I really wonder, how much of the heavy/clunkiness of this was the very early design, how much of it was required by the much less advanced metallurgy of the turn of the 20th Century, and how much was just over-engineering to ensure extra durability, safety for the users and long service-lifetimes? I mean, obviously the complexity of the design and it's parts can be mostly put down to it being an pretty/very early machine-gun design, and the massive uses of machine-guns throughout the century would enable designers to learn where and how they could get away with simpler, smarter and vastly less complex designs, but some things are always going to have to be working in that early, far less mature technological space. This very complete strip-down of the gun was fascinating to see and hear explained by Ian, which is no small part of why I'm here for pretty much every video here on RU-vid. Firearms and firearm designs are fascinating because of the very complex and tight design constraints required when you are creating something to throw small bits of metal a long way, very fast and ideally, many, many times, and that's before you even consider how to make production of them simultaneously as cheap but also as reliable as you possibly can. Even the wild ideas that ended up not going very far for whatever reason are still hugely interesting to see and hear about.
As a machinist, I'm just trying to wrap my head around all the machining steps for just the bolt and bolt carrier on a manual milling machine. Holy crap!
And the shear amount of heavy metal. A very overbuilt gun, even for 8mm Lebel. It would have been a very good mounted gun, but I'm sure the cost of manufacture was very substantial, rivaling that of bigger guns like the Vickers.
@@douro20 This is what happens when you're designing guns for purposes that no one has figured out yet lol. Are these static? Are these portable? Are these vehicle mounted? Are we gonna puttem' on damn blimps & airplanes?!?! Who knows! Just make sure that we can move it if we throw enough guys at it and that it can lob bullets forever(with a crew of preferably less than double digit men, thanks)... MGs may be the only firearm category where the first generation is arguably more reliable than succeeding generations - I mean, what's more reliable than a Maxim? lol
@@XtreeM_FaiL Eh, I wouldn't say it was a necessity for 1st gen machine guns. They just didn't have any stringent weight or portability requirements for much of their development, so they just didn't try to make them that light weight or portable(aside from the outliers like the Madsen, Chauchat, etc.). The Maxim for example DEFINITELY didn't need to be as overbuilt as it was(those things belonged in a factory lol), and you saw that with how much that design was shrunken and paired down over time in Vickers & MG08 variants. After 1st gen, MGs shrank quite a bit and shed some serious weight - many designs moving from these obnoxious billet receivers to plate receivers or stamped/bent receivers with machined reinforcements and internal parts(guide rails and such). The MGs that stayed with machined receivers moving to significantly leaner designs.
@@nagoogle8542 look at the various knurling, ridges, and fins on the barrel. Then think about just how damned hot a machine gun barrel can get during high-rate fire (German MG gunners were issued asbestos(!) gloves for barrel changes in WWII). A carelessly-placed hand could get you quite the interesting burn scar.
some important historical facts Ian has skipped 0ver: It was based on a design by Austrian nobleman and Army officer, Adolf Odkolek von Újezd, who sold the manufacturing rights to Hotchkiss in 1893. Several improved versions were designed by Hotchkiss's American manager, Laurence Vincent Benét (son of General Stephen Vincent Benét) and his French assistant, Henri Mercié.
If you get too frustrated trying to operate the gun, you can use the gas piston as a bludgeoning instrument to let off some steam on a nearby tree before putting it back in and trying again.
Agreed, a dealer friend had one of the US Benét-Mercié models on stock so we took it to the range. While it was really cool to shoot in a steampunk sort of way I think we spent just as much time discussing how inconvenient almost every aspect of it was! Neat gun in its own weird way.
To borrow a term from the computer market, it's a "luggable" machine gun lol. Portable because you can move it around by yourself, not because you'll want to.
@@SnakebitSTI It's about as heavy as an FN Mag, which appears to take the same approach to durability over the spines of the soldiers assigned to carry them.
@@andrewweitzman4006 The FN MAG wasn't all that much heavier (11.8 kg/26.01 lb) than the M-60 (10.5 kg/23.15 lb), and I can tell you that pig (and it's accessories) were a right pain in the arse to lug around. Though the MAG was appreciably longer than the 60, which would have made one hell of a difference to the poor bastards having to manhandle the damn things about, I expect.
Me too! The only things stopping me are: 1) Time 2) Money 3) The complete lack of necessary machine tools or the skill required to operate them. In all seriousness, this gun is a work of art and building one would be an extremely noble and challenging labor of love.
In reality, in 1896, Hotchkiss patented BOTH the strip feeding and the metallic belt feeding. They offered the metallic belt option for much of their products, but without much success. Strip feeding (or a variant largely used in WWI, three rounds strips hinged together to form a belt of any length) had been the favored method of almost any purchaser until the expiration of the patent. Probably because it was, even if only slightly, more reliable.
The hotchkiss portative is one of my grail guns, and it’s so cool getting to see the internals of one, especially since your previous one is (no offense intended) a little low resolution
Nice dive into the Hotchkiss "LMG". Interesting note is that Hotchkiss guns were still "on the books" of the Brit and Australian armies in 1938. One of the coolest sets of original documentation I ever found was a complete set of "Instructions for Armourers, 1938". Inside the faded blue box was a wealth of documents, including a "component identifications chart" for the Hotchkiss. Obviously rapidly supp;anted in service by the fabulous BREN, and then pushed down the priority list to "VDC / Dad's army units .. A related story is that of the 're-engineering" of a significant number of "trophy" MG-08 and 08-15 guns to run with .303 ammo in Vickers cloth belts. These were literally unbolted from the walls of Services Clubs across Australia and sent to Lithgow for evaluation and "upgrading". The idea was to reserve the "proper" Vickers guns for the actual WAR and have "training" guns for the lower end of the equipment food-chain. Of course, at the end of hostilities, pretty much all those re-worked Maxims were rounded up and destroyed; never to be returned to their rightful places alongside the "Honour Rolls" in the services Clubs.
Durable !! MASSIVE. So much reciprocating weight ! There's a lot of machining in there. I love this series, - appreciating the ingenuity that's shown in solving mechanical problems. I'm sure devices like this were much appreciated in the Colonial services of many nations. Sure they would stretch the ammunition manufacturers to keep up with consumption. Sometimes perhaps a feature on the development of case drawing, loading and large scale production of small arms ammunition might find an interested audience. Many Thanks from Europe .
I've wondered about knurling barrels before, to increase surface area for heat dissipation, but I figured that A.) People would think it's meant to be grabbed which can cause burn risk, and B.) it would be too time consuming to be worthwhile. Never thought some madlads would have actually done it.
It wold be interesting to know how much the makers charged for some of these weapons. As Ian points out, there are an awful lot of machining operations there, especially on that feed cam thing.
Ian: The Hotchkiss Portative is a clunky machinegun that is, ergonomically, difficult to use, I would rather have a Madsen... Also Ian: Check out this awesome Chauchat! :))
Chauchat seems to be a lot easier and ergonomic. As long as you don't have a .30-06 version and try to hose everything downrange in as short a time as possible.
Hey, I bought that gun from Morphy’s! Pretty cool to have my gun on an episode of Forgotten Weapons. Btw, Ian didn’t put it back together correctly either. 😂
also called Hotckiss M.le 1909, or Hotckiss Benet Merciè; this LMG was used in combat for the defense of the city of Columbus (New Mexico USA) in 1916, against an incursion by Pancho Villa's troops.
Most people think machines start out simple and become more complicated. So often the opposite is true. Especially in firearms. So many early weapons had cams and dogs and toggles and pinions that were not needed.
@@XtreeM_FaiL not actually true. Complex cuts required more expensive machinery, more expensive skilled machinists, and often more steps, but those cuts could be made. The main problem was the cost, and more primitive design process - when you're building up the design in your head or on paper, the ability to test fit, iterate, optimize, and refine is tremendously more limited. That can ALSO be overcome, but it pushes development timelines and costs quite a long way as you have to physically build and test each variant.
@@lairdcummings9092 Modern multi-axis CNC machines gives you much more freedom to design parts. You can do cuts that were impossible then. If you can't do a needed cut in one way, then you need to redesign your part. Instead of one relatively simple part, you have to make many different parts. Anyone can design a complex machine with lots of parts, but to make the same task simple and fewer parts require much more.
Watching years and years of Forgotten Weapons and C&Rsenal has led to this 1st generation machine gun era being my favorite era of firearms design. It just does NOT get much cooler than these things(the Lewis is my all time favorite) - generally speaking, they were designed like pistols & rifles, these things were designed like industrial machinery, and in many examples you can even see that with some of these ancient things still running like a top today(how about those Brazilian Madsens? And, is there anything that can outlast the OG, the Maxim? Just a finely tuned cartridge eating masterpiece[as long as you don't need it to be all that portable]!). The name is more on point than many realize I think; "machine" gun lol, many of these aren't like semi-auto gun designs turned full auto, they're just big chunky industrial machines. I respect all the effort that goes into optimizing the hell out of designs for their purpose, optimizing for lifespan(overbuilding isn't always an inherently good thing, it has its cons, like weight), manufacturing efficiency, etc. - but I'm here for the engineers that get the opportunity to design something with a limited amount of rules to follow and a healthy budget to work with, I love these overengineered, overbuilt, over the top Rube Goldberg firearms. Also, I really want a knurled barrel for an AR now, damn that's cool
Despite this guns absurdity in some areas it has a lot of features and design considerations that many light machine guns wouldn't have even during WWI or after.
The prime use of these by the British and Indian armies was with the cavalry as part, with Horse Artillery, of them being a mobile all arms group. The troopers serving both as mounted infantry and assault cavalry coming with machine guns and field artillery in support to take or hold ground. Far more mobile than foot infantry tactically but losing 25% of troopers to horse holding and needing far more logistical support such as forage and horse care. Cavalry were far more use in the Great War even in France than they are generally given credit for. Tanks got Hotchkiss after the first versions as the Lewis was preferred as the infantry light machine gun so they used Hotchkiss instead. As Ian mentioned, there was a large Hotchkiss factory in Coventry turning them out during the war and British and Indian armies continued to use them as their light machine gun post war until replaced by the Vickers Berthier and Bren.
I’ve known of this channel for a couple years and I always enjoy the videos. I’m definitely a firearms novice, but I enjoy learning new and interesting facts about something every time I watch an episode. Sometime about guns I had no idea existed. Thank you for sharing your immense wealth of knowledge with us Ian!!!
Look like i'm not the only one who wonder why the hell does Hotchkiss machine gun can be carry and fired in the shoulder in the game. Now i know what kind of exactly Hotchkiss machine gun can do that
Definitely very cool. I worked with a couple of the DICE LA weapon guys (an animator and a design/balance guy) through BF4/1/V, basically helping with some volunteer QA stuff to touch up some goofs and oversights; there were some seriously passionate people on that dev team, so it's no wonder those games do their weapons so well. BF4 was definitely the one we got the most stuff fixed in (had the most to fix), from open/closed bolt changes to mag capacities, firing or reload animation issues, changing cartridges (that era of Battlefield games in fact used cartridge-based damage models), and even a couple names fixed (BF4's RPK and L115). Correcting the Madsen to be open bolt in BF1 comes to mind, off the top of my head. :)
The term "over engineered" sums up this nicely, it looks like you can truly beat on some of these parts with a hammer and I don't think you'd break them. Another term also comes to mind "grunt proof"
In the french army was this gun, togeter with the Chauchat, replaced by the MAC 24 in ... 1924, feed with the new 7,5 x 58mm french cartige , modified in 1929 as MAC24/29 with the definitive cartige type 7.5 x 54mm 1929C MAS, made to avoid accidents with 7,92 x 57mm Mauser cartiges). The MAC 24/29 with 25 cartige magazine was completed with the Reibel machine gun type MAC 31 and MAC 34 who are similar but specialy made for vehicles, aircrafts and bunkers with a 100 shots drum magazine
I'm shocked to say that this bipod is actually worse than the crow's foot tripod(?) thing that we saw on the Project Lightening and C&Rsenal sample of this gun.
That charging handle reminds me of the one on the Gewehr 41(M); I wonder if this design had a similar gimmicky rationale of being more familiar to troops trained on bolt-action rifles.
"Nut operated" technically applies only to the very small, long-lost production run in .22LR that was ordered by a particularly militant community of squirrels.
7mm Mauser is such a great cartridge. It was Paul Mausers' first effort at designing a cartridge, and damned If he didn't get it right as it is one of the few ballistically perfect rounds ever. The US should have adopted it instead of that 6.5mm abomination...
Home office and engineering was done from the facility in Sharon Valley CT. A good deal of history surrounding Hotchkiss firearms from rotating (gatling) style guns and cannon as well as small arms. Art Hotchkiss
"The selector is one of the particularly clunky features of the Hotchkiss, aside from the stock, the bipod and the feed system..." Some weapons are clearly forgotten for good reasons :P.
One day I'd love to acquire one of these for study. While I have no intentions of firing such historic pieces, the lessons to learn from past designs are still valuable. Not to mention being able to glimpse into the thought design of a past era and try to adapt it to a new idea altogether. This has to be one of my favourite guns to show up in your channel.
Ian, thanks for the straight to the point and informative videos. No stupid ads. You never push any stupid garbage that is so prevalent with youtube folks.
I may be horribly wrong, but I feel like in modern terms this one could be best suited for GPMG role unlike Madsen, which is LMG despite both being called so. No idea why my mind goes to that conclusion. I feel like that's because you mentioned cavalry and I don't see this one being used by one guy, let alone mounted if push comes to shove. Unlike Madsen, that can double up as "battle rifle". I guess it falls down to magazine vs continuous feed bias?
Real impressive machinery, so clean and precise in appearance almost ahead of its time for being pre-WW1. Wow. For being "clumsy" it certainly looks well-built and futuristic.
that knurled barrel texture is so nonsensical... I bet they could have discovered that even in ideal circumstances, it makes no difference in cooling, by simply making one barrel with and one without the texture (or two barrel-like tubes to represent it), heating both to the same temperature in an oven, and setting them out to cool. I think it's pure hocus-pocus done without testing to confirm that it works. in real use, I reckon the effect on cooling is more likely to be that the knurling collects a layer of dirt that provides a slight insulating effect. what I see as more likely to be a problem is that the dirt-retension of that surface is likely to lead to more aggressive scrubbing any time the gun gets cleaned, which would wear away the finish more quickly and make the surface more susceptible to rust. and whenever it is not clean, but rather covered in a layer of dirt, that dirt layer is likely to hang on to moisture that the gun gets exposed to, and accelerate rusting.
Switzerland: we make complicated watches. France: ha! you haven't seen our machine gun! Thanks for another incredibly complex simplification of an incredibly complex machine gun.
A hidden benefit is your MG team can try stripping the gun down to those base components and having a delightful assortment of clubs and maces to use as backup when the ammo runs out.
Probably the only human on earth that can literally take down “any” firearm ever produced from any country in the world and reassemble it while explaining the fundamental operation … kinda therapeutic in it own right..
