|
The Chassepot, or fusil reglementaire modèle 1866, was the primary French infantry weapon during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, up until the introduction of the Gras rifle in 1874.
The Chassepot was a bolt-action breech-loading needle rifle of 11 millimeters in caliber, firing combustible cartridges.
The bullet weighed 25 grammes and the initial velocity readings varied from 400 to 430 meters per second.
Maximum range was determined by the Ecole de Tir in 1870 to be somewhat over 2750 meters at an inclination of 27.02 degrees.
Practical effective range was considered to be 1700 meters at an inclination of 7 degrees.
The rate of fire, accuracy, penetration, and power of the Chassepot were many times superior of its predecessor's, the model 1857 muzzle-loading rifle of 17.8 millimeters.
More importantly, the Chassepot was also considerably superior to the M62 Dreyse equipping the bulk of the German armies in 1870.
According to the report of War Minister Marshal Niel as reported in the Moniteur of 26 May 1868, the new Chassepot multiplied the French infantry's firepower: "An army of 20,000 men, equipped with this destructive machine, could shoot, per minute, 280,000 shots, and strike down 56,000 of the enemy, if the fire on the battlefield were as accurate as target practice. With this prodigious weapon, victory and defeat can be decided in a few minutes. A score of file fires will end a battle. One will attack at a quarter league's distance, almost without seeing one another. Before being able to approach, the new rifles will have completed the work of extermination: the enemy, frantic and decimated, will be put to flight. Thus, even the cannon itself is obsolete, and the soldier one may say, has lightning in his hands(La foudre en main)." This commentary by Niel, the French Minister of War and the architect of military reform, is surely significant. The Moniteur was the official organ of the French government, read with as much care in Berlin, London, Saint-Petersburg, and Vienna, as it was in France. Therefore, it is very likely that Niel's declaration served both domestic and international policy objectives. With the deployment of the Chassepot, Niel was serving notice to the Great Powers of the French army's renewed potency. But my feeling is that Niel's declaration is more than grandiloquence aimed for foreign consumption: it reflects a real attitude at the highest levels of the French leadership that the new weapon did actually represent a fundamental and decisive shift in the military balance in France's favor. Two years later, with war declared and the French and German armies mobilizing, the French Prime Minister, Emile Ollivier told a British correspondent of the Daily News that matters were out of his hands: it was now all up to the Chassepot. French military and diplomatic policy had effectively become a mere function of military hardware.
| Percentage of Hits-Standard French Targets |
| Distance Meters |
200 |
400 |
600 |
800 |
1000 |
| "Old Rifle" (M57) |
30.8 |
15.8 |
8.3 |
-- |
-- |
| M66 Line Inf. Little Practice |
35.6 |
26.2 |
19.7 |
14.3 |
8.2 |
| M66 Guards Good Practice |
59.4 |
37.3 |
26.0 |
21.0 |
16.0 |
| M66 Guards Chasseurs Excellent Practice |
69.8 |
46.6 |
36.1 |
28.4 |
27.7 |
|
Dossiers at the French Army Archives at Vincennes (the S.H.A.T-Service Historique de l'Armée de Terre) seem to bear out this published account.
According to trials carried out in May 1867 by the Chasseurs batallion of the 1st Division and the Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard, two-rank fires for three minutes under less than ideal conditions resulted in 25.4% hits at 600 meters on a target 50 meters long and 2 meters high; 11,385 bullets were fired by 650 men, the average per soldier being 23, which yields a rate of fire of more than 7 aimed rounds a minute — significantly better than the 5 rpm normally achieved by the German weapon.
These results marked a clear improvement in shooting practice over earlier weapons.
In one unit previously armed with the M53 carbine, the proportion of first-class shots (in the French army at this time, shooters were classified into three classes A, B, and C, with 'A' being the best) passed from 1 in 7 to 4 in 7 with the Chassepot.
The Chassepot's superiority over the Dreyse stemmed mainly from its more modern ammunition, with better aerodynamics (cross-sectional density), higher powder/bullet (25 grammes/5.6 grammes powder or 1:4.46 for the M66 as opposed to 31 grammes/4.85 grammes powder or 1:6.4 for the Dreyse) ratio, factors which gave it higher muzzle and terminal velocities.
The Chassepot's muzzle velocity was 30% higher than the Dreyse's; this made for more power, more range and, especially, a flatter trajectory.
At a range of 300 meters the high point of a Dreyse trajectory would put it 3 meters above the target height, while the Chassepot would be at 1.05 meters.
The practical result of this flatter trajectory meant that the 'danger space' or point-blank range, the linear distance the line of flight of the bullet would stay within the height of a standing man, for the Chassepot extended out to 340 meters, while for the Dreyse it appears to have been less than 300, and perhaps closer to 250 meters.
Indeed, the Chassepot's penetrative power was such that it could even perforate steel:
| Distance Meters |
0 |
50 |
120 |
160 |
210 |
250 |
400 |
600 |
| Penetration Millimeters |
4.00 |
3.50 |
3.00 |
2.85 |
2.70 |
2.65 |
2.05 |
1.80 |
|
GHOULISH EXPERIMENTS ON TERMINAL EFFECTS OF THE CHASSEPOT
The Revue Militaire Suisse, in 1867 published the following account:
“Doctor Sarazin has presented to the Society of Medicine of Strasbourg the principal results of experiments made by the Doctor and by Doctor Hériot, surgeon to the 14th batallion of Chasseurs on the terminal effects of the Chassepot rifle.
“The subject of the experiments was a man aged from forty-five to fifty years of age, dead of Cirrhosis and a little emaciated. He was attached by the neck and hung against some planks at a distance of 15 metres from the point of fire. Five bullets struck the subject in different parts of the body and caused effects that are minutely described in the Gazette Médicale de Strasbourg.
“ ‘I am far from exaggerating, said in concluding Mr. Sarazin, to myself the practical value of these experiments and I know very well the desiderata more easy to highlight than to solve which they present from the point of view of the effects produced by the Chassepot rifle at all distances and on living men. I can nevertheless make the following conclusions:
“ At a short distance and on the cadaver the projectiles were not deviated from their path.
1) The diameter of the entry wound is more or less the same as that of the projectile.
2) The diameter of the exit wound is enormous, from seven to thirteen times bigger than that of the bullet.
3) The arteries and veins are cut transversally, retracted, gaping; the torn muscles have been reduced to a pulp.
4) The bones are shattered in a considerable radius and out of all proportion with the dimensions of the projectile.
“To sum up, the terminal effects presented a remarkable intensity, and it is worth noting that after having penetrated the cadaver, the projectile pierced two planks an inch thick, and then deeply penetrated the wall.”
Mr. Sarazin further noted that, moreover, that similar experiments, carried out under similar conditions, with the carabine of the Chasseurs, did not produce results nearly as grave.”
***
Practical limitations to this rifle that only fully emerged after the outbreak of war in July 1870:
- The Chassepot was prone to rapid fouling of its action through the build up of uncombusted powder and cartridge residue, rendering the loading of succeeding rounds difficult. This condition was evidently related to weather conditions.
- Related to this condition, the checkered metal bolt handle could injure the hands of soldiers trying to force the loading of a new round.
- The rubber disk inside the breech mechanism which was the distinguishing feature of the weapon and ensured a proper gas seal, hardened and shrank withh age and use, so that gas leaks, which were potentially dangerous, distracting, and also reduced performance, occured.
- Bayonets were not interchangeable between Chassepot rifles: as each rifle was finished at the manufactury, the fitter filed down the bayonet attachment so that only it could properly be attached to that particular arm. This disposition, intended to ensure the soldier's scrupulous conservation of their issued weapon, meant that soldiers having lost their bayonet could not simply pick up a replacement and attach it to their rifle.
***
[My special thanks to M. Sedent for kindly allowing me the use of the following material from his excellent and meticulous website http://jp.sedent.free.fr/FUSIL%20D'INFANTERIE%20CHASSEPOT%20Mle%201866.htm)]
The following is drawn from the Summary of the report of the Comité d’artillerie on small arms published in the Revue d’Artillerie, November and December 1871.
« De l’ensemble des opinions émises, on peut conclure qu’au point de vue du calibre, du poids, de la forme générale, de la portée, de la justesse et de la rapidité du tir, le fusil modèle 1866 ne laisse rien ou très peu à désirer. Mais, à côté de ces avantages, les défauts de ce modèle d’arme qui ont donné lieu aux critiques les plus sérieuses et dont on doit le plus se préoccuper ont trait à l’encrassement du canon et à celui du mécanisme ; aux ratés, et principalement aux ratés de premier coup ; aux départs prématurés qui se produisent avant le rabattement du levier qui occasionnent presque toujours de graves accidents ; au poids du sabre-baïonnette ainsi qu’à son mode d’ajustage, enfin aux cartouches, qui ne possèdent pas assez de solidité pour résister aux transports à l’état libre dans la giberne et qui ne se conservent pas bien sous tous les climats ».
“On the basis of the opinions given, one can conclude that from the point of view of caliber, weight, general design, range, accuracy and rate of fire the model 1866 rifle leaves nothing or very little to desire. But alongside these advantages, the faults of this model of weapon which have given rise to the most serious complaints and which are most worrysome are those related to the fouling of the bore and to the misfires of the mechanism, and principally those of first-shot misfires; to premature fire which is produced prior to the bolt being brought back [which] almost always causes grave accidents; to the weight of the sabre-bayonet as well as its means of adjustment, and finally, to the cartridges, which are not sturdy enough to resist to carriage in the ammunition-pouch and which do not fare well in all climats.”
It is difficult to understand how the seriousness of such defects—which are brushed aside and yet obliquely confirmed by Marshal Niel’s own declarations—were not adequately addressed until a war had been fought and lost.
Jean-Pierre Sedent has also provided precious insights into the function and operation of the M1866 Chassepot. With a very meticulous approach M. Sedent fabricated Chassepot bullets according to the original official specifications and then went on to fire them in a Chassepot. M. Sedent's well-documented findings offer convincing support to contemporary reports of loading difficulties with the Chassepot during prolonged or intensive fire.
These trials demonstrated that already after 20 to 30 shots fired, powder charge deposits in the breech of the Chassepot begin to manifest themselves and interfere with the smooth operation of the bolt and firing-pin. These deposits can interfere with the axial positioning of the firing-pin, to the point of causing it to deviate and fail to make proper contact with the priming charge, thereby leading to a misfire.
According to Sedent, a thorough cleaning of the entire breech mechanism is therefore advisable, after 20 or 30 shots. Another solution would be to carry a spare breech mechanism. Neither of these expedients was readily available to soldiers in battle.
|
