Meunier Rifle
France has been a major innovator in rifle technology historically, and particularly in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century. The Minie ball rifle provided the first effective muzzle loading rifle that could be used by regular troops en masse, the Chassepot the first modern, bolt action, rifle, and the Lebel rifle was a revolution in the introduction of a smokeless powder, magazine-fed rifle which enabled a dramatic increase in firepower.
Unfortunately, such an eagerness for new technology sometimes left the French with new and revolutionary weapons that nevertheless quickly showed shortcomings compared to more mature designs developed elsewhere - such as the Lebel, whose 8mm bottle-necked ammunition meant that conventional ammunition clips and magazines were extremely problematic and it did not stack easily, and in particular whose tubular magazine which held 8 rounds under the barrel was a dramatically inferior arrangement as regards long-term firepower compared to other bolt action rifles. The French did introduce the Berthier carbine, but its 3 round clip was inferior to other firearms which generally had at least 5 round clips. So almost from the time when the Lebel was introduced, in 1886, the French were already experimenting with the next big thing - a semiautomatic rifle.
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This ultimately led, after what would become a common and somewhat depressing theme of French big armament design, a huge delay, to the Meunier rifle, finished in 1912 and with production starting in 1914. This rifle was a long-recoil operated rifle firing 7mm ammunition, and most importantly semi-automatic. The new ammunition would have enabled much more effective machine guns to be introduced in the army as well, and infantry firepower to greatly increase. Unfortunately for the Meunier, 1914 was also the start of WW1, and the new rifle had only been produced to around a thousand examples when the war broke out, requiring arsenals to switch back to more tried and true designs. If it had entered production a few years earlier, it probably would have given French infantry a significant advantage in the early fighting in 1914, but been less effective in the trenches due to greater mechanical complexity.
Meunier rifle
The Meunier rifle , known as the “Meunier A6” or “STA No. 8”, evolved as a part of the program initiated in 1890 by the French military to develop a semi-automatic infantry rifle that would eventually replace the Mle 1886–93 Lebel rifle Four government research establishments (STA, ENT, Puteaux and CTV) proposed over 20 prototypes. .( 5, 10, 15 round internal magazine, fed with five round stripper clips./ 7×59mm “7mm Meunier”)
Here is the thing A rifles (Meunier A6) were developed by Section Technique de l’Artillerie hence STA
while B rifles were developed by Ecole Normale de Tir and C were developed by Commission Technique de Versailles there was 20 or so prototypes I found some images from other rifles (semi-auto) but I couldn’t find descriptions for some and I did find descriptions for some but no image Imma