Machines | Hotchkiss 8mm M1914 Firing
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The French army's standard heavy tripod mounted machine gun throughout the war was the Hotchkiss 8mm M1914 machine gun. Our Doughboys are shown here firing into Germany. Visit the Army Heritage and Education Center and stop by our Patron Services Division to check out books to learn more about the machine guns of WWI.
Comments
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The great George M Cohan singing his Great War tune, "Over There"...
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It's interesting to see the assistant on the RH side of the first MG policing up the brass
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Чудесная музыка Билли, и прекрасная хроника.
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A 30 round clip would be desirable due the cartridge used. The 8mm lebel had a very pronounced taper in the shell casing and this made it difficult to cycle in automatic and magazine fed weapons. They did have a 250 round belt but that was for tanks and aircraft. Belts weren't beyond the ability of the French so I guess they didn't see these clips of much of a hindrance.
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The asistant just puts one after the other endlesly, so the effect is simmular. They actually did use long belts, but just for tanks.
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It depends on the distance at which you have to fight. In mountaineous areas, a good ol' 8 mm Lebel, .303, .30-06 or 7,92 mm Mauser and so on is definitely the best choice.
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my name happens to be Hotchkiss..kinda cool
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Lol is it me or does that tune sound like the go compare advert?
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And that is how your great grandfather lost his hearing Timmy.
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Well we all can agree that the german MG08 was far more effective when it came up to defending the trench from offensive attacks. And thats not by accuracy in the first place but becuase of long and fast fire. A MG08 can fire continuely for a half minute a Hotchkis can fire like 5 seconds then reload every time
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@JSLegoMaster The issue prewar was that of patents and licensing, as in who pays who for what. The French didn't want to pay royalties to Hyram Maxim for *his* machine gun design that was adopted by the British, Germans, Russians, et al, so the French cooked up their own system which resulted in the Hotchkiss. The French got 'round the sustained fire issue by linking the strips later on for sustained fire. Even relying on the strips a trained crew could and did deliver accurate and lethal fire.
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The French at that time did not see the heavy machine gun as an infantry weapon, but rather as light artillery and grouped them as such.
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I wonder why they didnt just use a ammo belt, that 30rd strip they use is useless for a machinegun, you cant put any heavy fire on advancing troops with a such small mag.
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@pauta9 Just looking for some footage on this superb machine gun and forgot that I posted some misunderstood comment nearly a year ago , lol. Anyways your response was odd and really disproportionate for what I said.
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@pauta9 Well, he's certainly entitled to his opinion and whatever firearm/cartridge he likes, I just voiced my opinion.
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@something01992 Mr. 18yr old, you really got wargod2009... (lame name)! haha, a "proper" battle cartridge?! how about you (him) shove that cartridge up your ass!? Splendid time spent here, ty both.
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@wargod2009 I'd rather fight with a semi-auto/selectfire rifle in an intermediate caliber rather than a bolt action chambered for a "proper battle cartridge".
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2000 Meters eh? That was in the day of proper battle cartridges, not the puny ,pathetic intermediate shit they use today.