Mitrailleuse
Mitrailleuse de Reffye a.k.a. "Canon a Balles" (1866) | |
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Wars | Franco-Prussian War Yaqui Wars United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1916–1924) |
Production history | |
Designer | J.B. Verchere de Reffye |
Designed | 1865 |
Manufacturer | Meudon and Nantes government facilities |
Produced | 1866–71 |
No. built | About 400 |
Specifications | |
Mass | 340 kilograms (750 lb) with carriage: 855 kilograms (1,885 lb) |
Length | 1.75 m |
Shell | elongated shotgun shell configuration, center fire, 50-gram (770 grain) patched bullet |
Caliber | 13 mm (.512 caliber) |
Rate of fire | 125 rounds/minute |
Effective firing range | 1,800 metres (2,000 yd) |
Maximum firing range | 3,400 metres (3,700 yd) |
A mitrailleuse (French pronunciation:
A steel block containing twenty-five 13 mm (.51 calibre)
Although innovative and capable of good ballistic performance, the Reffye mitrailleuse was a tactical failure because its basic concept and operational use were flawed. Only 210 Reffye mitrailleuses were in existence at the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Their field use was discontinued by the French Army after 1871. After the Gatling gun was replaced in service by newer recoil- or gas-operated weapons, multi-barrelled weapons fell into disuse for many decades. Some examples were developed during the interwar years but only as prototypes or were rarely used. The word mitrailleuse became the generic term for a machine gun in the French language because of its early appearance in the field of weapons, although the mitrailleuse was manually operated.
Origin
The first "mitrailleuse" was a manually fired 50-barrel
Technical characteristics
Design
Several variants of the mitrailleuse concept were developed, with common elements to all of their designs. They were characterized by a number of
The ammunition plate or block had to be removed by hand before another loaded plate could be inserted. Unlike in the Gatling gun and later rapid-firing automatic weapons, the entire loading and firing process was manual. The mitrailleuse's major innovation was that it greatly increased the speed of these processes when compared to standard infantry rifles of the era.[5]
The different variants of the mitrailleuse concept were distinguished by their number of barrels and their different calibers, as the following table summarizes.
Variant name | Barrels | Barrel arrangement | Caliber | Date1 | Notes |
Fafschamps | 50 | Clustered | 1851 | Needle fire, paper cartridges. Prototype and drawings | |
Christophe-Montigny | 37 | Clustered | 11 mm (0.4 in) |
1863 | Privately developed and used primarily by the Belgian Army |
Reffye | 25 | In five rows (5 × 5) | 13 mm (0.5 in) |
1865 | Widely used by the French Army during the Franco-Prussian War |
Bollée | 30 | Two circular rings (18 in the outer ring, 12 in the inner) | 13 mm (0.5 in) |
1870 | Used by the French Army of the Loire during the Franco-Prussian War[6]
|
Chevalier et Grenier | 16 | Two horizontal rows (2 × 8) | 11 mm (0.4 in) |
1870 | |
Gabert | 04 | Four barrels each with two chambers. While four chambers are in use, four are reloaded.2 | 11 mm (0.4 in) |
1870 | Tripod-mounted, unlike the other carriage-mounted variants |
Notes: [1] Date developed [2] Translated from the website: www.mitrailleuse.fr/Historique/Aballes/Aballes.htm |
Most variants of the mitrailleuse were mounted on an artillery-style carriage. This made them heavy and cumbersome to handle on the battlefield, with gun and carriage weighing up to 900 kg (2,000 lb).
Ammunition and firing rates
The mitrailleuse's dependence on manual loading meant that its firing rate depended greatly on the skill of its operators. A skillfully manned Reffye mitrailleuse could sustain four volleys (100 rounds) per minute in ordinary operation and reach five volleys (125 rounds) per minute during emergencies. The rapidity of discharge of each individual volley (25 rounds) was controlled by the gunner's action on a small manual crank on the right side of the breech. The weapon's 25 barrels were not discharged all at once, but in rapid succession. Because it was so heavy (1,500 lbs), the Reffye mitrailleuse did not recoil during firing and thus did not need to be re-sighted on its target after each volley. This essential absence of recoil during firings was promoted by Reffye as a considerable advantage over conventional field artillery. Each regular battery of Reffye mitrailleuses lined up six guns firing together, more or less side by side.
The Reffye mitrailleuse used a 13 mm (.512 inch)
The 13 mm
In summary, the Reffye mitrailleuse was rarely used to deliver sweeping fire at close range like modern machine guns. The mitrailleuse six-gun batteries had been designed to deliver fire on targets too distant to be reached with Chassepot infantry rifles or artillery grapeshot. To fulfill this role, at least during the early weeks of the campaign, the mitrailleuses were deployed together with the older "Napoleon" muzzle loaded field guns ("canon obusier de 12") used by the French Army during the Franco-Prussian War. The mitrailleuse crews are on record of having generally objected to being placed in proximity to regular artillery batteries.
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Reffye mitrailleuse mechanism
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Magazine plate of abreechbefore firing
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Reffye mitrailleuse bullet magazine housing
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Section of the 25-barrel Reffye mitrailleuse ("Canon à balles"), 1897
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Reffye mitrailleuse muzzle
Development
The mitrailleuse is best known for its service with the French Army but in fact it was first used in Belgium in the 1850s as a static weapon to defend the moats of fortresses. It was a 50-barrel needle fire, paper cartridge weapon which had been designed by a Captain
The French military became interested in the Christophe and Montigny mitrailleuse in 1863 and the French Army's Artillery Committee undertook an investigation into the possible adoption of the Belgian weapon. However it was decided to do otherwise and to create a proprietary mitrailleuse weapon by sole French industrial means. In May 1864, General
A total of 215 mitrailleuses and five million rounds of ammunition had been manufactured by July 1870, but only 190 were operational and available for field service when war with Prussia broke out.
Operational doctrine
The French Army used the mitrailleuse as an artillery weapon, rather than an infantry support weapon—a role later filled by the machine gun. As a matter of fact, the official name of the Reffye mitrailleuse in the French Army was "le Canon à Balles", a designation that translates literally as: "cannon that fires bullets":
Comparing the fire of the Mitrailleuse to that of the rifle is misunderstanding the role of the Mitrailleuse. This weapon must begin to fire with effectiveness only at ranges where the rifle no longer carries. It must, for the great ranges of 1000 to 2500 metres compensate the insufficiency of grapeshot.
— Auguste Verchère de Reffye.[11]
Having been developed by the artillery they were, naturally, manned by artillerymen and attached to artillery groups equipped with regular four-pounder field guns.[12] Each mitrailleuse battery comprised six guns, each with a crew of six. One man on the front right fired the gun while another man on the front left swiveled the gun sideways for sweeping fire. The four other men attended to aiming, loading, and unloading. Auguste Verchère de Reffye himself consistently viewed the mitrailleuse as an artillery weapon:
The use of the Mitrailleuse no longer has anything in common with that of normal cannon, the employment and task of this piece deeply modify artillery tactics… Very few officers understand the use of this weapon which, however, is only dangerous by the manner one uses it… The partisans of the mitrailleuse are found among the young who crewed them during the war; but there are far fewer among superior officers.
— Auguste Verchère de Reffye, 1875.[11]
The battlefield use of the mitrailleuse as artillery was a fatally flawed concept. To avoid being hit by Dreyse rifle fire, the mitrailleuse batteries were systematically deployed beyond about 1,400 m (1,500 yards) from the Prussian lines. Although the maximum range of the mitrailleuses was 3,400 m (3,700 yards), the distances at which they were typically engaged rarely exceeded 2,000 m (2100 yards) which was less than the reach of French field artillery. However accurate fire at 1500 yards was always extremely difficult to achieve with the typical open sights present on the mitrailleuse. For instance, mitrailleuse bullet impacts on the ground could not be observed in the far distance unless enemy ranks had been disrupted by hits from them. It may be noted that modern machine guns are typically used at ranges far shorter than their maximum range—the M60 machine gun, for instance, is normally used at an effective range of 1,100 m (1,200 yards), compared to its maximum range of 3,725 m (4,074 yards). The mitrailleuse, by contrast, was often used at the outer edges of its range and without the benefit of optical range finding equipment. These deficiencies in the operational usage of the Reffye mitrailleuse proved disastrous in the Franco-Prussian War.
Use in war
Franco-Prussian War (1870–71)
Mitrailleuses were used in many of the major engagements of the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), but their small numbers greatly restricted their effectiveness. Their flawed usage was a serious problem on the battlefield. While the mitrailleuses were inherently accurate, in a ballistic sense, they were often unable to zero in on targets quickly enough at great distances. Individual 25 round salvos were also too tightly grouped and lacked lateral dispersion. To make matters worse, the complex firing mechanism was vulnerable to damage at the hands of inexperienced crews. Fouling of the mechanism by black powder combustion residues and thus difficulties in closing the breech were reported as a problem after prolonged firings.
In a few instances where the Reffye mitrailleuses were put to good use, they showed that they could have a significant impact. Captain Barbe's mitrailleuse battery at the Battle of Gravelotte devastated massed Prussian infantry when they had quickly found the range on their targets, contributing to the exceptionally high Prussian death toll in that battle. Other examples of effective mitrailleuse fire have also been described for the battle of Mars-la-Tour. For the most part, however, mitrailleuses proved ineffective. It was concluded after the war that Chassepot rifle fire had caused a far greater number of Prussian casualties than the Reffye mitrailleuses. However, about 100,000 Chassepot rifles were engaged in combat in contrast with fewer than 200 Reffye mitrailleuses used in battle at any given time.
The Prussians and foreign observers were not impressed by the performance of the mitrailleuse. In the case of the Prussians, their views were undoubtedly coloured by propaganda. They had very few machine guns or volley guns of their own and, not least for reasons of maintaining morale in the face of a new weapon technology, they scorned the effectiveness of the mitrailleuse. They nonetheless saw the weapon as a threat and Prussian artillery always made it a priority to engage and destroy mitrailleuse batteries. The weapon's characteristic "snarling rasp" does appear to have made some impression—the Prussian troops called the mitrailleuse the Höllenmaschine ("Hell/Infernal Machine")[13]
Its failure to have much effect in the field led to a belief that rapid-fire weapons were useless.[14] United States Army General William Babcock Hazen, who observed the war, commented that "The French mitrailleuse had failed to live up to expectations. The Germans hold it in great contempt, and it will hardly become a permanent military arm."[15] Strictly speaking, manually operated volley guns such as the Reffye mitrailleuse were a technological dead-end, and they were soon replaced by fully automatic machine guns.
After Napoleon III's abdication following the disastrous French defeat in the
The manufacture of the mitrailleuse and its ammunition was resumed under the direction of De Reffye in the coastal city of Nantes in western France. An additional 122 mitrailleuses were manufactured in Nantes to replace the nearly 200 mitrailleuses that had already been destroyed or captured.
After the war
After the armistice with Prussia in May 1871, one of the last recorded uses of Reffye mitrailleuses was by troops under the command of Adolphe Thiers, when a battery executed captured Communards in the Bois de Boulogne, following the suppression of the Paris Commune. Similar incidents involving the Reffye mitrailleuse are reported to have taken place at the Caserne Lobau, a barracks in the center of Paris.
A fairly large number of the French Army's Reffye mitrailleuses (268 altogether) survived the Franco-Prussian War. An additional 122 Reffye mitrailleuses, which had been captured during the 1870–71 campaign, were all sold back to France by Germany through a London military surplus dealer in 1875. By 1885, many of the mitrailleuses in the overall remaining French inventory were designated to static point-defence duties, for the purpose of providing flanking fire in the moats of eastern French fortifications. The last surviving Reffye mitrailleuses were removed from several forts in eastern France as late as 1908 and scrapped.
Other campaigns
The mitrailleuse is reported to have been used by the Mexican Federal Forces against the
In September 1926, the Mexican military, at first just under General Miguel Pina, made preparations to use the mitrailleuse against the Yaqui people in Sonora, then led by their military chief Luis Matus (Matius in some later accounts), and his lieutenant, Albin Cochemea.[17] The 1st, 8th, and 18th infantry battalions prepared to bring a more modern state of warfare against the indigenous inhabitants of Vicam and other Yaqui pueblos along the river. By October 5, after intense fighting, the remaining Yaqui soldiers had retreated to the mountains above the river, and the Mexican forces decided to mount a vast offensive against them. More than 12,000 Mexican Federal troops, under the command of General Obregon, General Abundio-Gomez, and General Manzo, directed the operations against the remaining Yaqui forces, using munitions that included 8mm mitrailleuse, and aeroplanes carrying poison gas.[18]
Following their campaign against
Even the
Impact on military development
The long-term effects of the mitrailleuse's poor performance have been the subject of some dispute among historians. In Machine Guns: An Illustrated History, J. Willbanks argues that the weapon's ineffectiveness in the Franco-Prussian War resulted in long-standing opposition among European armies to adopting machine gun weapons, particularly in
In the immediate aftermath of the war, the French put a much greater emphasis on improving their field artillery. The failure of French artillery during the 1870–71 campaign served as a strong incentive to fast track the
Despite such improvements in longer-range artillery, there still remained a need to develop better short- and medium-range infantry support weapons. During the period from 1871 to the 1890s, a variety of new European- and American-designed manual machine guns were adopted by many European armies. Large numbers of Gatling guns were purchased from the United States and were used by Western European powers in colonial wars in Africa, India, and Asia. Twenty-five Gatling guns also saw active service in French hands during the Franco-Prussian war, in early 1871. They performed particularly well at an engagement at Le Mans in western France. Furthermore, the French armed services purchased, for their navy and eastern fortifications, a large number of manual, rapid fire 37 mm multi-barrel guns (so-called Hotchkiss "canon-revolvers") made in France after 1879 by the firm of American expatriate Benjamin B. Hotchkiss. By the 1890s however, European armies began to retire their Gatling guns and other manual machine guns in favor of fully automatic machine guns, such as the Maxim gun, the Colt–Browning M1895, and, in 1897, the Hotchkiss machine gun. Such weapons became universal—and notorious—with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.
Modern uses of the term mitrailleuse
A machine gun is still referred to as a mitrailleuse in French, following the pattern set by the adoption of the Mitrailleuse Hotchkiss in 1897. The
In Dutch as spoken in the Netherlands, the word mitrailleur is widely used as a synonym for machinegeweer (machine gun). Obviously, this word is derived from the original mitrailleuse by changing the gender of the French word. In Dutch-speaking parts of Belgium, however, the word mitrailleur is rarely used, largely because it is regarded as poor French.
The term is also used in
In Turkish the term mitralyöz, which is apparently derived from mitrailleuse, was widely used as a synonym for machine guns before becoming an archaic term. Currently, makineli tüfek (machine rifle) is considered the accepted term.
A related word, metralhadora, is used in Portuguese. Although it is derived from the French mitrailleuse, its pronunciation is different. It describes any automatic firearm. Similarly, in Spanish ametralladora is the word for a machine gun, metralleta, connected to French mitraillette for a sub-machine gun.
The word also survived in Romania, where the generic term for a machine gun is mitralieră. In Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian it is mitraljez, and in Albanian a machine gun is referred to as mitraloz. In Greek, mydraliovolo (μυδραλιοβόλο) is a—now somewhat archaic—term for a machine gun.
The word mitrailleuse is surely the source for the modern Italian term: Mitragliatrice, describing a machine gun, as well.
Preserved mitrailleuses
- Hotel Des Invalides. Two mitrailleuses long mounted outdoors thus severely affected by rust.
- Musée royal de l’Armée et d'Histoire Militaire in Brussels
- Musee Militaire Vaudois, 1110, Morges, Switzerland. Complete Reffye mitrailleuse in exceptional like-new condition.
- Dreiecklandmuseum, 79423, Heitersheim (near Freiburg im Breisgau), Germany.
- Parade Hall, Spandau Citadel , Berlin, Germany. A mitrailleuse manufactured in 1867,named after General Bosquet, is on exhibition inside the armory.
- Bundeswehr Military History Museum in Dresden, Germany. See figure to the right.
- Polish Army Museum in Warsaw, Poland. A mitrailleuse named after general Louis Pailhou.
- Coronado Star Park on Coronado Island, CA. Donated to the city by Major General Joseph Henry Pendleton
See also
Notes
- ^ "Marines in the Dominican Republic 1916-1924" (PDF).
- ^ Wahl, Paul; Toppel, Donald R (1965), The Gatling Gun, p. 43,
Subject of all this secrecy was the twenty-five-year-old Fafschamps-Montigny Mitrailleuse, warmed over by De Reffye. This weapon was invented in 1851
. - ^ Hutchison, Graham Seton (1938), Machine Guns: Their History and Tactical Employment, p. 9,
In 1851, some twenty years before the outbreak of the Franco–German War, Captain Fafschamps, a Belgian officer, offered drawings of an invention to a fellow countryman, Monsieur Montigny
. - ^ Machine Guns by James H. Willbanks p.35
- ^ Terry Gander, Machine Guns, p. 13 (Crowood Press, 2003)
- ^ S Shann, The French Army 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War, p. 39 (Osprey Publishing, 1991)
- ^ a b c Huon, 1986
- ^ Huon, Jean. Military rifle and machine gun cartridges (Arms & Armor Press, 1988)
- ^ McCormick, Dr. William, "On the Surgical Practice of the War" (Pall Mall Gazette, 1870)
- ^ S Shann, L Delperier, French Army of Franco-Prussian War: Imperial Troops, p. 35–36 (Osprey Publishing, 1991)
- ^ a b The Mitrailleuse by Dr. Patrick Marder Military History Online
- ^ David Nicolle, Gravelotte-St. Privat 1870, p. 25 (Osprey Publishing, 1993)
- ^ Geoffrey Wawro, The Franco-Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870–1871 (Cambridge University Press, 2003)
- ^ Julian S. Hatcher, Hatcher's Notebook, p. 74 (1962)
- ^ Stig Forster, On the Road to Total War: The American Civil War and the German Wars of Unification, 1861–1871, p. 602 (Cambridge University Press, 1997)
- ^ H. H. Bancroft, History of Mexico, Vol. VI, p. 462. (The History Company, San Francisco, 1888)
- ^ Harwood, Dix (1927). Viva Mexico y Mueran Los Tiranos. Quoted in: Getting and Writing the News. New York, New York: George H. Doran Company. p. 127.
- ^ C., P. (1927). "La Révolte des Indiens Yaqui". Journal de la société des américanistes Année (in French). 19: 404–405. Retrieved 9 September 2018.
- S2CID 163027192.
- ^ John Walter, Allied Small Arms of World War One, p.47 (Crowood Press, 2000)
References
- Thomas Adriance, The Last Gaiter Button: A Study of the Mobilization and Concentration of the French Army in the War of 1870, New York, 1987. OCLC 16718174.
- Richard Holmes, The Road to Sedan, London, 1984. ISBN 0-391-03163-5. pp. 206–208.
- Jean Huon, Military Rifle and Machine Gun Cartridges, Ironside International Publications, 1986, ISBN 9780935554052. Contains detailed descriptions, with photos, of the Reffye and Montigny mitrailleuse ammunition.
- Cmdt Frederic Reboul, Le Canon a Balles en 1870 (The Reffye Mitrailleuse in 1870), 163 pages, 1910, Librairie Militaire Chapelot, Paris. OCLC 459713766. The only complete and fully documented original French military source, it was published in 1910. Hard to find but can be consulted at the "Service Historique de la Defense", Fort de Vincennes near Paris.
- Reglement sur le Service des Bouches a Feu de Campagne. Deuxieme partie : "Service du Canon a Balles",163 pages, Ministere de la Guerre, PARIS, Imprimerie Nationale, 1875. The complete period official instruction manual on the "Canon a Balles". Also at "Service Historique de la Defense".
External links
- The Mitrailleuse - key characteristic, combat experience a hby Dr. Patrick Marder. A highly detailed, thoroughly documented account published on the Web.
- The Mitrailleuse - development, combat experience
- Animations and description of operation (Requires QuickTime, and not suitable for slow-speed links).
- YouTube : "mitrailleuse 1867" ( excellent animated simulation of Reffye mitrailleuse loading and firing )