Chauchat machine gun from WW I stolen from vehicle in southwestern Ontario
Police are searching for a First World War machine gun that was stolen from a vehicle in Southwold Township, Ont., south of London.
The Chauchat machine gun is inoperable and used for re-enactments, Ontario Provincial Police said.
The Chauchat was the standard machine rifle used by the French army during the First World War. It was one of the first light, automatic rifles to be carried and fired by a single operator, but was prone to jamming.
The book The M60 Machine Gun by Kevin Dockery notes the problems with the gun means it is "considered by just about everyone to be one of the worst machine gun designs ever produced."
Between 250,000 and 265,000 of the guns were produced.
The vehicle was broken into sometime after 8 p.m. Wednesday when it was parked on Talbot Line.
