Posted June 27, 2018 4:23 pm by Comments

By G&A Online Editors

One of the things that has amazed me the most about the history of warfare, is how many of the most fearsome weapons were created by men who felt their inventions would end war. Alfred Noble and his work with gunpowder and explosives, Hiram Maxim’s machine gun, and before them all, Richard Jordan Gatling and his terrible marvel, the gun that bore his name.

“It occurs to me,” Gatling wrote to a friend in 1877, “that if I could invent a machine- a gun – which could by its rapidity of fire, enable one man to do as much battle duty as a hundred, that it would, to a great extent supersede the necessity of large armies, and consequently, exposure to battle and disease would be greatly diminished.”

Depending on the model and the caliber, a Gatling could fire 150 to 700 rounds a minute. And by the way, since a Gatling required a person to crank the handle- technically, it’s not a machine gun.

The Gatling saw limited use in the American Civil War. It was common practice then, Union commanders privately purchased the Gatlings for their troops. Although a Gatling cost a huge sum of $1500, $35,000 in today’s currency, it …Read the Rest

Source:: Guns and Ammo

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