Model 1892 Berthier Artillery Musketoon

Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on forgotten weapons dot com I'm Ian mcCallum and today We are continuing our journey through French rifle development and today We are taking a look at a model of 1892 Berthier carbine so in 1890 the French military had adopted this guy as the standard cavalry carbine And they made a whole bunch of them, and it was all good However there were some other branches of the French military that also needed carbines And they weren't quite up to adopting that cavalry carbine. This was these were groups like Artillery crews, drivers, messengers, engineers basically guys who had auxiliary duties that made it less than convenient for them to carry a full-size lebel rifle They also needed some sort of carbine and it took two years but ultimately the french military adopted basically this exact same Cavalry Carbine just with a Bayonet added to it and that became the artillery model in this case it was called the artillery musketoon, or mousqueton and They would end up making a lot more of these than of the cavalry guns because they in fact had a lot more troops who were in a position to use something like this, so mechanically In pretty much every way this is identical to the 1890 cavalry Carbine Except the stock has been cut a little bit shorter And it's set up to use a bayonet because these guys engineers artillery crew Etc they were on foot, and they were presumably needed some sort of related weapon to go on the end of the carbine, so In total these were well these were then manufactured by the same two arsenal's that were doing the other carbines Châtellerault and Saint Etienne in total they would manufacture about three hundred and eighty four thousand of these by the time world war one actually started, so Way more than the cavalry carbines once the war started they kind of kicked production into High gear and by the time they stopped making these they'd have a total of six hundred and seventy-five thousand of them, so they're really quite a lot of carbines now as The war went on there were some flaws with these carbines that started to become evident And there's a lot of questions about about these flaws Primarly why were the French using a three-round clip wasn't it pretty obvious? Well before world war one that more than three rounds was possible after all the Germans had adopted a five-round rifle all the way back in 1888 well There are a couple explanations for that first off this wasn't intended to be a frontline infantry weapon That was the lebel and it held eight rounds in its magazine. Which is three more than the German rifles This was really supposed to be kind of a backup weapon You didn't anticipate your artillery crewmen were going to be fighting in You know a hot infantry combat with their carbines they were supposed to be there using artillery same with drivers and messengers the engineers weren't the ones expected to be delivering you know the sustained primary infantry fires, so they didn't necessarily need as many rounds as the Standard infantry rifle And it wasn't what what happened in World War one? Wasn't really anticipated and that was the carbine becoming a primary combat weapon because it was so much handier Especially in Trench warfare than this very long lebel rifle, so on one hand They didn't really see that need coming on the other hand on a second second note. They also had this you know the responsibilities of military arms development don't end at the infantry rifle Or the support carbine there's a lot of other stuff that they were working on artillery machine guns and then all manner of other Logistical things trucks let's replace horses with motorized vehicles in the military all of these things Take resources that could potentially be given to small arms development, so once they had a carbine it was developed for the cavalry Alright by 1892 we realized this will work. Just fine. It'll get the job done We'll just adopt it and use it and then once the war starts it becomes much more difficult to actually Change it to update it and put a lot of energy into designing something that's different now Despite that that level of difficulty in changing mid work they did do just that so in early in the spring of 1916 the French war ministry put out a request for a number and basically an update package to the 1892 Carbines and that would become the model of M sixteen or the Model the modification of M16 1916 and we will cover that in the next video And that's going to be a big one There's a lot of stuff going on at that point And that's when the french would really update this from a pre-war support weapon to a Frontline combat weapon So we'll touch on that in the next video the other thing since that's pretty much all there is to tell you about the 1892 s And you can see it pretty well, we'll take a closer Look at these so you can see the markings And how they're going to change a little bit and then the other thing we are going to do Is take a look at the Bayonets because of course one of the defining? Characteristics the whole reason they had this as a distinct weapon from the 1890 Carbines was that it needed a bayonet So let's take a look at the bayonets there were three different versions, and we have examples of all three here to show you so the first thing I need to do is point out that I actually left out a Whole batch of these guns and that is the 1890s Gendarmerie Carbine so before this was actually Adopted for the artillery and the support troops the version here with a shortened stock and a bayonet lug Was actually developed right off of the 1890 carbine and issued to Gendarmerie or basically national police They were Running about on both foot and on horse and did have the need for a bayonet Despite being a police force. They were subject to basically being called up as a military reserve So that is why they needed a military-style carbine with a bayonet despite the police Now there were only a small number of those guns made something like I believe they actually ordered like 44,000 but then decided that they only actually needed about half of those and So the rest were actually issued out as artillery carbines because other than one marking on the receiver They really are identical to these artillery carbines So speaking of that marking on the receiver here It is we have the arsenal that manufactured the gun in this case Saint Etienne Then we have the model this isn't a Modèle M.O.D.E.L.E. 1892 on the Gendarmerie Carbines this would be identical except it would say 1890 and Have a bayonet lug, so we've got that we then have as The previous guns we have a serial number here on the barrel there is no serial on the receiver. It was considered unnecessary We then have steel suppliers and inspector marks on the opposite side of the barrel shank we have the location where the barrel was manufactured, so MAS here is Manufacture d'Armes de Saint Etienne The S is for Saint Etienne at this point the arsenal's were making their own barrels But there would be a period in world war one coming up where they would be using barrels produced by other companies And that's when you'll start to see other letters replacing that S on barrels So that's something to keep in mind for the future and of course we have the barrel manufactured witch on this gun is 1893 next up on the right side of the stock we have a roundel a Stamp in the wood and this indicates not the date of manufacture but the date of actual final military acceptance so in the middle, it's in A Manufacture D'Armes and then on the top we have the month this one is novembre or november of 1893 down Here This is something that is often worn away on French rifles but it's really ideal if you're a collector to find guns that have these roundels nice and intact and still legible and For the historian it provides a good additional data point because this tells you when the gun actually went into service So in some cases parts were manufactured and they may have sat around in a warehouse for a while before Being allocated and being actually assembled This gives you that that final proof of when the gun was complete and done We have the standard sling configuration here this would be typical for oh boy they're going to have this sort of sling attachment for many decades to come we have a ring on the front and In this case we have a rotating Sling swivel on the bottom now on some of these guns like we saw in the cavalry carbines earlier You'll have a bar on the side But because this was to be issued to foot troops this was considered the preferred method of sling attachment We also have the clearing rod Here in a slot on the side of the stock this is not for cleaning as I mentioned with the cavalry carbines this is actually there for Knocking out a stuck case should you get a case that sticks in the chamber It is threaded All right here at the end. So that it slides into this slot It's held in place by the front band here And then it's threaded into the receiver so that it doesn't come loose when you're shooting now this particular one is a reproduction Rod Originally these guns would have had rods that were serial numbered serial serial number matched to the rest of the gun It is not that uncommon to find these rods missing unfortunately and this particular 1892 Carbine was missing its Rod So there are reproductions available on ebay there as you can see they're quite nice reproductions they're pretty easily distinguishable from from originals because Reproductions don't have serial numbers on them, and they're way shinier then an original Rod would be There are three other places where you will find serial numbers that being the bolt handle the stock and the bottom of the trigger guard slash magazine well assembly These are all issued with bent bolt handles that was standard for the carbines in fact up until 1915 there was no straight bolt handle Model of a Berthier three round enblock clip as we saw with the cavalry Carbine, so Nothing new there May be familiar with the famous French Rosalie bayonet. That's the very long Spike Bayonet for the lebel rifle well the Berthiers did not use that with the exception of the Gendarmerie carbines Which did actually have a spike ban those are quite rare today And I don't have an example to show you however the vast majority of The Berthier Carbines would use one of these three patterns of bayonet, and they're all interchangeable. They were just These three show the the process of development the changes in manufacturer over the course of production So we have a first pattern a second pattern and a third pattern in general. This is a blade Bayonet It's got a big deep fuller in it and it's also kind of distinctive for having this little cutout So that cutout was added in 1898 and it was done to better retain the bayonet in its Scabbard I can't really get a good view inside to show you but on Each side of the Scabbard there's a little rivet here at the back and there's actually a bent piece of sheet metal that extends into the scabbard and Basically holds in this notch on either side of the blade and that prevents the blade from coming out So our three main variants here this was of course introduced with the rifle in the very beginning and then the second pattern here was introduced in 1912 and the Reason that they changed to this was that these bayonets didn't always fit on the rifles quite tightly enough So what they did was actually extend the muzzle ring back just about an eighth of an inch you know a couple millimeters back So you can see the difference Right there the first pattern just comes straight up from where the grips are attached the second pattern extends backwards just a little bit these are both using a bakelite type of grip and Then we have the major change of the third pattern here Which is they stopped extending the quillion all the way around now you might expect this to be a fairly early wore thing But it actually wasn't this wasn't done until like september of 1918 very very late in the war And actually we have good evidence to show that aside from just the documents that say it On this particular band that which the serial number is pretty worn down out I can't get a good camera angle on it, but this is a bayonet with serial number of A B and then 59,000 and change so these bayonets were Serialized to their rifles the serial numbers are right here on the quillion and this particular one was made for a rifle or made in 1918 in fact fairly late 1918 and it still has the full quillion so that supports the existing documentation which does say that these cut downs third pattern Bayonets weren't done until very late in the war in fact the official designation for these bayonets wasn't even Really put into documentation until 1925 so this is something that's more post-war than late war Now as for attachment to the carbines these berthier bayonets have a spring-loaded release button right here There is a little locking bar right there in the base of the bayonet. This is different from the Lebel bayonet The Lebel Bayonet actually has a locking collar that goes right behind the muzzle ring On the Berthier, we have a little hook in a bayonet lug right there, and that's actually going to insert itself into the pommel like so and snap on like that, and then it just kind of pushes the cleaning rod just slightly out of the way the Gendarmerie Carbine Bayonets actually have a slot in the handle for that clearing Rod which was not included on the Standard 1892 Bayonets So to take it off. We're just going to push that button in and then push the bayonet forward Well, hopefully you guys learn something today about the 1892 carbines This was a briefer episode because there's just not a whole lot to tell you about that however What we have here is the basis for a couple of different developments in French rifles and we'll be following up on both of those one of them is going to be the Modification of 1916 which is a whole package of up gate upgrades to the guns And the other is what would eventually lead to Berthier long rifle I think it's worth pointing out that at this point 1892 even with the beginning of world war one the French did not have a long rifle version of the Berthier They had the the infantry long rifle was the Lebel and the cavalry for all of the other types of troops was the 3-round Berthier carbine so we will follow this into the indochina and the senegalese 1902 and 1907 versions and From there, they will finally make it into the infantry long rifle version of the Berthier so stick around for those videos as well They will be coming up if you are a fan of French rifles Don't miss your chance to get the cool only dropping ones shirt. This is a limited edition shirt It is only available until july 28th so take a look at the link in the description text below to pick up one of those if you are so inclined and of Course thank you for watching

Channel: Forgotten Weapons

Views: 111,954

Keywords: Berthier, berthier artillery musketoon, 1892, rifle, Carbine, History, size Lebel rifle, cavalry carbine, Berthier carbine, model, Military Conflict, WW1, 8x50, artillery crews, Chatellerault factories, Mosqueton d'Artillerie, French military, French inventory, St Etienne, Gras, Lebel, musket, bayonet lug, World War I, Chassepot, Firearm, shooting, french, Forgotten Weapons, Mannlicher type clip, Gun, slightly modified version, war, bf1, verdun, bayonet, mle 1892, 1890 gendarmerie, development

Id: wrsii-U3Dl4

Length: 15min 35sec (935 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 19 2017