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Q series so 1950. What altercation was France involved in in 1950? Though this one was probably UnIssued.

Maybe that little thing in Indo-China. Nice looking rifle though.

Vietnam? Dien Bien Phu was only four years after the rifle was made...

Indochina.  Korea.  Things may have been percolating in Algeria.

The French were involved in a number of military conflicts in the 1950s, including the Korean War, Suez Crisis, and colonial uprisings in Algeria, Morocco, Camaroon, and Indochina/Vietnam.

Very nice!

I love me some mas

Madagascar 1950 (police action)
Korean War 1950-1953 (156th Infantry Regiment. Most everyone else was in Indochina)
Tunisia 1952-1955 (police action)
Morocco 1952-1956 (police action/low-level counterinsurgency)
Indochina 1945-1954
Algeria 1954-1962
Suez Nov., 1956

Since Suez was primarily an airborne/commando operation, few, if any, Mle. 36's would have been encountered. Most of those troops used the folding stock Mle. 36 CR 39 if they were armed with a bolt action. Most would have had a repeating arm: MAT Mle. 49 SMG, FM-24/29 automatic rifle, AA-52 LMG, or Mle. 49 semi-automatic rifle.

Almost all of the French rifles were refinished and put into arsenal storage after they were retired from frontline service shortly after Algeria ended. There's a high probability that rifle saw service in French hands somewhere. They were quite busy post-War. While their political leadership was nothing short of inept, the lower units were some of the most highly-trained, battle-hardened, and competently-led units in the West, a situation not far removed to what we see with the US military today.

Nice, shot allot, refurbished once.

Me too.



1936 MAS 36





1962 MAS 49/56

I've got a 49/56 in 7.5 and it is basically a single shot.

I know that people here like to dump on the French, but the record of the British Army in WWII was not stellar either.  In Singapore, 160,000 British soldiers surrendered to 40,000 Japanese troops.  Defeated by inferior German airborne forces on Crete.  Easily driven form France even though they has several months to prepare for the German onslaught.  Poland held out longer against the Germans than the British and French did.  And they were attacked with very little warning.  The early dessert fighting against the Germans was a disaster too.

The problems in both armies was not the quality of the fighting soldiers, but the quality of their leadership.  The officer corps of both countries was mainly form the upper class and they had little contact with and much disdain for the fighting men.  The men were well aware of this and their morale was low as a result.  Churchill was well aware of the problem.  It took him a long time to find men like Montgomery who were pretty good leaders and genuinely cared for the soldiers under them.  And they responded in a positive manner to his leadership.  

One of my sons fought alongside French forced in Afghanistan.  According to him, they were very good at their jobs, courageous and has fabulous food too.

Really OP.  Show some respect.

I suspect these Legionaries tried very hard not to drop theirs.

Both armies benefited greatly after the war from the massive influx of a highly experienced and competent NCO corps. In Indochina and Algeria, much greater responsibility was heaped on to the lower-level (regimental level and down) leadership, NCO's included, compared to their performance in WW2. In other words, competent unit leaders were let off the leash. WW2 had done much to effectively destroy much of the aristocracy in France. What remained did not garner the same amount of respect it had enjoyed pre-War. The British saw a similar pattern in Malaya, Aden, Oman, and Borneo.



Start another thread detailing the issue(s) and we can probably help you out. The Mle. 49 series are about the simplest semi-auto rifles ever made. There are not a lot of places for problems to hide.

+1, my brother had the same problem.. all it lacked was some required shims in the trigger group. Easy to work on.

There's a French movie on Netflix titled "intimate enemies," about the Algerian conflict.  Everyone has a mle 36.

Classic Joke - Always Hilarious

French are cool in my book. Helped us become a country.

Sadly .. that France that helped us gain our independance as country  has not existed for over 200 years. Which was the Monarchy lead by the House of Bourbon - 16th century - 18th century.

After that all we got was French republics.. starting with the first which lasted about 10 years before france became an Empire for near 50 years before returning to a republic in 1848.

The french have had back luck with republics.. they are now on their 5th.

Back to the MAS- its one of the most underrated bolt rifles of the period..(1930s-1940s)  probably due to its lack of time in the field due to France's early compilation to the Germans.

I love both of mine.

Saw a nice 36 conversion to 7.62x39mm, using an AK mag today @ the Big Town gun show.  And a friend had a 49/56 .308" magazine, as well.

How much was it?

Think the 36 conversion was $300ish, didn't ask on the mag.  My friend w/ the .308 magazine has a 49/56 in 7.5mm as well.  I see Steve & pals regularly - if you reply before I leave for the show I can get pricing for you on the 49/56 stuff - dunno if I can find the 36 conversion again, but I'll look for it if you're interested.

That movie- L'Ennemi Intime- was set in 1959. A regular infantry unit like that one would have had Mle. 36's and maybe a Mle. 49 for rifles. The commando and airborne units were the first to get the Mle. 49/56 starting with a trial run in early 1957, followed by full-scale issue a year later. Due to US Military Assistance Program aid, many support units and some infantry units had M1 Garands, M1917 rifles, and BAR's, at least until French production was able to catch up. M1 and M1A1 Carbines were used by everyone throughout the duration of the war and were very highly regarded.

As for the -36, it's the WW2-era bolt action rifle that I would want to take into combat if I had a choice. Good sights, short overall length, smooth and very fast action, brutally reliable, easy disassembly, and few parts to worry about.

I found this at a gun show.

Probably never fired and probably never dropped:

oh they were fired at arsenal. Looks like a 1970s mummied mas 36 or mas 36/51

my mas 36 pictured above was in that state at one time.

MAS 36 thread?

Found it today.  It's a Wiselite Arms conversion, made in Boyd, Texas, and was priced @ $375 for a fixed 10 round magazine (welded in place).  Love's Guns's Etc had it if anyone's interested.

Not a great photo - WWII bringback

The snide remarks about the French fighting man ought to disqualify anyone from any help on these boards.  It smacks of ignorance and undeserved disrespect.

The French suffered high casualty rates prior to the capitulation.  They fought bravely being hampered horribly by bad leadership and poor tactics.  Many continued the fight later.  They fought to the last man in French Indochina.

France lost a higher percent of its military to casualties than did the US in WWII.  They had well over I million KIA just 20 years earlier in WWI.

I have some questions for the Francophobes on this forum.  When did you face shots fired in anger?  How frightened were you?  Were you aware that desertion from the front lines in Europe in WWII was a huge problem for the US Army?  Shall we call the American fighting man a coward because of the actions of a few?

Were the French beloved allies of ours?  No.  But then the French were fighting for their best interests and not ours.

Did you read all the posts in this thread before commenting?

Yes, I read them.  The poster who impugned the courage of the French soldier needs to acknowledge that it was uncalled for and totally unsupportable.

It is fine that others mentioned poor leadership, etc.  Also, it is fine that some pointed out that the French fought with distinction post war.  But it isn't enough.

Also, it is a myth that WWII German vets carried the heaviest load in French Indochina.

Dien Bien Phu myths:

Myth 1)The French Foreign Legion unit in Dien Bien Phu consisted almost entirely of former Waffen SS commandos or German WW2 veterans.

Reality: Only 30% of the entire Foreign Legion force in Dien Bien Phu were Germans.In fact most of the German Foreign Legionnaires were not Waffen SS and not even veterans of WW2.Most of the German Legionnaires were young men with little combat experience!

Myth 2)The French had no clear goal as to why a battle was being fought at Dien Bien Phu in the first place.

Reality: The French had 3 major objectives in Dien Bien Phu!  The first objective was to lure the Viet Minh in attacking the fortress where the French would have destroyed them and earned a victory that would have helped the France gain leverage in negotiations. Second of all the French made a base in Dien Bien Phu so that they could stop enemy supply routes( since Dien Bien Phu was a common place where Viet Minh supply passed through).Thirdly the French also made a base in Dien Bien Phu so they could protect Laos,an ally of the French who were being attacked by the Viet Minh.

Myth 3)The French were unaware that the Viet Minh had artillery.

Reality: French intelligence did discover that the Viet Minh had artillery long before the battle.What the French intelligence was unaware of was that there was an uphill mountain side in DIen Bien Phu where the Viet Minh would be able to bring up artillery.

Myth 4)The French were easily slaughtered in Dien Bien Phu.

Reality: The Viet Minh suffered far more casualties than the French ever did in Dien Bien Phu.By the end of the battle the number the Viet Minh dead alone were 3X the overall size of the French army in Dien Bien Phu.In fact the Viet Minh morale nearly collapsed during the middle of the battle after the Vietnamese saw so many Viet Minh troops easily getting slaughtered as they tried to assault the base. and the Viet Minh would have retreated out of fear if Giap didn't use force to keep the Viet Minh in order.Also the vast majority of Viet Minh troops who were wounded but survived the battle would soon die shortly afterwards because of fatal wounds.

Myth 5)The Vietnamese were far inferior to the French in weaponry in DBP

Vietnamese had weaponry that were as equally powerful as the French in Dien Bien Phu(some equipment they had were even far superior than those the French had)! In fact most artillery the Vietnamese had were just as equally powerful and has equal fire range as those the French used. Some of the artillery even outmatched those of the French in power and fire range!  The VM had a great deal of American artillery captured in Korea.  As for small arms, the VM had access to huge supplies of captured German and Allied small arms.  If it shot, it ended up in VN.

Edit:  I think the above is dead wrong regarding small weaponry.  There is little evidence that the SKS was common in the First Vietnamese War.  The AK?  Not hardly.  Even Soviet Warsaw Pact countries didn't have these in most cases.

The only superior equipment the French really had were air bombers and they were rendered useless by the monsoon of Vietnam and the powerful anti air equipment!

Hell the Vietnamese even had the deadly weapons that significantly turned the tide in Stalingrad and in the Eastern Front of WW2:the deadly Katyusha rocket launchers!

Myth 6)The French Foreign Legions did all the fighting in Dien Bien Phu and composed all the troops defending Dien Bien Phu

Reality is that the French Foreign Legion only made up around 2,500 of the 12,000 troops in Dien Bien Phu. They played a very minimal role in deciding the outcome of the battle. The vast majority of the troops in Dien Bien Phu were French Colonial Paratroopers and North African mercenaries. The French Colonial Troopers and North African mercenaries also did most of the fighting in the battle and suffered most of the casualties in the battle.

7)Dien Bien Phu was intended to be a static fortress of trenches and bunkers much in the way like the Maginot Line.

Contrary to popular belief, Dien Bien Phu was originally not intended to be a defensive fortress. Actually the General who proposed making a base in Dien Bien Phu, Rene Cogny had a different plan in mind. Cogny intended to turn Dien Bien Phu into a special forces camp where the GCMA (French equivalent of the Green Berets) commandos would operate in. Cogny had a plan where the GCMA would conduct spoiling raids on Vietminh supply routes and Vietminh units around units and Dien Bien Phu was his intended area where the GCMA would hide in and use as a base. Renee Cogny hoped that his plan of using special forces at Dien Bien Phu would eventually ruin cause significant damage to the Vietnamese and would help the French army be able to finally assault main Viet Minh strongholds in North Vietnam. It was his higher superior, General Henri Navarre, who disregarded Cogny's plan and decided to turn Dien Bien Phu into an impenetrable fortress.

Post Napoleon.. the french solder's largest handicap to overcome was poor leadership and tactics.

My sincere sympathies for the soldiers of World War I and II that had to serve under such lack of command  and leadership (not to mention tactics) - (especially those of WW1)

Edited...VA-gunnut

Pretty sure what you posted is against the rules here.
 

2) The French command had those objectives in mind, yet they failed to prioritize them, and later failed to lend any logisitics or command support to furthering any of those goals. Tuan Giao was the major Viet Minh supply depot. Prior to the battle, the DBP area, along with many others nearby, was important to the VM only as a rice-producing region. It held little specific strategic value to them.

3) French intelligence was aware that the VM had artillery firing up to 75mm shells. They were completely unaware of Chinese-produced M1 105mm howitzer copies. French intelligence also believed that the VM had no way of transporting their artillery all the way from the Chinese border crossings in the northeast of Tonkin. To clarify what you said: It took awhile for the French to figure out that the Viets had placed their artillery on the forward mountain slopes facing the camp, and that they had placed most of those in enclosures which only left the barrel exposed while firing. That was great for crew and equipment protection, but it severely limited the field of fire and there were instances where there was no available artillery to support VM attacks. French artillery (105, 155mm howitzers, 120mm mortars) had 360* fields of fire but the gun pits afforded little protection for man and machine.

6) There were no "North African mercenaries". France recruited heavily from its North, West, and Central African colonies and protectorates. They were not mercenaries, but were instead colonial troops. Moroccan and Algerian rifle untis (Régiments de Tirailleurs Marocain et Algerien) were present at DBP. In fact, most of the CEFEO (Corps Expéditionaire Français en Extrême-Orient- French Far East Expeditionary Corps) was comprised of colonial forces, as Metropolitan French conscripts were forbidden from being deployed there. Some Metro para and support units were sent over, however. The Legion was part of the Armée d'Afrique, and thus not considered Metropolitan troops.

7) You are correct in saying that the camp was never intended as a defensive emplacement. However, Cogny, despite being commander of Nord Tonkin did not care one bit about DBP, and instead was heavily invested in the defense of the Red River Delta region. He carried this attitude all the way up to and beyond the fall of the camp. His preoccupation with the Delta was a great detriment to the DBP garrison and he and his subordinates were very unwilling to allocate the necessary men and materiel that the post desperately needed.

*Regarding the SKS: Apparently, a couple were found toward the end of the war, but they were by no means common. Captured French and Japanese and loaned Chinese, Soviet, and Combloc weapons were the rule. AK's weren't encountered by the West until the Soviets invaded Hungary in October, 1956.

Edited...VA-gunnut
 

Edited...VA-gunnut

Sounds like it would be a great little brush gun

Edited...VA-gunnut