Machine gun

Detail of an 8-chambered matchlock revolver (Germany c. 1580)

The first known ancestors of multi-shot weapons were medieval organ guns, while the first to have the ability to fire multiple shots from a single barrel without a full manual reload were revolvers made in Europe in the late 1500s. One is a shoulder-gun-length weapon made in Nuremberg, Germany, circa 1580. Another is a revolving arquebus, produced by Hans Stopler of Nuremberg in 1597.[4]

True repeating long arms were difficult to manufacture prior to the development of the unitary firearm cartridge; nevertheless, lever-action repeating rifles such as the Kalthoff repeater and Cookson repeater were made in small quantities in the 17th century.

Perhaps the earliest examples of predecessors to the modern machine gun are to be found in East Asia. According to the Wu-Pei-Chih, a booklet examining Chinese military equipment produced during the first quarter of the 17th century, the Chinese army had in its arsenal the 'Po-Tzu Lien-Chu-P'ao' or 'string-of-100-bullets cannon'. This was a repeating cannon fed by a hopper which fired its charges sequentially.[5] Another repeating gun was produced by a Chinese commoner in the late 17th century. This weapon was also hopper-fed and never went into mass production.[6]

It is sometimes claimed (i.e. in George Morgan Chinn's 'the Machine Gun') that in 1663 the first mention of the automatic principle of machine guns was in a paper presented to the Royal Society of England by an Englishman by the name of Palmer who described a volley gun capable of being operated by either recoil or gas.[7] However, no one has been able to find this paper in recent times and all references to a multi-shot weapon by a Palmer during this period appear to be referring to a somewhat more common Kalthoff repeater or Lorenzoni-system gun. Despite this, there is a reference in 1663 to at least the concept of a genuine automatic gun that was presented to Prince Rupert, though its type and method of operation are unknown.[8]

Replica Puckle Gun from Bucklers Hard Maritime Museum.

Another early revolving gun was created by James Puckle, a London lawyer, who patented what he called "The Puckle Gun" on May 15, 1718. It was a design for a manually operated 1.25 in. (32 mm) caliber, flintlock cannon with a revolver cylinder able to fire 6–11 rounds before reloading by swapping out the cylinder, intended for use on ships.[9] It was one of the earliest weapons to be referred to as a machine gun, being called such in 1722,[10] though its operation does not match the modern usage of the term. According to Puckle, it was able to fire round bullets at Christians and square bullets at Turks.[9] However, it was a commercial failure and was not adopted or produced in any meaningful quantity.

In 1747 a cannon able to charge and discharge itself 20 times in a minute was invented by a James Allis and presented to the Royal Society of England.[11]

In 1777, Philadelphia gunsmith Joseph Belton offered the Continental Congress a "new improved gun", which was capable of firing up to twenty shots in five seconds; unlike older repeaters using complex lever-action mechanisms, it used a simpler system of superposed loads, and was loaded with a single large paper cartridge. Congress requested that Belton modify 100 flintlock muskets to fire eight shots in this manner, but rescinded the order when Belton's price proved too high.[12][13]

In the early and mid-19th century, a number of rapid-firing weapons appeared which offered multi-shot fire, mostly volley guns. Volley guns (such as the Mitrailleuse) and double-barreled pistols relied on duplicating all parts of the gun, though the Nock gun used the otherwise-undesirable "chain fire" phenomenon (where multiple chambers are ignited at once) to propagate a spark from a single flintlock mechanism to multiple barrels. Pepperbox pistols also did away with needing multiple hammers but used multiple manually operated barrels. Revolvers further reduced this to only needing a pre-prepared cylinder and linked advancing the cylinder to cocking the hammer. However, these were still manually operated.

In 1831 a machine capable of firing 500 rifle shots a minute was devised by a French mechanic by the name of Hamel.[14]

Also in France in 1831 a mechanic from the Vosges department invented a lever-operated cannon that could fire 100 shots a minute.[15]

In the mid 1830s a machine gun was designed by a Swiss called Jacob Steuble, who tried to sell it to the Russian, English and French governments. The English and Russian governments showed interest but the former refused to pay Steuble, who later sued them for this transgression, and the latter tried to imprison him. The French government showed interest at first and while they noted that mechanically there was nothing wrong with Steuble's invention they turned him down, stating that the machine both lacked novelty and could not be usefully employed by the army. The gun was reportedly breech-loading, fed by cartridges from some kind of hopper and could fire 34 barrels of one-inch calibre 4 or 6 times for a total of 136 or 204 shots a minute.[16][17][18]

A detachment of French infantry with 2 Saint-Etienne Model 1907 machine guns (c. b1914)

In 1842 an American by the name of Dr. Thomson invented a cannon that used some kind of revolving cylinder and could be fired 50 times in as many seconds.[19]

In 1846 an American by the name of Mr. Dixon invented a cannon which loaded, primed and discharged itself through the use of a brake. A variation of it was worked by clockwork-like machinery and could be made to move by itself a certain distance along rails before firing 10 times and returning back to its original position.[20]

Also in 1846 in Canada an inventor by the name of Simeon 'Larochelle' Gautron invented a cannon that could be fired 60 times in a minute and clean itself after every shot. It was worked by a crank.[21][22]

In 1847 a short description of a prototype electrically-ignited mechanical machine gun was published in Scientific American by a J.R. Nichols. The model described is small in scale and works by rotating a series of barrels vertically so that it is feeding at the top from a 'tube' or hopper and could be discharged immediately at any elevation after having received a charge, according to the author.[23]

In 1848 an Italian by the name of Cesar Rosaglio announced his invention of a machine gun capable of being operated by a single man and firing 300 rifle shots a minute or 12,000 in an hour after taking into account the time needed to reload the 'tanks' of ammunition.[24]

In June 1851 a model of a 'war engine' allegedly capable of firing 10,000 ball cartridges in 10 minutes was demonstrated by a British inventor called Francis McGetrick.[25]

In 1852 a rotary cannon using a unique form of wheellock ignition was demonstrated by an Irish immigrant to America by the name of Delany.[26]

In 1854 a British patent for a mechanically operated machine gun was filed by Henry Clarke. This weapon used multiple barrels arranged side by side, fed by a revolving cylinder that was in turn fed by hoppers, similar to the system used by Nichols. The gun could be fired by percussion or electricity, according to the author. Unlike other mechanically operated machine guns of the era, this weapon didn't use any form of self-contained cartridge, with firing being carried out by separate percussion caps.[27] In the same year, water cooling was proposed for machine guns by Henry Bessemer, along with a water cleaning system, though he later abandoned this design. In his patent, Bessemer describes a hydropneumatic delayed-blowback-operated, fully automatic cannon. Part of the patent also refers to a steam-operated piston to be used with firearms but the bulk of the patent is spent detailing the former system.[28]

In America, a patent for a machine gun type weapon was filed by John Andrus Reynolds in 1855.[29] Another early American patent for a manually operated machine gun with a blowback-operated cocking mechanism was filed by C. E. Barnes in 1856.[30]

In France and Britain, a mechanically operated machine gun was patented in 1856 by the Frenchman Francois Julien. This weapon was a cannon that fed from a type of open-ended tubular magazine, only using rollers and an endless chain in place of springs.[31]

The Agar Gun, otherwise known as a "coffee-mill gun" because of its resemblance to a coffee mill, was invented by Wilson Agar at the beginning of the US Civil War. The weapon featured mechanized loading using a hand crank linked to a hopper above the weapon. The weapon featured a single barrel and fired through the turning of the same crank; it operated using paper cartridges fitted with percussion caps and inserted into metal tubes which acted as chambers; it was therefore functionally similar to a revolver. The weapon was demonstrated to 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 action in the American Civil War; it was subsequently improved and used in the Franco-Prussian war and North-West Rebellion. Many were sold to other armies in the late 19th century and continued to be used into the early 20th century, until they were gradually supplanted by Maxim guns. Early multi-barrel guns were approximately the size and weight of contemporary artillery pieces, and were often perceived as a replacement for cannon firing grapeshot or canister shot.[32] The large wheels required to move these guns around required a high firing position, which increased the vulnerability of their crews.[32] Sustained firing of gunpowder cartridges generated a cloud of smoke, making concealment impossible until smokeless powder became available in the late 19th century.[33] Gatling guns were targeted by artillery they could not reach, and their crews were targeted by snipers they could not see.[32] The Gatling gun was used most successfully to expand European colonial empires, since against poorly equipped indigenous armies it did not face such threats.[32]

In 1864 in the aftermath of the Second Schleswig War Denmark started a program intended to develop a gun that used the recoil of a fired shot to reload the firearm though a working model wouldn't be produced until 1888.[34]

In 1870 a Lt. D. H. Friberg of the Swedish army patented a fully automatic recoil-operated firearm action and may have produced firing prototypes of a derived design around 1882: this was the forerunner to the 1907 Kjellman machine gun, though, due to rapid residue buildup from the use of black powder, Friberg's design was not a practical weapon.[35]

Also in 1870, the Bavarian regiment of the Prussian army used a unique mitrailleuse style weapon in the Franco-Prussian war. The weapon was made up of four barrels placed side by side that replaced the manual loading of the French mitrailleuse with a mechanical loading system featuring a hopper containing 41 cartridges at the breech of each barrel. Although it was used effectively at times, mechanical difficulties hindered its operation and it was ultimately abandoned shortly after the war ended (de).[36]

A model of a typical entrenched German machine gunner in World War I. He is operating an MG 08, wearing a Stahlhelm and cuirass to protect him from shell fragments, and protected by rows of barbed wire and sandbags.

The first practical self-powered machine gun was invented in 1884 by Sir Hiram Maxim. The Maxim machine gun used the recoil power of the previously fired bullet to reload rather than being hand-powered, enabling a much higher rate of fire than was possible using earlier designs such as the Nordenfelt and Gatling weapons. Maxim also introduced the use of water cooling, via a water jacket around the barrel, to reduce overheating. Maxim's gun was widely adopted, and derivative designs were used on all sides during the First World War. The design required fewer crew and was lighter and more usable than the Nordenfelt and Gatling guns. First World War combat experience demonstrated the military importance of the machine gun. The United States Army issued four machine guns per regiment in 1912, but that allowance increased to 336 machine guns per regiment by 1919.[37]

British Vickers machine gun in action near Ovillers during the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The crew are wearing gas masks.

Heavy guns based on the Maxim such as the Vickers machine gun were joined by many other machine weapons, which mostly had their start in the early 20th century such as the Hotchkiss machine gun. Submachine guns (e.g., the German MP 18) as well as lighter machine guns (the first light machine gun deployed in any significant number being the Madsen machine gun, with the Chauchat and Lewis gun soon following) saw their first major use in World War I, along with heavy use of large-caliber machine guns. The biggest single cause of casualties in World War I was actually artillery, but combined with wire entanglements, machine guns earned a fearsome reputation.

Another fundamental development occurring before and during the war was the incorporation by gun designers of machine gun auto-loading mechanisms into handguns, giving rise to semi-automatic pistols such as the Borchardt (1890s), automatic machine pistols and later submachine guns (such as the Beretta 1918).

Aircraft-mounted machine guns were first used in combat in World War I. Immediately this raised a fundamental problem. The most effective position for guns in a single-seater fighter was clearly, for the purpose of aiming, directly in front of the pilot; but this placement would obviously result in bullets striking the moving propeller. Early solutions, aside from simply hoping that luck was on the pilot's side with an unsynchronized forward-firing gun, involved either aircraft with pusher props like the Vickers F.B.5, Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.2 and Airco DH.2, wing mounts like that of the Nieuport 10 and Nieuport 11 which avoided the propeller entirely, or armored propeller blades such as those mounted on the Morane-Saulnier L which would allow the propeller to deflect unsynchronized gunfire. By mid 1915, the introduction of a reliable gun synchronizer by the Imperial German Flying Corps made it possible to fire a closed-bolt machine gun forward through a spinning propeller by timing the firing of the gun to miss the blades. The Allies had no equivalent system until 1916 and their aircraft suffered badly as a result, a period known as the Fokker Scourge, after the Fokker Eindecker, the first German plane to incorporate the new technology.

Suomi M31 submachine with 70-round drum magazine attached, 20- and 50-round box magazines.

As better materials became available following the First World War, light machine guns became more readily portable; designs such as the Bren light machine gun replaced bulky predecessors like the Lewis gun in the squad support weapon role, while the modern division between medium machine guns like the M1919 Browning machine gun and heavy machine guns like the Browning M2 became clearer. New designs largely abandoned water jacket cooling systems as both undesirable, due to a greater emphasis on mobile tactics and unnecessary, thanks to the alternative and superior technique of preventing overheating by swapping barrels.

MG 42 with retracted bipod

The interwar years also produced the first widely used and successful general-purpose machine gun, the German MG 34. While this machine gun was equally able in the light and medium roles, it proved difficult to manufacture in quantity, and experts on industrial metalworking were called in to redesign the weapon for modern tooling, creating the MG 42. This weapon was simpler, cheaper to produce, fired faster, and replaced the MG 34 in every application except vehicle mounts, since the MG 42's barrel changing system could not be operated when it was mounted.

A U.S. Navy 7.62 mm GAU-17/A Minigun, an externally powered weapon.

Experience with the MG42 led to the US issuing a requirement to replace the aging Browning Automatic Rifle with a similar weapon, which would also replace the M1919; simply using the MG42 itself was not possible, as the design brief required a weapon which could be fired from the hip or shoulder like the BAR. The resulting design, the M60 machine gun, was issued to troops during the Vietnam War.

As it became clear that a high-volume-of-fire weapon would be needed for fast-moving jet aircraft to reliably hit their opponents, Gatling's work with electrically powered weapons was recalled and the 20 mm M61 Vulcan designed; a miniaturized 7.62 mm version initially known as the "mini-Vulcan" and quickly shortened to "minigun" was soon in production for use on helicopters, where the volume of fire could compensate for the instability of the helicopter as a firing platform.