The PA MAC 1950 (Pistolet Automatique Modele 1950) was the result of a 1946 French effort to standardize on a single military pistol. By the end of WWII, the French military had accumulated a mess of different pistols of French, Spanish, American, and German origin; officially using the Luger, P3...

The MAT-49 was developed by France after World War Two to satisfy the need for a more modern submachine gun to replace the MAS-38. The military had come around to standardizing on the 9x19mm cartridge for its pistols and subguns, and the 7.65mm MAS-38 was not feasible to convert. All three state ...

With the surprise capture of Fort Douaumont in February 1916, the French reinforced all the remaining forts around the city of Verdun, and would hold them all successfully for many months. In fact, the only other fort in the area to fall would be Fort Vaux, in June of 1916.

In the chaos of th...

In the aftermath of World War One, France would face the need to replace virtually all of its small arms, because nearly everything it had been using was either a wartime stopgap (like the Ruby, Chauchat, and Berthier 07/15) or had been obsolete before the war began (like the Lebel and Mle 1892 r...

Jean-Paul de Vries runs a very interesting private World War One museum in the village of Romagne-sous-Montfaucon in the Meuse region of northeastern France. It is the exact opposite of typical modern museums, as it has a massive number of artifacts on display with almost no printed explanation. ...

The Cuirassier carbine is one of the very scarcest versions of the Berthier in the world, yet Patrick here is going to let me shoot a few rounds through his. My target is a steel plate at 300 meters, with a "feldgrau" silhouette - not visible through the camera, unfortunately.

Thanks, Patrick!

Everyone knows, of course, that the Chauchat is the worst gun ever, and can't normally get through an entire magazine without malfunctioning. Well, let's try that out...and with an even worse culprit; an M1918 Chauchat made for the AEF in .30-06.

When one visits the Montfaucon American Memorial (to the soldiers in the Meuse-Argonne offensive), one finds the road in flanked by a pair of (mostly) surviving German bunkers. These standing artifacts of 20th-century warfare are something that we simply don't have in North America, and I find th...

The imposing heights of the Vercors Massif form a very impressive natural defensive position in the southeastern corner of France. It was here that the French Resistance had its largest set piece battle against German occupation forces, in the summer of 1944.

Plan Montagnards originally called...

Welcome to out first episode of Forgotten History! This will be an occasional series looking at interesting events and places in military history. We will begin with the capture of Fort Douaumont on February 25, 1916...

This video was made possible by Military History Tours, and it is the firs...

After about 2 years or working and waiting, my FR-F1 has arrived from France - so it's time to get it zeroed! I am using the only commercial ammo available in the us; PPU 139gr FMJ (caliber 7.5x54mm). To properly show the accuracy this rifle is capable of, I will need to handload the ammo, and fi...

Gevarm, a gunmaking offshoot of the Gevelot cartridge company, produced a line of open-bolt semiautomatic rimfire sporting rifles from the early 1960s until 1995. This is an A6 model, the base type. It is chambered for .22LR, with an 8 round magazine and basic open sights. What makes these rifle...

Here at a forested railroad crossing outside Compiègne in Picardy, France, two rail cars met in November of 1918 - one with members of the Allied/Entente high commend and ones with representatives of Imperial Germany. They met here to end 5 years of slaughter; the German delegation being presente...

The German army captured Blanc Mont Ridge in the early months of World War One and occupied it throughout the years of fighting, fending off repeated French assaults throughout 1915 and 1916. While the ridge looks far from imposing, it is a piece of high ground which overlooks a large part of the...

We have a brief video from a friend of the Forgotten Weapons site showing a standard M1915 Chauchat in use. Although short, the video does a good job of showing the gun's rate of fire and general operation. You can see the open magazine design that caused so much trouble, and see how the heavy re...

The Hotchkiss Universal is a pretty interesting submachine gun, despite its rather clumsy appearance. The overriding design intent was to make a very compact folding carbine, and Hotchkiss certainly met that objective. However, the gun ended up being too expensive and complex to achieve any real ...

Here we take up the mad minute challenge with the two main belligerents of the Franco-Prussian war, both needle-fire and both using what we now call caseless ammunition. Not ejector needed and no need to pick up your brass. Who will win this epic dual?

A tutorial for the new chassepot cartidge ...

This is a followup to an epicly long vid on the original cartridges: https://youtu.be/iahThVlF7QI

The Chap takes you through a much easier way to confect M1866 Chassepot paper needlefire cartridges for any 45-ish calibre black powder rifle bullet.

Music

Intro: Composer of this track: Pat...

First in a new series of at least one other video, The Chap talks about French WW2 ammo pouches and his project to make himself a reproduction pair!

Follow my fumbling steps into amateur leatherwork. I'm sure the leathersmiths amongst us with tut, roll eyes, scowl and gnash their teeth but then again, it worked!

The basic breakdown of construction of the pouches (in French) can be found at: https://enguerrandmodelisme.weebly.com/cartouch...

The Chap presents a very good, neat way to make paper tubes for your Dreyse or Chassepot needlefire rifle!

Earlier videos on the topic:

Full luxury Chassepot version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iahThVlF7QI
Simple Chassepot version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr1cN9FXA9E

Music
...

Having previously done to death the use of .32 S&W Long wadcutter in Swiss M82 and M82/29 revolvers, we had another few revolvers handy with which to try it out: an Austro-Hungarian Gasser M98 in 8mm, a French St. Etienne Mle. 92, and a Trocaola (Eibar) "Spanish Model 92", the latter two in 8mm/9...

Chappy presents a nice little French smallbore .22 rimfire carbine of very special significance, which not only has some clever features but also has an interesting pedigree.

The Chap dug out an old French cavalry manual from the pre-WW1 era, so we thought we'd go through their revolver exercises with his St.Etienne Mle. 92 and my Trocaola (Eibar) "Spanish Mle. 92", both in 8mm/92 calibre (NOT LEBEL). How did we get on?