2nd CMR
Location: B.C.
Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 11:18 am
The Huot Automatic Rifle apparently had many virtues and was trialed at Enfield, Hythe and in
France
. It was a gas operated adaption of the MkIII Ross rifle that equiped
Canadian troops in France. Because of its "straight-pull" bolt the Ross was particulary suited to this kind of conversion. The Huot would have cost about $50. each to build using Ross rifle parts that were "going to be scrapped" (after the Ross was withdrawn and the government took over the Ross Rifle Co. factory in 1917) Lewis guns cost about $1000. each. The Huot could fire single shots or bursts and was found to be less vunerable to dirt, quicker to load, lighter and smaller and easily handled and fired by one man while advancing. It had a 25 round drum magazine that could be changed in two seconds or loaded with loose rounds in 30 seonds and could even accept belt-feed from Vickers belts. (Probably a larger capacity magazine could have been designed.) Gen. Currie in a long and obviously well thought out letter dated Oct. 1, 1918 requested the immediate issue of 5000 Huots to the Canadian Corps.
The Huot is fully covered with photos from the Blair Collection (held at the Seaforth's Museum in Vancouver) in "The Ross Rifle Story" by Phillips, Dupuis & Chadwick. Maj. Blair was the technical officer most concerned with the Huot. That book has recently been republished. I recommend it to anyone interested in the subject.
Huot apparently approached the Canadian government in Sept. 1916 about his design, but the wheels grind slowly...It's not hard to imagine the effect that such a weapon might have had on trench warfare, particularly in the attack where covering SA fire was so difficult to provide. In many ways the Huot was actually superior to the Browning Automatic Rifle of 1918.
As a footnote, Sir Charles Ross wanted to combine his .280" high velocity cartridge with the MkIII action in what he felt was the ultimate military arm. This is the cartridge that was the forerunner of all modern magnum/high velocity cartridges in the sense that it was the first to exceed 3000 feet per second velocity. This gave a trajectory of only 5" rise out to 500 yards range, meaning that no adjustment of sights was necessary up to that range and even somewhat beyond it for battlefield (or hunting) purposes .303 by comparison has a very high trajectory making adjustment of sights necessary beyond 2 - 300 yards.
The War Department (
UK) tried unsuccesfully to copy the Ross .280 round in the .276 cartridge made for the Pattern 1913 rifle based on an improved Mauser action. This rifle was later converted to .303 and .30-06 to become the Patt.14 and M17 of the UK and US respectively.
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Originally Posted by springfield armoury
