"contracted to build the gun. It was intended to be fired from the rigging of Royal Navy warships onto the deck in the event that the ship was boarded by enemy sailors. Theoretically, the simultaneous discharge of seven barrels would have devastating effect on the tightly packed groups of enemy sailors. The volley gun consisted of seven barrels welded together, with small vents drilled through from the central barrel to the other six barrels clustered around it. The central barrel screwed onto a hollow spigot which formed the chamber and was connected to the vent. The gun operated using a"
"Each barrel fires a single shot when it reaches a certain point in the cycle, after which the spent cartridge is ejected and then a new round loaded. During the cycle, the barrel transfers some heat to the surrounding air. Due to the size and weight of rotary cannon, they are typically mounted on aircraft or ships. The Gatling gun was the first gun to use rotating barrels. It was designed by the American inventor Dr. Richard J. Gatling in 1861 and patented in 1862. Hand cranked and hopper fed, it could fire at a rate of 200 rounds per"
"""mitrailleuse"" was cumbersome and time-consuming. This negated much of the advantage of their high rate of fire per discharge, making them much less powerful on the battlefield. In comparison, the Gatling gun offered a rapid and continuous rate of fire without having to be manually reloaded by opening the breech. The original Gatling gun was a field weapon which used multiple rotating barrels turned by a hand crank, and firing loose (no links or belt) metal cartridge ammunition using a gravity feed system from a hopper. The Gatling gun's innovation lay in the use of multiple barrels to limit overheating,"
"the cartridge. After the cartridge was fired the continuing action of the cam drew back the lock bringing with it the spent cartridge which then dropped to the ground. The grouped barrel concept had been explored by inventors since the 18th century, but poor engineering and the lack of a unitary cartridge made previous designs unsuccessful. The initial Gatling gun design used self-contained, reloadable steel cylinders with a chamber holding a ball and black-powder charge, and a percussion cap on one end. As the barrels rotated, these steel cylinders dropped into place, were fired, and were then ejected from the"
"a cannon firing canister shot or grapeshot. Since they were still mounted on a carriage, they could be as hard to aim and move around as a cannon, and the many barrels took as long or longer to reload. They also tended to be relatively expensive since they were more complex than a cannon, due to all the barrels and ignition fuses, and each barrel had to be individually maintained and cleaned. The Gatling gun is one of the best-known early rapid-fire spring loaded, hand cranked weapons and a forerunner of the modern machine gun and rotary cannon. Invented by"
"Gatling gun The Gatling gun is one of the best-known early rapid-fire spring loaded, hand cranked weapons and a forerunner of the modern machine gun and rotary cannon. Invented by Richard Gatling, it saw occasional use by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s, which was the first time it was employed in combat. Later, it was used again in numerous military conflicts, such as the Boshin War, the Anglo-Zulu War, and the assault on San Juan Hill during the Spanish–American War. It was also used by the Pennsylvania militia in episodes of the Great Railroad"
"gun. The innovative features of the Gatling gun were its independent firing mechanism for each barrel and the simultaneous action of the locks, barrels, carrier and breech. The ammunition that Gatling eventually implemented was a paper cartridge style round charged with black powder and primed with a percussion cap. because self-contained brass cartridges were not yet fully developed and available. The shells were gravity-fed into the breech through a hopper or simple box ""magazine"" with an unsprung gravity follower on top of the gun. Each barrel had its own firing mechanism. Despite self-contained brass cartridges replacing the paper cartridge in"
"Strike of 1877, specifically in Pittsburgh. The Gatling gun's operation centered on a cyclic multi-barrel design which facilitated cooling and synchronized the firing-reloading sequence. Each barrel fired a single shot when it reached a certain point in the cycle, after which it ejected the spent cartridge, loaded a new round, and, in the process, allowed the barrel to cool somewhat. This configuration allowed higher rates of fire to be achieved without the barrels overheating. The Gatling gun was itself an early form of rotary cannon, and today modern rotary cannons are often referred to as ""Gatling guns"". The Gatling gun"
"a rotating mechanism, and a gravity-feed reloading system, which allowed unskilled operators to achieve a relatively high rate of fire of 200 rounds per minute. The US Army adopted Gatling guns in several calibers, including .42 caliber, .45-70, .50 caliber, 1 inch, and (M1893 and later) .30 Army, with conversions of M1900 weapons to .30-03 and .30-06. The .45-70 weapon was also mounted on some US Navy ships of the 1880s and 1890s. The Gatling gun was first used in warfare during the American Civil War. Twelve of the guns were purchased personally by Union commanders and used in the"
"when it reached a certain point in the cycle, after which it ejected the spent cartridge, loaded a new round, and, in the process, allowed the barrel to cool somewhat. This configuration allowed higher rates of fire to be achieved without the barrels overheating. Gatling later replaced the hand-cranked mechanism of a rifle-caliber Gatling gun with an electric motor, a relatively new invention at the time. Even after Gatling slowed down the mechanism, the new electric-powered Gatling gun had a theoretical rate of fire of 3,000 rounds per minute, roughly three times the rate of a typical modern, single-barreled machine"
"Richard Gatling, it saw occasional use by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s, which was the first time it was employed in combat. Later, it was used again in numerous military conflicts, such as the Boshin War, the Anglo-Zulu War, and the assault on San Juan Hill during the Spanish–American War. It was also used by the Pennsylvania militia in episodes of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877, specifically in Pittsburgh. The Gatling gun's operation centered on a cyclic multi-barrel design which facilitated cooling and synchronized the firing-reloading sequence. Each barrel fired a single shot"
"of fire of 3,000 rounds per minute. The hand-cranked Gatling gun was declared obsolete by the United States Army in 1911. Decades later, mechanical concept was resurrected and wedded to electricity-driven cranking in the M61 Vulcan. That cannon has given rise to numerous variations scaled up to as high as 37 mm and down to 5.56 mm calibers offering versions that are gas-operated as well. Richard Jordan Gatling Richard Jordan Gatling (September 12, 1818 – February 26, 1903) was an American inventor best known for his invention of the Gatling gun, considered to be the first successful machine gun, though"
"20th century to the present, the largest of these being the 30mm GAU-8 Avenger autocannon. Gatling gun The Gatling gun is one of the best-known early rapid-fire spring loaded, hand cranked weapons and a forerunner of the modern machine gun and rotary cannon. Invented by Richard Gatling, it saw occasional use by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s, which was the first time it was employed in combat. Later, it was used again in numerous military conflicts, such as the Boshin War, the Anglo-Zulu War, and the assault on San Juan Hill during the Spanish–American"
"President Lincoln in 1861. He was so impressed with the weapon that he purchased 10 on the spot for $1,500 apiece. The Union Army eventually purchased a total of 54 of the weapons. However, due to antiquated views of the Ordnance Department the weapons, like its more famous counterpart the Gatling Gun, saw only limited use. The Gatling gun, patented in 1861 by Richard Jordan Gatling, was the first to offer controlled, sequential fire with mechanical loading. The design's key features were machine loading of prepared cartridges and a hand-operated crank for sequential high-speed firing. It first saw very limited"
"Richard Jordan Gatling Richard Jordan Gatling (September 12, 1818 – February 26, 1903) was an American inventor best known for his invention of the Gatling gun, considered to be the first successful machine gun, though it is not a true machine gun by modern definitions. Gatling was born in Hertford County, North Carolina, in 1818. At the age of 21, Gatling created a screw propeller for steamboats, without realizing that one had been patented just months prior by John Ericsson. While living in North Carolina, he worked in the county clerk’s office, taught school briefly, and became a merchant. At"
"mechanism of a rifle-caliber Gatling gun with an electric motor, a relatively new invention at the time. Even after Gatling slowed down the mechanism, the new electric-powered Gatling gun had a theoretical rate of fire of 3,000 rounds per minute, roughly three times the rate of a typical modern, single-barreled machine gun. Gatling's electric-powered design received U.S. Patent #502,185 on July 25, 1893. Despite Gatling's improvements, the Gatling gun fell into disuse after cheaper, lighter-weight, recoil and gas operated machine guns were invented; Gatling himself went bankrupt for a period. During World War I, several German companies were working on"
"interest in the company manufacturing Gatling guns, and took a personally owned Gatling gun to Saskatchewan, Canada, in 1885 for use with the Canadian military against Métis rebels during Louis Riel's North-West Rebellion. Early multi-barrel guns were approximately the size and weight of artillery pieces, and were often perceived as a replacement for cannons firing grapeshot or canister shot. Gatling guns were even mounted aboard ships. Compared with earlier weapons such as the ""mitrailleuse,"" which required manual reloading, the Gatling gun was more reliable and easier to operate, and had a lower, but continuous rate of fire. The large wheels"
"multi-barrel Gatling gun. The original Gatling gun had fallen out of favor because of the need for an external power source to rotate the barrel assembly, but the new generation of turbojet-powered fighters offered sufficient electric power to operate the gun, and electric operation was more reliable than gas-operated reloading. With multiple barrels, the rate of fire per barrel could be lower than a single-barrel revolver cannon while providing a greater overall rate of fire. The idea of powering a Gatling gun from an external electric power source was not a novel idea at the end of World War II,"
"the 1860s, it wasn't until the Model 1881 that Gatling switched to the 'Bruce'-style feed system (U.S. Patents 247,158 and 343,532) that accepted two rows of .45-70 cartridges. While one row was being fed into the gun, the other could be reloaded, thus allowing sustained fire. The final gun required four operators. By 1886, the gun was capable of firing more than 400 rounds per minute. The smallest-caliber gun also had a Broadwell drum feed in place of the curved box of the other guns. The drum, named after L. W. Broadwell, an agent for Gatling's company, comprised twenty stacks"
"minute. The Gatling gun was a field weapon, first used in warfare during the American Civil War and subsequently by European and Russian armies. The design was steadily improved; by 1876 the Gatling gun had a theoretical rate of fire of 1,200 rounds per minute, although 400 rounds per minute was more readily achievable in combat. By 1893, the M1893 Gatling gun was capable of a maximum rate of fire of some 800–900 rounds per minute. Ultimately the Gatling's weight and cumbersome artillery carriage hindered its ability to keep up with infantry forces over difficult ground and was superseded by"
"lighter and more mobile machine guns such as the Maxim gun. All models of Gatling guns were declared obsolete by the U.S. Army in 1911, after 45 years of service. After the Gatling gun was replaced in service by newer recoil- or gas-operated non-rotating machine guns, the approach of using multiple rotating barrels fell into disuse for many decades. However, some examples were developed during the interwar years but only existed as prototypes, or rarely used. During World War I, Imperial Germany was working on the Fokker-Leimberger, an externally powered 12-barrel Gatling gun in the 7.92×57mm round capable of firing"
"because the trigger pull is much shorter and lighter; usually three or four pounds-force (18−22 newtons) of pull is sufficient, instead of the twelve to twenty pounds (50−90 N) required for double-action mode, so the firearm's aim and mobility is less likely to be disturbed by the force of pulling the trigger. The first successful rapid-fire firearm is the Gatling gun, invented by Richard Jordan Gatling and fielded by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s. It is operated by a hand crank and rotates multiple barrels. The Gatling gun needs a four-man crew to function"
"columns for each barrel. The gunner loaded and fired the multiple barrels by moving a lever on the right side of the gun forward and backwards. Pulling the lever backwards extracted the fired cartridges, pushing it forward then loaded fresh cartridges into all the barrels, and the final part of the forward motion fired all the barrels, one at a time in quick succession. Hence the gun functioned as a type of volley gun, firing bullets in bursts, compared to the contemporary Gatling gun and the true machine guns which succeeded it such as the Maxim gun, which fired at"
"Mahdists. Imperial Russia purchased 400 Gatling guns and used them against Turkmen cavalry and other nomads of central Asia. The British Army first deployed the Gatling gun in 1873-4 during the Anglo-Ashanti wars, and extensively during the latter actions of the 1879 Anglo-Zulu war. The Royal Navy used Gatling guns during the 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War. Because of infighting within army ordnance, Gatling guns were used by the U.S. Army during the Spanish–American War. A four-gun battery of Model 1895 ten-barrel Gatling guns in .30 Army, made by Colt's Arms Company, was formed into a separate detachment led by Lt. John"
"gun. Gatling's electric-powered design received U.S. Patent #502,185 on July 25, 1893. Despite Gatling's improvements, the Gatling gun fell into disuse after cheaper, lighter-weight, recoil and gas operated machine guns were invented; Gatling himself went bankrupt for a period. During World War I, several German companies were working on externally powered guns for use in aircraft. Of those, the best-known today is perhaps the Fokker-Leimberger, an externally powered 12-barrel rotary gun using the 7.92×57mm Mauser round; it was claimed to be capable of firing over 7,000 rpm, but suffered from frequent cartridge-case ruptures due to its ""nutcracker"", rotary split-breech design,"
"""Gatling Gun"" Parker. The detachment proved very effective, supporting the advance of American forces at the Battle of San Juan Hill. Three of the Gatlings with swivel mountings were used with great success against the Spanish defenders. During the American charge up San Juan and Kettle hills, the three guns fired a total of 18,000 .30 Army rounds in 8 1/2 minutes (an average of over 700 rounds per minute per gun of continuous fire) against Spanish troop positions along the crest of both hills, wreaking terrible carnage. Despite this remarkable achievement, the Gatling's weight and cumbersome artillery carriage hindered"
"as Richard Jordan Gatling himself had done just that with a patent he filed in 1893, with the similar, but powered either by the aircraft engine or an electric motor, 12-barreled Fokker-Leimberger aircraft rotary machine gun under development during World War I by the German Empire. In 1946, the Army issued General Electric a contract for ""Project Vulcan"", a six-barrel weapon capable of firing 7,200 rounds per minute (rpm). Although European designers were moving towards heavier 30 mm weapons for better hitting power, the U.S. initially concentrated on a powerful cartridge designed for a pre-war anti-tank rifle, expecting that the"
"the Confederate States government or military, nor did he live in the South during the Civil War. Although General Benjamin F. Butler bought 12 and Admiral David Dixon Porter bought one, it was not until 1866 that the US Government officially purchased Gatling guns. In 1870 he sold his patents for the Gatling gun to Colt. Gatling remained president of the Gatling Gun Company until it was fully absorbed by Colt in 1897. In 1893, Gatling patented a Gatling gun that replaced the hand cranked mechanism with an electric motor, a relatively new invention at the time, achieving a rate"
"guns called ""drillings"", which contain three barrels, usually two shotgun barrels of the same gauge and a rifle barrel, though the only common theme is that at least one barrel be a shotgun barrel. The most common arrangement was essentially a side-by-side shotgun with the rifle barrel below and centered. Usually a drilling containing more than one rifle barrel would have both rifle barrels in the same caliber, but examples do exist with different caliber barrels, usually a .22 long rifle and a centerfire cartridge. Although very rare, drillings with three and even four (a ""vierling"") shotgun barrels were made."
"Gatling gun used 20 mm armor-piercing penetrator rounds with discarding plastic sabots and a core made using depleted uranium, later changed to tungsten. Another use of depleted uranium is in kinetic energy penetrators, anti-armor rounds such as the 120 mm sabot rounds fired from the British Challenger 1, Challenger 2, M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams. Kinetic energy penetrator rounds consist of a long, relatively thin penetrator surrounded by a discarding sabot. Staballoys are metal alloys of depleted uranium with a very small proportion of other metals, usually titanium or molybdenum. One formulation has a composition of 99.25% by mass of depleted"
"was designed by the American inventor Dr. Richard J. Gatling in 1861 and patented on November 4, 1862. Gatling wrote that he created it to reduce the size of armies and so reduce the number of deaths by combat and disease, and to show how futile war is. Although the first Gatling gun was capable of firing continuously, it required a person to crank it; therefore it was not a true automatic weapon. The Maxim gun, invented and patented in 1883, was the first true fully automatic weapon, making use of the fired projectile's recoil force to reload the weapon."
"home on February 26, 1903. He is interred at the Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana. His contributions were commemorated by the U.S. Navy during World War II when the Fletcher Class Destroyer DD-671 was christened the USS ""Gatling"". While being most known for inventing the Gatling gun, Gatling invented and patented a number of other inventions. His inventions include a screw propeller and a wheat drill (a planting device) in 1839, a hemp break machine in 1850, a steam plow (steam tractor) in 1857, the Gatling gun in 1861, a marine steam ram in 1862, and a motor-driven plow"
"caliber Gatling guns have a rate of fire of up to 10,000 rounds per minute (such as the Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-6-23), while revolver cannon typically have a rate of fire no more than 2,000 rounds per minute. On the other hand, revolver cannon are generally able to be made much lighter than gatling guns, requiring less support and mounting hardware. Gatling type guns spin the whole multiple barrel and breech assembly, which in equal caliber versions can weigh hundreds of kilograms more. The firing rate of a Gatling-type gun is directly related to the rotational speed of the barrel cluster. The"