Engineering:Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun

Hotchkiss M1914
Hotchkiss Mle 14
Type	Medium machine gun
Place of origin	France
Service history
In service	1914–1960s
Used by	See Users
Wars	Russo-Japanese War Mexican Revolution World War I Russian Civil War Polish–Soviet War Rif War World War II Second Italo-Ethiopian War Spanish Civil War Second Sino-Japanese War First Indochina War Algerian War
Production history
Designer	A. Odkolek von Augeza Laurence V. Benét Henri Mercié.
Designed	1897 (M1897), 1900 (M1900)
Produced	1914–20 (M1914)
No. built	over 65,000
Variants	M1897 M1900 M1914
Specifications
Mass	23.6 kg (52 lb)
Length	1,270 mm (50 in)
Barrel length	770 mm (30 in)
Cartridge	8×50R Lebel 7×57mm Mauser 6.5×50mmSR Arisaka 11×59mmR Gras 6.5×55mm
Calibre	8 mm
Action	gas-actuated
Rate of fire	450–600 round/min
Muzzle velocity	2,375 ft/s (724 m/s)
Feed system	24 or 30 round strip articulated metal belt (249 rounds)

Legionnaires in Morocco with a Hotchkiss M1914. Circa 1920.

The Mle 1914 Hotchkiss machine gun chambered for the 8mm Lebel cartridge became the standard machine gun of the French Army during World War I. It was manufactured by the French arms company Hotchkiss et Cie, which had been established in the 1860s by American industrialist Benjamin B. Hotchkiss. The gas-actuated Hotchkiss system was first formulated in 1895 by Odkolek von Ujezda and improved into its final form by Hotchkiss armament engineers Laurence Benét and Henri Mercié.

The Mle 1914 was the last version of a series of nearly identical Hotchkiss designs : the Mle 1897, Mle 1900 and the Mle 1909. The Hotchkiss Mle 1914 became the French infantry standard in late 1917, replacing the unreliable St. Étienne Mle 1907. The American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in France also purchased 7,000 Mle 1914 Hotchkiss machine guns in 8mm Lebel, and used them extensively at the front in 1917 and 1918. Hotchkiss heavy machine guns, some being of earlier types, were also used in combat by Japan, Chile, Mexico, Spain, Belgium, Brazil, and Poland.

The Hotchkiss machine gun, a sturdy and reliable weapon, remained in active service with the French army until the early 1940s. By the end of 1918, 47,000 Hotchkiss machine guns had already been delivered to the French army alone. Including all international sales, the grand total of all Hotchkiss machine guns sold by the manufacturer in various calibers was well in excess of 100,000 units.

History and design

8mm Lebel ammunition in a feed strip

The Hotchkiss was based on a design by Captain Baron Adolf Odkolek von Ujezda of Vienna. The patents had been purchased in 1893 by the firm of Benjamin Hotchkiss, based in Saint-Denis, near Paris. Benjamin Hotchkiss was no longer alive at the time of the purchase, but the Odkolek design was further developed and greatly improved under the direction of American-born Laurence Vincent Benét (1863–1948) with the assistance of Henri Albert Mercié. After trials that began in 1895, development issues were resolved leading to the initial purchase of the Hotchkiss gun by the French Military in 1897. In 1898 an export model was also offered for international sales by Hotchkiss. With some useful changes, such as the addition of five cooling radiator rings on the barrel, the same basic design led to the M1900, and later to the M1914 (with minor improvements that were added since 1908). In the meantime adoption of the St. Étienne Mle 1907 (a French government arsenal product) to equip the infantry went through in 1908. Nevertheless, Hotchkiss machine guns were also purchased by the French military for use in overseas colonies and by mountain troops in the Alps. By the 1916, during World War I, French line infantry, still equipped with the unsatisfactory Saint-Etienne, convinced General Pétain that they needed the more reliable Hotchkiss. They got their wish and French infantry divisions were progressively outfitted with the Hotchkiss gun in late 1917 and early 1918.

The Hotchkiss machine gun was gas actuated and air-cooled, in contrast to the Maxim gun which was recoil operated and water-cooled. The Hotchkiss machine gun barrel features five large rings which materially assisted natural cooling and retarded overheating. The gas cylinder under the barrel features a regulator piston which can be adjusted to the normal rate of fire of 450 rounds per minute. The Hotchkiss machine gun itself (excluding the tripod) has only 32 parts, including four coil springs, and no screws or pins whatsoever. All parts of the gun are constructed in such a manner that it is impossible to assemble them improperly. The Hotchkiss fired from an open bolt, like almost all modern machine guns, in order to avoid "cook-offs" – cartridges being prematurely ignited by the overheated chamber. Although the Hotchkiss machine gun was easy to feed continuously with a three-man team, each individual strip held only 24 rounds of 8mm Lebel ammunition. This feature proved to be one of the Hotchkiss's shortcomings, as the crew needed to reload the gun several times for every minute of firing, far more often than on every other machine gun of the same period (the Maxim used a 250-round continuous cloth belt). Each empty feed strip was ejected automatically after its last round had been fired, leaving the bolt open in the rear position. Then introducing a new loaded strip into the gun triggered the release forward of the bolt and firing resumed. The Hotchkiss strips performed well with a three-man crew, but their capacity was too small for a single gunner firing from the inside of a tank. This led to the adoption of a 250-round articulated metal belt in 1917. It was widely used in all French tanks of the period and in some military airplanes.

Beginning in 1900, two basic tripod types were used prior to World War I, when the final and most effective third Hotchkiss tripod model (the Mle 1916) became adopted and widely distributed. A tripod that could be used for both the Hotchkiss and the St. Etienne machine guns was issued in 1915, the so-called "Omnibus Tripod". The French Hotchkiss had a rate of fire of approximately 450 rounds per minute of 8 mm Lebel ammunition, and a maximum effective range of 3,800 m (4,150 yd) with the "Balle D" bullet. Fire for effect was usually in successive bursts of 8 to 10 rounds. The gun could sustain continuous firing of about 120 aimed shots per minute almost indefinitely, except for occasional barrel changes (during continuous fire, approximately every 1,000 rounds) which were quick and easy to perform with a special wrench. The barrel could attain a temperature of about 400 °C, at which temperature it would be dark red in color. At this point the barrel dissipated heat as fast as it was generated. This only occurred after long continuous firing in a combat emergency situation. The most common complaint about the Hotchkiss was its weight: the gun and tripod weighed a total of 110 pounds. There were also complaints concerning the tripods, particularly the "Omnibus" tripods, which were perceived as too high above ground and too heavy.

Service history

World War I

U.S. Army soldiers operating the M1914 Hotchkiss gun in France, 1918.

The Japanese licensed version: the Type 3 (Taishō 14) Heavy Machine Gun. Musée de l'Armée, Paris.

The principal user of the Mle 1914 Hotchkiss machine gun was the French infantry during World War I and the early days of World War II. The Hotchkiss company delivered 47,000 Mle 1914 machine guns to the French Army between 1914 and the end of 1918. Several hundred were chambered in 11mm Gras for use against enemy balloons,as that was the smallest caliber of incendiary bullet; all other French examples were in 8mm Lebel. The second-largest user of the Hotchkiss was the American Expeditionary Force in France between 1917 and 1918, with the US purchasing and deploying 7,000 Hotchkiss machine guns during the war.

Japanese version

Hotchkiss machine guns in 6.5 mm caliber were successfully deployed by Japan. The production of the gun was licensed to Japan to become the Type 3 Heavy Machine Gun, but the cartridge was the standard Japanese 6.5x50mm Arisaka rather than the original 8 mm ammunition. The Type 92 Heavy Machine Gun, a scaled-up Type 3 chambered for 7.7mm, was also based on the Hotchkiss design.

In China

In 1930 to 1935, the Republic of China bought 1,192 Hotchkiss M1914 machine guns from France. The Chinese also copied this gun and used the German 7.92×57mm Mauser. After the Second Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1937, China ordered 1,300 more guns, but only 300 guns were delivered.

In Poland

ckm wz. 25 machine gun crew during exercise, 1931

Poland received its first M1914 Hotchkiss machine guns together with the arrival of the Blue Army in 1919. During and after the Polish-Bolshevik War the Polish Army bought additional guns in France and by 1936 there were 2,620 guns in Polish service (used under the ckm wz. 14 - "HMG Mk. 1914"). In mid-1920s the army ordered 1,250 guns of a slightly modified version rechambered to the standard 7.92×57mm Mauser calibre. However, the army found that the newly delivered machine guns, dubbed ckm wz.25 Hotchkiss were substandard: the barrel was prone to overheating and the accuracy was found to be too low.

Instead of trying to renegotiate the contract with Hotchkiss, the Polish General Staff ordered large numbers of Ckm wz.30 machine guns instead and both 1914 and 1925 models of Hotchkiss were withdrawn from infantry service by 1936. Some were sold abroad; many were modified to arm the Renault FT tanks, TK-3 and TKS tankettes, and Samochód pancerny wz. 29 and wz. 34 armored cars. During the Invasion of Poland of 1939, the wz. 25 and wz. 14 machine guns were nevertheless used in combat by some Polish infantry units, notably the Border Defence Corps and National Defense.

Other countries

Hotchkiss machine guns firing 7 mm Mauser ammunition equipped both sides (government and rebels) during the Mexican Revolution (1911–1920). The same type of 7 mm Hotchkiss machine gun, built under license in Spain where it was the standard medium machine gun, was widely used by the conflicting parties involved in the Spanish Civil War (1930's). Furthermore, the Mle 1914 Hotchkiss in 8 mm Lebel was mounted in all French tanks and armored cars of World War I. Some examples of tanks that used the Mle 1914 Hotchkiss include the Schneider CA1, Saint-Chamond, Renault FT and Char 2C. Conversely, British tanks and armored cars were fitted with the distinctly different Mle 1909 light Hotchkiss (a.k.a. the "Benét–Mercié"). A recently published series of modern firing tests with vintage machine guns summarizes the Mle 1914 Hotchkiss as being: "A heavy and rock-steady combination of gun and tripod, the world's first efficient air cooled machine gun is admirably reliable and accurate" (Robert Bruce, 1997). These qualities provided the French military with an excuse to keep the Hotchkiss in active service far beyond its point of obsolescence and into World War II. The last recorded uses of the Hotchkiss were in Indochina and Algeria, after World War II, to defend outposts in static positions. The World War II Hellenic Greek Army employed a modified Hotchkiss machine gun known as the Hotchkiss M1926, with an increased rate of fire of 450RPM.

Users

• Afghanistan
• Belgium
• Chile
• Ethiopian Empire
• Kingdom of Greece
• Kingdom of Italy
• Brazil
• France
  • Vichy France
• Template:Country data Qing Dynasty: Bought several as a part of modernizing the Imperial Army.
• Empire of Japan: designated the Type 3 heavy machine gun
• Mexico
• Norway
• Peru
• Poland
• Romania
• Russian SFSR: several Red Army units used Hotchkiss M1914 during Russian Civil War
• Spain
• Sweden
• Turkey
• United States
• Venezuela

Literature

• Bruce, Robert. Machine Guns of World War I. 1997: Windrow and Greene Publishers, ISBN:1-85915-078-0
• Canfield, Bruce. U.S. Infantry Weapons of the First World War. 2000: Andrew Mowbray Publishers, ISBN:0-917218-90-6
• Handbook of the Hotchkiss Machine Gun, Model of 1914. US War Department, Office of the Chief of Ordnance, November 1917. Reprinted by: Normont Technical Publications, Wickenburg, Arizona, 1973. ISBN:0-87947-043-7
• "Mitrailleuses francaises d'Infanterie", Guide de l'Eleve-Mitrailleur, Centre Regional de Mitrailleurs de Bourges, 1918.
• Huon, Jean; Barrellier, Alain. Les Mitrailleuses Francaises October 2014: Crepin-Leblond, ISBN:978 2 7030 0392 2 . An exhaustive and highly detailed technical review of all French military machine guns, their ammunitions and accessories.
• Hergé. The Broken Ear (Adventures of Tintin #6), 1935.
• Raach, George T. A Withering Fire: American Machine Gun Battalions in World War I , 2015:Booklocker.com, Incorporated. ISBN:978-1634910200 Extensive study of US Army machine gun crews in World War I.

External links

• The Hotchkiss Gun
• French 8 mm HOTCHKISS machine gun, Model 1914
• French 8 mm HOTCHKISS machine gun, model 1900 and 1914, accessories (in French)
• Hotchkiss M1914 Modern Firearms