WWI Vet

[irondawn]

Question for history buffs:
When creating a CoC character who is a veteran of the Great War, what firearms would he be likely to use?

Zoran

[wombat1]

Here is a website:
http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/rifles.htm

Would depend on country.

Rifles:
U.S. Springfield M 1917
British Lee-Enfield .303

I will defer to firearms experts, but tentatively I would suggest that these are functional equivalents for game purposes.

An officer would have a pistol, of course, rather than a rifle.
British: Webley Mark IV 11.6mm
American: Colt M1911 in .45 caliber, which is impressive when it does hit, until, of course, one meets Great Thuloo, though the investigator can at least do himself in with alacrity.

The character might also have experience with such things as machine guns, or mortars, but these are not so readily available to civilians.

[nclarke]

We can add:
Russia. Mosin-Nagant M1891
France. Berthier Mle 1907/15, Chauchat LMG (hated by the US troops because the 30-06 ones had mis-machined parts in the conversion from metric 8mm to US 30-06 measurements)
Germany. Mauser 98, Bergmann MG15 nA

Pistols
Russia. Nagant M1895
France. Star 1914 Officer type (carries 7 rounds rather than 9)
Germany. Luger P08

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...of_World_War_I for more info.

Nigel

[ErikB]

Don't forget the hand grenades!

Small enough that many were kept as souvenirs.

[Camillus]

For pistols don't forget the Mauser C96 "Broom handle". It was widely used as an officers pistol in all the European armies (British officers bought their own, although it had fallen out of fashion by the Great War) but particularly in the East. There was even a version that became so associated with the Bolsheviks it was known as the Bolo Mauser.

[Roucheau]

Depending on their time in the war, American troops could have trench gun (combat shotgun) skill or even the disastrous Chauchat LMG. That last one should also require the user to put points into Club considering how often the piece of crap jammed.

[nclarke]

Roucheau, as I pointed out above the 8mm (French rifle caliber) version of the Chauchat had none of the issues that the 30-06 version had. It was down to the US need to have a version that took their 30-06 ammunition that caused the issues with rounds failing to extract properly. When they gave up on that and used the French 8mm version they only had to deal with the issues caused by the ingress of dirt into the open-sided magazines (diminished by the use of canvas covers). It was the most widely manufactured automatic weapon of WWI.

The Chauchat was a light portable machine gun that could easily be fired from the hip via a sling that clipped to a French soldiers webbing. It fired a rifle caliber round unlike some of the pistol caliber SMGs used by other combatants. It weighed only 2/3rds of the weight of the similar, but drum-fed, Lewis gun. Interestingly it uses the mechanism patented by Browning for semi-automatic rifles in 1900.

[Roucheau]

The only reason the US used the Chauchat in the first place with the US government's odd obsession with preventing the capture of the Browning Automatic Rifle the best automatic weapon of the time. Regardless of caliber, due to the initial failures, the Chauchat was loathed and had such a bad reputation nothing could salvage the weapon's reputation. Even with the canvas covers, the open magazine was an unrecoverable design flaw that merits the user having Club, knife, or other hand to hand skills to account for the weapon's relentless tendency to jam.

[nclarke]

The BAR wasn't even ordered until July 1917 and only entered production in February 1918, achieving full production in June 1918. Delivery to US troops in France started at the same time. Enough units had been delivered to France for a division by the Argonne-Meuse Offensive in September. Use in less than a major offensive was prevented by Pershing for the reason you cited. To be honest , looking at the issues the US had with getting the gun into production, it's unlikely that the Germans could have made a captured weapon into a useable, widely deployed, weapon of their own in time to make any difference to the outcome of the Great War. After their March 1918 offensive the Germans weren't in any position to need a light machine gun for the offensive.

By the time the weapon was in the hands of the US 79th Division in sufficient numbers the Germans forces had already started to crumble under the attacks of the British and French forces starting at Amiens on 8th August 1918 and finishing on November 11th.

While a competent design the faults of the BAR hardly make it "the best automatic weapon of its time". Its non-replaceable barrel and small magazine limited its effectiveness and the difficulties in field maintenance weren't dealt with for another 50 years.

[Pookie]

Here is a website:
http://www.firstworldwar.com/weaponry/rifles.htm

Would depend on country.

Rifles:
U.S. Springfield M 1917
British Lee-Enfield .303

I will defer to firearms experts, but tentatively I would suggest that these are functional equivalents for game purposes.

An officer would have a pistol, of course, rather than a rifle.
British: Webley Mark IV 11.6mm

Sir, an 11.6mm calibre weapon? What foreign tosh is this? A Webley Mk IV or Mk V .455 revolver if you please.

American: Colt M1911 in .45 caliber, which is impressive when it does hit, until, of course, one meets Great Thuloo, though the investigator can at least do himself in with alacrity.

The character might also have experience with such things as machine guns, or mortars, but these are not so readily available to civilians.

With the American infantry -- as well as other Allied militaries -- the M1917 Revolver, also in .45 calibre would have been widespread. Note that the player's favourite, the Webley-Fosbery Self-Cocking Automatic Revolver, was rare, there being only a few thousand manufactured.

Lastly, not every soldier is going to be able to bring home his guns at war's end.

[Roucheau]

While a competent design the faults of the BAR hardly make it "the best automatic weapon of its time". Its non-replaceable barrel and small magazine limited its effectiveness and the difficulties in field maintenance weren't dealt with for another 50 years.

Regardless of the BAR's issues, on it's worst day, it was better than the Chauchat on it's best day.

[ZEE]

Regardless of the BAR's issues, on it's worst day, it was better than the Chauchat on it's best day.

Roucheau, please: I'm somewhat interested in military history, including WW1's.

Just to clarify:

1-nclarke is perfectly right to distinguish between the French and US versions of the Chauchat. The French 8mm version was acceptable as a war weapon. Provided it was given casual maintenance (read: "cleaning it regularly") it worked fairly well and gave satisfaction to its users. The French soldier used it in assaults against german troops and got fine results.
2-The French Chauchat had its drawbacks: essentially an inapropriately-shaped 8mm cartridge (designed for the Lebel) that required a very careful loading operation, the gun also encountered overheating problems (but it was not alone in thise case, by then). Those reliabilty issues at its introduction in 1915 were essentialy fixed in 1917 by adapting operationnal procedures.
3-The US Chauchat version suffered a serious design flaw when the gun was converted for the US 30-06 cartridge. Apparently caused by errors of calculations made when jumping from metric measures tu US'.
4-The Chauchat had also been converted to 7,65 mm Mauser cartridges for belgian, polish and yugoslav use, and encountered none of the problem the US troops met with this LMG.
5-Most of the Chauchat's poor reputation comme from the US version, and from US soldiers complains about it... The US Army removed the Chaucht from servioce immediately after the war, but the French army kept it in service right until the mid-1920's and some 2nd line units still used them in 1940...
6-The Chauchat was used in various post-WW1 conflicts in Poland (vs. the Red army) and by French colonial troops in Morocco and Syria without much trouble...

[Gil_Trevizo]

OTOH I've also read that the French-made Chauchat was not as bad as it's reputed, specifically an officer that lead African-American troops who mostly used French equipment and said the Chauchat performed sufficiently. However, I love the (horrifically) comedic potential of inflicting the infamous idea of the Chauchat on players: "Why yes, you have a machine gun. An old trophy from the war you snuck back into the States. It's a Chauchat. Here's the range and the damage and such. No, I'm not telling you the Malfunction number. I don't want to make you cry until you start using it."

[Arlecchino]

I'm no expert on the period, but wouldn't certain elite troops in the period would have decent skill levels in Sneak and certain melee weapons - knives and "trench batons" (largely improvised wooden clubs fit with nails or banding) for covert trench raiding?

[nclarke]

People might like to note that an exhaustive firing test of the M1918 Chauchat in .30-06 was carried out in 1994 near Chambersburg, PA, by R. Keller and W. Garofalo. Their testing, which is reported in "The Chauchat Machine Rifle" volume, did expose severe extraction problems caused by incorrect chamber measurements and other sub-standard manufacturing. During World War I, in 1918, the preserved U.S. archival records also document that the American inspectors at the Gladiator factory had rejected about 40% of the .30-06 Chauchat production while the remaining 60% proved problematic whenever they reached the front lines.

So basically the US insistence on using 30-06 ammunition for ease of supply gave rise to problems when the weapons were machined to take the US rounds. My guess is that somewhere the tolerances needed to ensure the weapon didn't jam when sustained firing expanded the parts were never calculated properly leading to the problems in US service.