Hotchkiss Mle 1914

Hotchkiss et Cie · Machine Gun · Discontinued · 1914

Also known as: Mitrailleuse Hotchkiss Modele 1914, Mle 1914 Hotchkiss, Mitrailleuse Mle 14, Hotchkiss Mk I, Benet-Mercie Machine Gun, ckm Hotchkiss wz.14, Hotchkiss M1914

Overview

The Mitrailleuse Hotchkiss Modele 1914 was the French Army's standard heavy machine gun of the First World War and one of the most successful gas-operated machine gun designs of the early twentieth century. Developed by the Parisian firm Hotchkiss et Cie (founded in 1867 by the American arms engineer Benjamin B. Hotchkiss), the Mle 1914 was the culmination of a design lineage begun in 1893 by the Austrian Baron Adolf Odkolek von Ujezd and refined through successive Hotchkiss models (Mle 1897, Mle 1900, Mle 1909) by the American-born engineer Laurence V. Benet and the French engineer Henri A. Mercie, who together led Hotchkiss's small arms bureau in Paris. It was the first genuinely practical gas-operated machine gun, drawing propellant gas through a port near the muzzle to drive a long-stroke piston that cycled a tilting/rotating bolt locking mechanism. Chambered primarily for the 8x50mmR Lebel cartridge, it fed from a distinctive 24-round rigid metal strip (later also a 30-round strip and a 249-round articulated belt built from linked strips), an unconventional system that traded feed capacity for reliability, low cost, and imperviousness to the rot and damp that plagued cloth belts. At approximately 23.6 kg unloaded - rising to roughly 52 kg with its heavy Omnibus Mle 1915 tripod - the Mle 1914 was air-cooled rather than water-cooled, a feat made possible by its heavy finned barrel surrounded by five prominent brass cooling rings which gave the gun its immediately recognizable silhouette and allowed sustained fire of several hundred rounds per minute without the water jacket that encumbered Maxims and Vickers. The gun fired at a deliberate cyclic rate of around 450 rounds per minute, delivering devastatingly accurate fire out to 2,000 metres with an absolute maximum range near 3,800 metres. French Army inventories listed nearly 47,000 Mle 1914 guns in service during the First World War, with production continued after 1918 by the Chatellerault arsenal. The United States Army, arriving in France in 1917 without an adequate machine gun of its own, adopted roughly 7,000 French-made Hotchkiss guns as the interim standard heavy machine gun for the American Expeditionary Forces, where they served with virtually every American division on the Western Front until supplanted by the Browning M1917 in late 1918. The design was licensed, copied, and exported to dozens of countries, most notably Japan, where it became the direct basis for the Type 3 and Type 92 heavy machine guns that would serve the Imperial Japanese Army through the Second World War, and China, where it was produced as the Chinese Type 24. The Mle 1914 remained in French frontline service through the 1940 campaign, was used by both Vichy and Free French forces, saw action with the Chinese in the Second Sino-Japanese War, and persisted in Indochina and other colonial theatres until the mid-1950s.

Specifications

Weight (empty)23580 g (831.8 oz)
Overall Length1270 mm (50.00")
Barrel Length775 mm (30.51")
Action TypeGas Operated Long Stroke
Firing MechanismHammer Fired
Trigger TypeSingle Stage
Magazine Capacity24 rounds
Magazine TypeStripper Clip
Muzzle Velocity700 m/s (2297 fps)
Muzzle Energy3136 J (2313 ft·lbf)
Effective Range2000 m (2187 yd)
Maximum Range3800 m (4156 yd)
Rate of Fire450 rpm
Barrel RiflingRight Hand
Rifling Twist240 mm (9.45")
Number of Grooves4
Frame MaterialSteel
Barrel MaterialSteel
FinishBlued

Calibers

Features

Variants

Service history

Operators

Conflicts

Production

Estimated total produced: 47,000 · Production years: 1914-1940

Approximately 47,000 French-production Mle 1914 guns were manufactured by Hotchkiss et Cie and the Chatellerault arsenal between 1914 and the fall of France in 1940. Including licensed Japanese Type 3 (roughly 3,000 units) and Type 92 heavy machine gun production (around 45,000 units) - both of which are direct derivatives retaining the Hotchkiss action, brass cooling rings, and strip feed - and the Chinese Type 24, total production of the Hotchkiss heavy machine gun family exceeded 100,000 weapons worldwide. The earlier Mle 1897, Mle 1900, and Mle 1909 (Benet-Mercie) variants added several thousand more.

Origin

Country of origin: France

Designer: Laurence V. Benet and Henri A. Mercie

Discontinued: 1945

Notes

The Hotchkiss Mle 1914 is perhaps most instantly identifiable by the five large brass cooling rings (sometimes called 'donuts' or 'fins') fitted around the chamber section of the barrel - arguably the single most distinctive visual feature of any First World War machine gun. These rings function as heat sinks, conducting thermal energy away from the chamber during sustained fire, and are unique to the Hotchkiss family of machine guns. The Mle 1914's rigid metal strip feed is equally unusual: rather than the cloth belts of the Maxim and Vickers or the box magazines of the Chauchat and Lewis, the Hotchkiss uses a flat strip of stamped brass or steel nominally 24 rounds long (a 30-round variant also existed), loaded transversely into the left side of the receiver and pushed across the feed block by the action as it cycles. Strips could be mechanically linked end-to-end into 249-round articulated belts for sustained-fire roles. Historically the Mle 1914 was credited with playing a decisive role in the defense of Verdun in 1916, where at Fort de Vaux and in the surrounding battlefields two guns reportedly fired over 150,000 rounds each without failure during the ten-month battle - a legendary demonstration of reliability frequently cited in French military writing. The action is gas-operated long-stroke with a tilting/rotating bolt, firing from a closed bolt via a hammer-struck firing pin. It is crew-served, typically requiring three to four men: gunner, loader, and ammunition bearers to manage the stacks of rigid strips. The Japanese Type 3 (1914) and Type 92 (1932) heavy machine guns are direct design descendants and retain the strip feed, brass cooling rings, and gas-operated long-stroke action of the French parent; the Chinese Type 24 and various other copies did likewise. Interwar export variants were offered in a wide array of chamberings including 7.5x54mm French, .303 British, 6.5x50mm Arisaka, 7x57mm Mauser, 7.65x53mm Argentine, and .30-06 Springfield.

Background

When the American Expeditionary Forces arrived in France in 1917, they had almost no heavy machine guns of their own - the Browning M1917 was not yet in mass production and the BAR would not reach the line in numbers until the war's final weeks - so General Pershing simply purchased roughly 7,000 French Hotchkiss Mle 1914s directly off French factory floors, making the primary heavy machine gun of the AEF on the Western Front a French design engineered by two American expatriates, Benet and Mercie. At the Battle of Verdun, French gunners in Fort de Vaux reportedly fired over 150,000 rounds through a single Hotchkiss gun during the ten-month siege without a single mechanical failure, feeding it one rigid brass strip at a time as German infantry came up the ravines below.