Lewis 12,7 kg 1270 mm 7,7
Madsen 9 kg 1143 mm 7.92x57
BAR 8.3 kg 1190 mm 7,62x63
Chauchat 9 kg 1143 mm 8x50
MG 08/15 22 kg 1180 mm 7.92x57
Mondragon M1887 4.2 kg 1105 mm 7.92x57
The constant losses of men, for reason of war and deseases declined steadily the number af available troops,
at such that rate that, the recruits of the new classes of young men wasn't able to fill the gaps.
The response of the high commands, as happened in WWII, was to reduce the platoon's soldiers number,
while increasing their firepower, thus they were widely delivered automatic weapons: sub-machine-guns,
automatic rifles, light machine-guns, as well as flames-throwers, shotguns, hand granades,
rifle granades and light mortars.
Then the stronger army, and the weaker ones, organized shock troops, well trained and armed, such as:
German Stosstruppen, Austrian Sturmtruppen and Italian Arditi, it's no coincidence that the sub-machine gun was
invented almost simultaneously by German and Italian.
The weapons presented here are very different, because they represent different operational conceptions and tactical
choiches. The sub-machine guns were similar to those of WWII, they fired short range hand-guns ammo, and were
quite light and easy to handle, they operated using the same blowback action firing with a breech not
mechanically locked.
The other weapons used the same ammo of the bolt action rifles of the respective nations.
The Mondragon was an automatic rifle, the Chauchat, the BAR and the Madsen were border-line weapons, as they stood betwen the automatic rifle and the light machine-gun.
The MG 08/15 and the Lewis were light machine guns, so it's difficult, if not wrong, to compare their performance with that of the previous three weapons.
The MG 08/15 was the most widespread German machine gunof WWI, in 1918 they were distributed in a number of 6 for company, their production reached 130.000 units, it was a realiable weapon and could sustain long periods of continued fire, being water-cooled, but it was quite heavy, about 22 kg including water for the cooling system.
The Lewis was a light machine gun air cooled, very reliable and accurate, but it was more expansive than the Vicker, even if faster to be built. 50.000 were producted.
The Mondragon was a good automatic rifle, it was a Mexican designed weapon,
built by the Swiss SIG, it wasn't suited for trench war because it suffered the mud, so it was
used by the German airplane observers at the oubreak of the war.
The BAR was a very good Automatic Rifle, or a light machine-gun considering the heavy barrel. It had
a short magazine, longer it had touched the soil, during WWII there were two BARs for squad, when
one was recharged, the other covered the squad. It was delivered since june 1918, and 52.000 were producted before the end of the war. As all weapons, expecially the automatic ones, it needed very accurate cleaning, expecially the iron air vent of of the gas-operating system.
The CSRC was a very cheap weapon, quick to be built, during WWI they were producted 260.000 Chauchat. In the mature stage of the war each French infantry company received 8 CSRG, one for demì section.
It has several problems, but with good maintenance, cleaning, best practices of loading and from good to perfect loaders it did its dirty job, providing firepower to demì sections. It was massively used by Belgian, Americans and Italian too.
The Madsen, of Danish design and production was a best-seller in 1900,
about thirty nations bought it for their armies, but the high cost limited their availability.
