French guns and ammunition

[Tzaw1]

Good site about french ammo.
DOCUMENTS MUNITIONS INDEX

 

[CharlesBronson]

Chapter from "l'Aviation chasse française 1918-1940" (french).

Very good, that gun "cannon APX" must be the only 33mm ever. According to the text it was long recoil operated, kind of France M4 Browning. But definately that Farman fighter isnt as stremlined like the P-39 airacobra.

Weight: 150 kg

Rate of fire: 120 rpm

Muzzle velocity: 650 mps

No data on cartrigde case.

HE projectile:

33 mm Gun

 

[wheelsup_cavu]

The only French Weapon I knew about before this thread:
Chauchat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's the only one ever profiled because of all the complaints about it.


Wheels

 

[CharlesBronson]

The only French Weapon I knew about before this thread:
Chauchat - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's the only one ever profiled because of all the complaints about it.


Wheels

Evidently people here need to know more about french weapons, I would be happy to do that.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Good site about french ammo.
DOCUMENTS MUNITIONS INDEX

Great info Tz!

Evidently people here need to know more about french weapons, I would be happy to do that.

So true and that would be great!

 

[CharlesBronson]

So true and that would be great!

Let begin with WW1.

Vickers 11mm devignes:

First aircraft heavy machinegun ever. Actually designed by Vickers, but made in USA and used mostly by the France air Arm in ww1 and some in US Army Air Corps. It wasnt particulary powerful but served as inspiration for late designs as the T.u.F and M2 HMGs.
Employed mostly in ballon and Zeppelin hunt due the larger incendiary capacity of its ammunition in Spads and some Niueports.

The French were first to modify a Vickers gun to take their 11mm Desvignes cartridge.
Colt was making a large number of large caliber Vickers guns for the Russians, and this larger gun was the easiest to fit up for the French 11mm round. Initial problems were a too fast twist that made the tracer rounds disintegrate a short distance from the muzzle. Slowing the 1/10 twist to 1/22 solved the problem.
A large number of guns were ordered in England and America, totaling 1,700 from Colt.
The 11 mm Vickers fired 600 rpm with an effective incendiary tracer range of 1,850 yards.

Characteristics:

Action: short recoil

Charging: manual

Feed: Non disinrtegrable cloth por metallic belt.

Caliber: 11x59R

Rate of fire: 600 rpm

Muzzle velocity: 590-610 mps.


- Vickers 11mm

- Muzzle comparative 11mm vs ,303.

- 11mm on Nieuport

- Incendiary ammo belt.

 

[Tzaw1]

Chapter from "l'Aviation française de bombardement et de renseignement 1918-1940" (french) - bombs and defensive armament.

 

[CharlesBronson]

Good work again Tzaw, first I ever see this "new model" MAC 11 mm Machinegun.

 

[CharlesBronson]

Detaisl in early Hotchkiss gas operated MG for aircraft.

 

[CharlesBronson]

Recycled MAC 34T

Post war usage of the drum fed MAC, this is emplaced on a Morane MS 500 ( french Fi-156) side in 1957. The drum magazine was called "camembert" and housed 100 rounds. Rate of fire of this light 7,5mm machinegun was 1250 rpm. The aircraft was used on Algeria for observation and antiguerrilla.

 

[A4K]

Not entirely on the subject, but can anyone tell me what carbines the French army used in the late 1940's - early '50's?
Was told by a friend tonight that her grandfather was a French soldier who migrated to Hungary, and buried his rifle, bayonet, and ammunition in his garden, wrapped in cloths, and stored in a secure box, to avoid detection by the Russians. (This was 1952, and people's premises were inspected monthly)
He died soon after and the exact location is a mystery - we want to find it. Curious to know what sort of firearm we're looking at - she just knows it's a carbine.
Cheers, Evan

 

[CharlesBronson]

In those years the French used extensively the M1 and M2 carbines, that is the short .30 round. Another candidate could be a variant of the standar 7,5mm MAS 36 rifle. As far I know the first automatic full caliber was introduced in 1957, the MAS 49 but also they used a large collection of captured germans weapons, like the K-98 and K-43....so is not easy to say wich one.