"Bolt Action for WWI?" Topic

Has anyone heard any news about Warlord Games releasing a WWI version of Bolt Action?

Has anyone tried their own mod for this?

I'd be interested to try the Russo-Japanese War with these rules.

Thnx.

Hi

Try this link for gajos variant for ww1

link

Thanks Mole!

Additional Special Rules:
Unstable – an unstable vehicle may not fire any weapon other than machine or Lewis guns. Machine guns and Lewis guns fire at ROF1 if the vehicle moved. Pivoting in place does not count as movement for the purposes of this rule.

All vehicles, except the Whippet, are unstable. The Mk. IV Male, Mk. V, A7V, FT-17 (37mm), and Char St. Chamond all have a gun.
I don't have my rule book handy. Does "unstable" only apply to moving vehicles?

GAJO Games has done a great job in pulling together the WW1 variant, then updating this when Warlord Games brought out Bolt Action v2.

Here are some extra comments and thoughts FWIIW:

1. Tactical air support for ground troops did become more prevalent in the late war period. It was not supported by any ground-based assets though, nothing equivalent to an Air Force Forward Observer. In any case, ground attack aircraft had very little impact on the actual battlefield itself. Much more significant was the control of artillery assets by aerial observers. The Air Force Forward Observer should be thought of as a proxy for an aircraft flying overhead and directing fire on enemy threats in real-time. One side should have aerial dominance in most cases, typically the attacker. This will restrict any benefits from air assets to that side.

2. It is very reasonable to have MMGs inflict pins on tanks, though even armour-piercing ammunition fired from German MMGs had little effect in practice. The weakest armoured tanks were the British Mk IIs, which went into action during the Battles of Arras and Bullecourt. There is little evidence that the German MMGs were instrumental in knocking out these tanks, though they were targeted with armour-piercing ammunition. Minenwerfer and artillery were the big tank killers.

3. Chauchat LMGs should not be subjected to the 'Jam' special rule, as the Chauchat was not more prone jamming than other LMGs.

4. Infiltration Tactics are often referred to in the literature about stormtroopers. I would not call these out as something special. All sides developed the capacity to integrate multiple weapons systems. The success enjoyed against the British Fifth Army in Operation Michael was not down to special tactics but to the thinly spread defences and to the fog, both of which facilitated 'infiltration'. The Germans referred to British and French assault infantry as Sturmtruppen.

Robert

Hello, anyone tried these for East Africa and made any modifications. I was wondering what, if any, new rules could be used for Askari and Ruga Ruga.

Perhaps the scout rule might be appropriate.

Chauchat LMGs should not be subjected to the 'Jam' special rule, as the Chauchat was not more prone jamming than other LMGs.

I can't find any evidence of that on the internet. Googling Chauchat gives a lot of "worst gun ever", worst machine gun ever" type of articles. Here is an interesting short article outlining it's flaws.

link

Yes, you can find plenty of mentions about the Chauchat being so awful. Few have taken the time and effort to look at the use of the Chauchat in actual combat, other than reproduce comments about its purported technical limitations.

General Pétain conducted a survey in May 1917. Questionnaires were sent out to all French units. The weapons covered included: M1907 St-Etienne MG, M1914 Hotchkiss MG, M1915 Chauchat, Modèle 1917 RSC autoloading rifle, the V-B rifle grenade, hand grenades, and the 37mm Puteaux cannon. The responses on the Chauchat included:

"16th Infantry Regiment:
…The CSRGs have been used to defend conquered trenches and have made a major contribution in breaking counter-attacks; walking fire was not used.

Several guns functioned normally and gave excellent service; a few had stoppages what were nearly all caused by deformations of the magazines at the lips."

"19th Infantry Regiment:
…The CSRG has been used in the offensive, where its handling is difficult, and in the defensive where it very effectively played the role of machine guns.

…Obtained results were very satisfactory, particularly in the defensive. Observed problems: when it is raining and the terrain is muddy, the CSRG becomes dirty and fouled and a certain number of these guns are put out of action."

"34th and 49th Regiments:
…After having given excellent results during the actions of May 4 and 5, by intense flanking fire, these weapons were less effective because of stoppages, in spite of all the precautions. It is necessary that this weapon should be cleaned and oiled during combat…

Also, since the Assistant Gunners are overloaded, one of the riflemen should help transport the ammunition."

"62nd Infantry Regiment:
The CSRG teams are overloaded; the men have difficulty keeping up. The Backpacks and the ammunition should be carried by carts or mules.

The CSRGs magazine is not solid enough and often malfunctions."

"64th Infantry Regiment:
Very effective in the defensive, for flanking and direct fire.

In the offensive, walking fire is used in approaching the position.

The weapon has given entire satisfaction; several thousand rounds have been fired between April 19 and 30, 1917.

The following two problems have been observed: the lips of the magazine become deformed, giving feeding stoppages, and the cartridge guide rod breaks at its rear extremity."

"65th Infantry Regiment
…The magazine spring often fails… A protection system is needed to keep dirt out of the radiator ventilation holes on the barrel housing.
The current gun cover does not protect the gun sufficiently against rain and dust."

"93rd Infantry Regiment
Excellent weapon in the hands of well-trained men. Nevertheless the magazines need to be improved, for the lips are too weak and are the source of stoppages."

"98th Infantry Regiment
It has been used by the assault companies during the April 13 attack. A company that progressed through the hamlet of La Biette brought down a lot of the enemy while firing on the walk…"

"105th Infantry Regiment:
These weapons gave full satisfaction. Only the magazines are defective."

"116th Infantry Regiment:
They are only exceptionally to be used as offensive weapons, but present considerable advantages for the stabilization of new lines that have just been conquered.

Too many stoppages during walking fire.

Carrying the CSRG and its Backpack are the source of much suffering by the men…"

"137th Infantry Regiment:
The CSRGs expand the action of the machinegun sections; they must be pushed forward as much as possible. Their deployment in combination with groups of V-B rifle and hand grenadiers, which provide them with cover, have given excellent results. From the material viewpoint, necessity of great care and cleanliness and of oiling after 5 or 6 magazines."

"9th Infantry Division:
Results: the CSRG has excelled in all circumstances of combat.

Disadvantages: becomes fouled and prone to stoppages in contact with mud and dirt projections."

"12th Infantry Division:
Excellent results were obtained. The fire of the CSRGs during the night counter-attack of May 5-6 has contributed to a large degree to the failure of the German assault.

All were convinved after repeatedly seeing whole enemy ranks brought down in front of our trenches by the fire of the CSRGs."

French General Headquarters sent the summary reports to the War Ministry. The following problems were addressed: magazine quality; protection against mud; standardization of the flash hider; equipment for walking fire; overloading of the Gunner and Carriers; and standardization of ammunition, which was fitted with stiffer, crimped-in primers to prevent 'popped' primers on automatic fire.

Chauchats were prized by the Germans. 2. Kompagnie, Garde=Reserve=Pionier=Regiment (Flammenwerfer) for example used the Chauchat in combat at Verdun during the second half of 1916. The men were paid money from the company's welfare fund for each Chauchat brought in. This information comes from one of the members of the company who survived the war.

MG08/15s and Lewis guns were prone to jamming as well. There is an excellent training film from 1918 that shows an MG08/15 being set up and then suffering multiple stoppages within 2 minutes.

Robert

Here is a further series of quotes, collated together by Demaison and Buffetaut. The latter writer is particularly well known for his work on French military history:

"There is an interesting contrast between the routine disparagement of the Chauchat rifle in modern times and the dearth of negative comment in vintage American military literature.

There are very many Chauchat rifle references sprinkled through virtually all World War I US Divisional Histories, and in veterans' memoirs. However, in none of these is to be found a reference derogatory to the 8mm Chauchat.

To the combat veteran writing his memoirs in the postwar 1920s or 30s, the Chauchat was a familiar fixture that helped him to get the job done.

Naturally, when the BAR appeared in limited numbers during September, 1918 it was preferred by the few who used it. Nevertheless, the 8mm M1915 'Chau-Chau', as the Doughboys called it, was a familiar presence everywhere in the AEF Infantry and Marine divisions in France, during 12 months of warfare.

The following excerpts are quoted from the History of the 26th Division:

..April 29, near Secheprey: McMahon, an automatic rifleman, stood off many attempts at the wire on his front. When he finally ran out of ammunition the wire was hung with dead Boches… Ryan fed an automatic rifle till every other man of the team had been killed, and then fought out his own way to the Company…

..June 1918, near Chateau Thierry: Alfred Hall, of Hingham, armed with an automatic rifle, stood on the railway track. He was a fair mark for the Boche snipers on the hill and their bullets kept singing around him, but they never got him. As the Boches ran out of the railway station, Hall would line them up as on running rabbits. His automatic rifle would briefly remark 'pup-pup-pup' and Mr Boche would go down.

On the same battlefield, Lawrence Stallings' Doughboys also describes the actions of Colonel McAlexander's 38th Regiment, 3rd Division, which gained the name 'Rock of the Marne' by successfully defending the river crossing at Mezy, east of Chateau Thierry, on July 15, 1918:
..Corporal Connors with his squad of two Chauchat teams and their buddies from three companies killed twenty boatloads of the boys in the new leather belts before all but Connors were killed or wounded. Connors had no more clips for his hiccupping Chauchats, but there were still some grenades…

Several further Chauchat testimonies can be found in Fixed Bayonets, written in 1925 by US Marine Captain W J Thomason Jr. The longest one recalls an event which took place near Belleau Wood in July, 1918:
..One lieutenant found himself behind a woodpile with a big auto rifleman. Just across from them, very near, a German machine gun behind another woodpile, was searching for them. He picked up the Chauchat [when the gunner was killed]… laid the gun across the woodpile and sighted three Boches… He gave them the whole clip and they appeared to wilt.

Incidents quoted from the History of the 42nd Division…
July 16, 1918: Pvt Michael Toody, automatic gunner, shot down an enemy plane later that afternoon.

Eight of the enemy approached a post which was occupied by Private Thomas Mead, who was alone. They approached with their hands up. Seeing that Mead was alone, one of the enemy reached for and threw a potato-masher [grenade] which overshot its mark. Mead opened up with his Chauchat and cleaned out the lot.

July 28: My attention was attacted by the reports of rapid fire on the left flank. It was one of C Company boys with a French chau-chau who had tumbled a German with a light Maxim…

Another quote, this time from the 28th Division:
July 28, 1918 near Sergy, north of Chateau Thierry: After an unsuccessful attack on Bois des Grimpettes, Mechanic Beer went out alone in front of our line, in plain view of the enemy, under heavy machinegun fire from the front and flank, and gathered up the Chauchat rifles and Musette Bags of ammunition that been abandoned by the men. He made several trips, distributing the badly needed equipment to the advanced elements of our line.

Other examples, from the 3rd Division, are reported by Colonel Butts in his famous account The Keypoint at the Marne. In July, 1918,
…Lieutenant Savage, a man among men, who had in an unusual degree the desire to serve his country, died at one end of the bridge, firing a Chauchat rifle after the Gunners were killed.

…The automatic rifle squads were making their Chauchats rattle like machineguns. Gunner Parson, when he could no longer see the enemy from the trench, climbed up on the parapet and fired his heavy Chauchat from his shoulder.

…On our side it was strictly rifles and Chauchat fire; machineguns were used by the Germans…"

Robert

Robert, thanks for the detailed reply. Unfortunately, the quotes you produce do not change my understanding of the Chauchat's shortcomings. Yes the internet is full of nonsense, but the article I linked to provides a sober analysis of it's structural and design flaws.

Here is an excerpt from a Masters Thesis on "American Soldiers' Use of Weapons in WW1":

"The French Chauchat was the most commonly used submachine gun during the war. It operated on recoil and had a twenty round crescent shaped magazine. Meek actually seems to be in the minority on his assessment about the Chauchat working. Most complained of it jamming and it is easy to see how this would happen with the design of the gun and magazine. Kyler directed most of his scorn at the French weapon claiming it
was "too heavy, inaccurate, of limited tactical use and caused a waste of effort and ammunition." Many would have
preferred to have the Browning .30 caliber automatic
rifle (BAR) which was invented around this time.
Unfortunately, Pershing withheld the BAR until the Meuse Argonne because it was considered too good to fall into enemy hands. Private Malcolm D. Aitken of the 2nd Division recalled in his memoir how his unit of Marines tried to exchange their Chauchats to newly arrived Texas regiments carrying the BAR. Their compliments of the weapon verged on outright lies and managed to trick the green soldiers into taking the trade. The officers, however, forced the regiments to trade back. Part of the problem, Aitken admits, is that they were never trained to use the Chauchat so it was automatically considered below par."

link

(Unfortunately the references are not all included, just the resource texts)

I'll also state that many of the positive responses to the Petain survey was that the Chauchat was the only weapon available to the French that did what it did. It was the only thing they had. The positive reports seem to indicate that the French units were reliant on the Chauchat more so than it's technical and mechanical attributes. (I think the quote you provided about Mechanic Beer above, gives credence to this).

Plus many of the anecdotes seem to simply show that the Chauchat worked. No one is contesting that the gun fired. What the critics are saying is that it didn't fire consistently. As for the Germans "prizing" the Chauchat, I'd say that the Germans were thankful for any captured weaponry, especially in the latter part of the war. That is more an indictment of German supply issues than the brilliance of the Allied weaponry.

A hypothetical question: if there were enough BARs to go around to all the Allies, would anyone choose a Chauchat instead?

However, I will grant you that hyperbolic announcements of "worst gun ever" that you find on the internet rarely are accurate.

Considering I've seen some frackwit claiming the Mauser '98 as the 'worst gun ever'…

The comments about the Chauchat actually sounds about right for any self-loading firearm. Magazines are critical to the operation. I've had a bad magazine in a 1911 pistol of all things, not to mention bad mags in a PSL rifle.

Bad magazine design = unreliable firearm.

I found the Forgotten Weapons treatment of the chauchat informative. You might also enjoy:

YouTube link

Just to reiterate, the Chauchat was not the only light machine gun / automatic rifle that experienced jamming from time to time. My comment about the live filming of an MG08/15 probably got lost in the rest of the post but bears repeating. In less than 2 minutes of filming, the MG08/15 suffered multiple episodes of jamming. Chauchat gunners, along with their MG08/15 and Lewis gun counterparts, were well-trained in releasing jammed rounds. If you watch the various videos on Chauchats then you will see that a well maintained gun can easily fire off a whole clip without problems. Conversely, if and when a jam occurs then this is usually cleared in seconds and firing resumes – just as occurs in the film clip of the MG08/15. Given that these weapons were not typically firing at men only a few yards away, temporary stoppages were a nuisance but did not prevent these weapons from dealing out serious harm, Chauchat included. In other words, while there were 'inconsistent' episodes within a firing cycle, the overall performance of a Chauchat was consistently good.

If we correlate stoppages with poor design then we have to look at the designs of other similar weapons. The open pannier of the Lewis gun, for example, was prone to collect mud and cause jams if not managed carefully (just as Chauchat gunners had to care for the magazines in similar conditions). But I prefer a different approach. What is the overall impact of the weapon or weapons system in battle? Herein lies one of the bigger problems – we rarely access primary sources from other nationalities.

With respect to the French, for example, the Chauchat was not the only automatic rifle they had. The pre-war French development of these types of weapons raised real concern with the German High Command. In addition, French infantry were often trained to use (and did use) captured MG08/15s. It was not uncommon for French units to work alongside their British counterparts, which brought them into direct contact with the use of the Lewis gun. Conversely, British observers saw Chauchats in action too. Spiers wrote about this in his book 'Prelude to Victory'. He witnessed a training session where Chauchats were used to walk infantry onto German positions, with several of the gunners firing from the hip as they walked with their colleagues. He was deeply impressed – and did not raise any concerns about the fallibility of the Chauchat.

I am not trying to argue that the Chauchat was perfect. Based on extensive reading about its use, however, I continue to argue that it should not be penalised in comparison to its automatic rifle / light machine gun counterparts.

Robert

Here is a video from an original film made during WW1. It shows a French Chauchat team in a staged demo:

YouTube link

Another video of a full clip being fired from the hip:

youtu.be/lPFu_ZlQ6yg

Robert

Superb videos