Good news!

I think the berthier was more accurate

Ian would have to perform a miracle , turning 30-06 into 8 m.m. Lebel... With a wave of his hand...

@@achillebelanger989 Not true... PPU makes to spec new production 8mm Lebel ammo for around $1 a shot or less.

@@GrySgtBubba also balle N surplus is still occasionally available

@@anthonyhayes1267 not useful in older berthiers though

MrPete8680 Its beginning to be a curse. No offence Ian!

Can you do a video on that rifle you found?

There are reasons for that. Certain French Arsenal men sent over specifications made to be purposely deceiving. They did NOT want a U.S. Firm to make their weapons...at ALL. Especially not as good ...or better and faster! We had problems with the Imperial Russian Inspector too! My Father was born in 1908. He grew up in War Production Mills and Factories. My Grandfather Managed them and was a Strike Fixer. Remington was one of the Plants that my Family was involved in. Also the United Cartridge Company. Some of Remington's Berthier Rifles made it to France. They WERE accepted ( for Colonial French Troop's use. Engineering/ Pioneer Companies.) Our African American National Guard Troops from N.Y., Pennsylvania and Connecticut were lent to the French. They received USED French Colonial Uniforms and gear...and Remington Berthier Rifles rejected for Regular French Army use. Long after the World War ended, the French sent battlefield relic Remington rifles back to the United States. The are known as Ossuary Rifles. A suggestion to Franco-Phone Gun Jesus... An Ossuary Rifle show.

That came form C&Rsenal.

Pendant la guerre des tranchée qui était nouveau il on fait des essais de plusieurs système même les plus fou fusil avec périscope Fusil a tirer dans les coins plusieurs fusil semi automatique Beaucoup d'expérience on était faite les fusil semi automatique était bien réussi pas,assez résistant a la boue problème surtout de la munition a bourrelet avec des enrayage sinon qui fonctionnais bien

Form follows function - Both use rimmed cartridges.

I agree! A lot of thing to say about the belgian wonderful armory history.

Think of it as a spear, if another soldier and yourself are going at each other, would you rather have the short spear or the longer one, who is going to hit the other first?

Most like a postwar rebuild.

They No, they were not serialised until they were accepted. The inspector would accept an unserialised gun, THEN the gun would be serialised AND THEN shipped and issued.

The cleaning rod when unit is at rest. In the field they used a string cleaning device with a short brass rod (lavoir à ficelle=> string cleaner) and calibrated patches

Ammo was issued both in clips for the Berthiers and also in loose packets for the Lebel.

But fortunately i think theyre most ww1 or older cuz france started making the model 1916s and converted most of the 07-15s to 5 shot configuration. The rti ones ive seen have early dates and theyre all 3 shot ones so thats a good sign. Also the n marked ones were converted in 1916 so they are at least that old

Probably ease of manufacturing. Simpler and quicker to produce a straight bolt.

A straight bolt also gives better leverage to open the bolt if it's dirty or jammed and for extracting sticky cartridges (If all else fails you can literally kick it). In the quagmire of the trenches that was probably preferred over not having it poke you in the kidneys when you marched with it on your back. Toughen up, Pierre!

I'm quite sure the nickname "Fishing rod" ("Canne à pêche") first applied to the Lebel, not the Berthier.

First applied, yup. But the berthier got it too. Both were extremely long with the bayonet fixed.

I would imagine it has to do with how the previous rifles had the straight bolts. Might not want to change the training or the guns being based off their single shot blackpowder bolt action!

Stephen Weiler Repeater/Repeating rifle or pistol.

Repetition firearms would be that term, I think

Stephen Weiler Manually operated, or repeating firearms, all I can think of.

nick fletcher About as long as every other nation that thought 30" barrels and saber length bayonets were a good idea. It wasn't until about 1917 that most nations started really recognizing and adopting shorter rifles and regular fighting knife sized bayonets as better options in the trench.

It's practical enough during the assault (or defending) stage on a trench, and afterwards nothing nothing but a pistol or revolver was really practical. Bayonets as a whole turned out pretty stupid in WWI though, because nobody formed up lines and marched at each other anymore (which is where a long bayonet makes all the difference). If you're jumping into a trench and don't have a pistol, a shovel is a better tool than any long knife...

In the first year or two of WW1, cavalry was still a serious threat to the infantry - or at least had been envisaged as a threat in open warfare. Thus a long reach with the rifle and bayonet had been a prerequisite for the infantry arm. The other reason was, of course, that that the infantry still needed a long reach with the bayonet if the opposing infantry had such a weapon. They also had no real way of anticipating the new style of trench warfare ten or twenty years in advance, which is when they had to design, develop and manufacture their principle arms.

I'm fully aware of the trench bayonet I'm saying that it's kinda funny for a 4 foot long rifle in a close quarters battle that a 2 foot long bayonet is kinda useless unless your using it as a pick for hand to hand fighting and even then it's impractical. And even then your not really gonna need one if you have an entrenching tool or some club to fight them off with.

nick fletcher but it was so useful for cooking goose over a slow fire...

The quillon was deleted during the war, around 1916. The handles were also made of different materials. If I recall correctly, the Remington ones were made without the quillon but with the nickel-silver (also known as German silver and maillechort, it has no actual silver in it) handles.

Duco Maritiem Just wait for the M16 variant/modification. I think that will answer your question.

Yessir. M-16 will answer all your prayers....... almost

Look up the Berthier 1916 variant

Easier to make

munkSWE88 I'd assume it to prevent an opponent bayonet sliding down the underside of the rifle towards you, at the start of the war all nations were drilling soldiers on a type of bayonet fighting that just never happened on the field it's the reason they have such ridiculously long bayonets on the early guns it was thought the extra reach would be an advantage

To catch a blade if you're using the bayonet without the rifle. Or when fending off a sabre strike, only to then push forward afterwards - with the bayonet on your rifle, you have a longer reach over the sabre (especially when the other guy sits on a horse). Remember that WWI was drastically different from basically any war fought before, so many old ideas were proven to be complete nonsense when applied to this extremely different environment.

Not really suited to a clip-feeder.

Ah, yes. You're obviously right. I feel a little silly now :P Thanks for the reply at any rate.

Continsouza only manufactured receivers, not actual guns. Their receivers were sent to the main state arsenals for assembly into complete rifles.