WWI Hotchkiss on AA mount

[12thengr]

French Hotchkiss Gun on what looks like a very fragile AA mount.

[Leatherneck72]

Fragile…maybe. Still better than holding that sucka!

[Baron3-6]

Another word for fragile is "light"...robust can sometimes be synonymous with heavy, also known to the soldier as a "B---- to carry around". All factors to consider with weapons and equipment.

[12thengr]

I guess 'spindly' was the word I was looking for but then 'ad hoc' might be more appropriate for this mount.

[12thengr]

And then there is 'ground-air' type mount.

[12thengr]

Another 'official' mount. No idea on how it sat though.

[Baron3-6]

The first pic on the wagon wheel I remember well from a 50's book called "Fighting Gear of World War I" by CB Colby....I wore out the copy my elementary school had, so much so when they sold it off the librarian put back the copy for me. Shows GI ingenuiety at it's best.

 

The last picture looks like it might be a tank mount version...I guess if we knew the British patch, we'd figure out who these guys might be.

[Hellcat]

The last pic looks like a British soldier(officer??) training doughboys. Note cartridge belt and canteen being worn by soldier on left. I kind of agree that these men might be tankers, as it almost looks like the soldier that is 2nd from left is wearing coveralls. I could be way off on that though.

[12thengr]

Right you are Baron, it is from Colbys book. The British instructor is 1/7 Lancashire Fusiliers from Ospreys WWI Trench Warfare. While I'm at it the first picture is from an old volume 'The Great Battles of WWI' 1971.

[bob lamoreaux]

Just a few comments on Hotchkiss machine guns as well as pre-Lend-Lease sales of guns and ammo to foreign purchasing commissions in the U.S. An unknown number of Hotchkiss guns were acquired by one of the purchasing commissions and were re-barreled to 7.62 Russian, the barrels originally to be made by Stevens, which may not have been able to produce them as a later report states that Iver Johnson was to make the barrels. On the issue of ammo, I was always under the assumption (I know: if one makes an assumption, one is making an rump out of you and me. . .) that the ammo was World War I surplus from canceled Imperial Russian orders. I just uncovered information that the 7.62 Russian ammo was probably from Finnish orders -- made by Winchester-Western, I believe, in about 1939-40, as the Finns were attempting to sell a significant amount of this (I think about 50 million rounds) to various purchasing commissions in the U.S. At least some of this ammo was sold to the Netherlands Purchasing Commission for use in remanufactured machine guns such as the Marlin and the Hotchkiss (remanufactured generally by Van Karner Arms and perhaps a few others) purchased from the U.S. Army in the late 1920s-early '30s as scrap. The N.P.C. purchased these guns for use in the Netherlands East Indies (now Indonesia). Although this is not necessarily appropriate for discussion on this forum, I thought the info might be of interest to those who wonder about the U.S. government's sale of surplus m.g.s. BTW, apparently some Lewis guns were purchased from surplus dealers and used on rum-running boats. . .

[Charlie Flick]

Hey Bob:

 

This photo does not really qualify under our Forum Rules but I'll make an exception here since it was a captured item. Given your interest in the Hotchkiss guns I thought that you would like to see this nice image from the LIFE magazine archives. The caption indicated it was taken in France during June, 1944.

 

Regards,

Charlie