The Gatling Gun

 

by 'RoundUp'

 

In 1861, some four months after the outbreak of hostilities between the Federal and the Confederate States, a Dr Richard J Gatling, being appalled at the sudden influx of casualties, set his mind to try to think of a way to shorten the conflict, therefore lessening the numbers of killed and injured troops currently flooding into hospitals in both The North and The South. The idea he came up with was to invent a gun with superior fire-power and, as he later wrote in his journal, he invented it to lessen the numbers of injured and killed from both sides, and so help to shorten the conflict.   Quote...'I've made it to rapidly reduce the size of armies, and so reduce the number of deaths from combat'...(I reckon a few of us could have figured out a different method, eh?).   The Gatling, although used in many battles, wasn't officially adopted by the Federal Forces until 1866...it was considered a 'fad' by many of the Generals, it taking two men to use it, (one to crank it, and a second to load the gravity-fed magazines), and generally considered 'innacurate', but the Confederate Forces considered it a 'war-winning machine, capable of routing any forces sent against them'...(General Robert E. Lee).   The main concern of the Federal Army was that the gun, being capable of firing 200 rounds a minute, would overheat and, at worst, would warp the barrels...as did often the then new Springfield 'trapdoor' rifles...which would allow a top 'musketeer' to discharge over 45 rounds a minute, (as opposed to the earlier Springfield, which necessitated the addition of powder, a scrap of cloth, a lead ball, and a percussion-cap, and could possibly fire four rounds per minute),  and where were designed to fire the new 'encapsulated capsules', a complete brass-bound unit holding the round, the charge, and a primer, (which we now know as a bullet)...but they failed to take into account that the early Gatling Gun had six barrels, allowing each barrel time to cool before the next round was discharged!.   Suffice to say, the 'Gatling' gained favour after the ACW, and was used to great effect during the Indian Wars of the 1870's/early 80's, and it was considered the 'ultimate weapon', never to be surpassed!.   However, this was until the advent, in 1884, of the invention of a guy called Maxim, an Belgian immigrant, who thought he could work out a way to use the 'blast-back' to re-cock the gun...and so the true 'automatic machine-gun' was born......but that's a story for another day!.

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