The pursuit of the rate of fire of weapons has not stopped since the end of the era of queuing and shooting. The first large-scale use of machine guns into the battlefield was during the Civil War, which was also the first time that countries around the world saw this rapid-fire weapon strike on cavalry infantry.
The advent of the machine gun was like opening Pandora's box and never getting out of control. Humans have always had a keen interest in how to kill similar technologies. In 1916, the Maxim automatic machine gun appeared in the Battle of the Somme, causing more than 60,000 casualties among Allied soldiers in just one day. The war became more and more brutal in the future, and the development of the machine gun was instrumental in this.
With the development of military science and technology today, the rate of fire of 10,000 rounds per minute is no longer a fantasy. The rate of fire of one of China's ship-based close defense weapons, numbered 1130, has reached 11,000 rounds per minute. In view of the caliber of 20 mm below the gun, above the gun. Considering that the caliber of this weapon is 30 mm, it has gone beyond the scope of guns, so it is not the protagonist of today. This article is about another weapon with an astonishing rate of fire, the Gatling Transfer-Tube Machine Gun.
The M134 is the fastest machine gun in the world today. Who would have thought that this modern weapon was developed based on a technology that was a hundred years ago.
The shape of m134 must be no stranger to everyone, and it has been seen in Hollywood blockbusters or video games. Many people will shout a Gatling, but in fact, it is not all right. It simply adopts the Gatling auto principle, and the real-history Gatling has another gun.
The names of firearms also require commercial licenses, and many gun names in games are not deliberately wrong by the makers, but to avoid disputes. For example, the online game "PUBG" changed the name of hk416 to m416, and "Counter-Strike 1.1" changed the name of ak47 to cv47. The real name of m134 is no better than its nickname Gatlin, which is also the reason.
The American Civil War was a watershed in the history of the world's firearms. This war baptized the world's first lever rifles, revolvers, and breech guns. Of course, machine guns are no exception.
The Gatling machine gun was born one summer in 1861. The inventor was a doctor named Richard Jordan Gatlin, whose years of medical experience had taught him that studying medicine would not save Americans. Doctors have limits. According to Gatlin, the highest state of saving lives is to slaughter lives, that is, to protect friendly forces by killing and wounding enemy forces efficiently.
With this in mind, Dr. Gatling, after drawing on the working principles of the Montini and Vandenberg machine guns, designed a hand-cranked multi-barrel rotary machine gun and named it after himself. At the same time, the pattern of war is also quietly changing because of the advent of machine guns.
The Gatling machine gun was not an automatic weapon, and its structure was completely different from most modern machine guns. Early Gatling used bulk shells, i.e. projectiles were filled separately from propellant and ignition paper.
The Gatling machine gun had multiple barrels and a fixed shaft. Drive the transmission mechanism with the handle in your hand, allowing the barrel to rotate evenly around the shaft. There is a shock cap at the rear, and when the barrel is turned to a specific position, the firing pin fires the ammunition. Rotates a circle to fire six bullets at a rate of 200 rounds per minute.
For the next half century, the Gatling machine gun was continuously improved. Bulk ammunition had problems with explosive gas leaks and gunpowder residue piling up in the barrel, which led to the introduction of an improved version of the Gatling machine gun using metal encapsulated bullets.
In the turbulent American West, the Gatling machine gun was the crushing weapon that cowboys, gangs, and Native Americans were most reluctant to face.
The mid-to-late 19th century was the era of imperialism. The Gatling machine gun catered to the needs of capitalist countries to launch colonial wars and seize military hegemony, and was mass-produced, improved, and put into use.
There were many problems with the Gatling machine gun. First, the user must shake the handle at a uniform speed to get the bullets into the chamber one shot at a time. However, in the environment of the battlefield and bombardment, the user's hand speed and mentality are difficult to maintain stability, once the red eye is killed, the other hand will turn faster than the electric fan, and the jam and explosion will occur. A small mistake can completely scrap an expensive stupid machine.
The Gatling machine gun was particularly heavy and used cannon wheels underneath, making it unsuitable for use in trenches.
Another, more stable, more technological machine gun replaced Gatling——— and that was the Maxim heavy machine gun. Through the re-entry spring structure, this machine gun converts the gunpowder gas energy of the bullet into the mechanical power of unlocking, unshelling, feeding and relocking. The user can simply pull the trigger and spew out a long tongue of fire. Firearms are automated in the true sense of the word.
In 1893, during a battle by the British colonial army in Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe), a force of more than 50 men killed more than 3,000 indigenous African fighters with just four Maxim heavy machine guns. The single-barrel heavy machine gun became famous in one battle, and the subsequent machine gun designers were all Ma Qin, and the rotary tube machine gun became a design that was eliminated by history.
In the 1950s, designers at General Electric found inspiration in the dusty yellowing drawings of Gatling machine gun designs, and a new lethal weapon was conceived in the minds of genius inventors.
Aircraft and ground-mounted fortifications gave heavy multi-barrel weapons a good carrying platform. During World War II, the US fighters and bombers were all old Browning heavy machine guns, with a maximum rate of fire of only 1200 rounds per minute, which was not enough to support air combat.
In order to meet the needs of the US military, General Electric Company referred to the Gatling automatic principle and developed the M61 Vulcan machine gun. The M61 Vulcan machine gun has 6 barrels, is hydraulically driven, has a caliber of 20×102 mm, and a maximum rate of fire of up to 6600 rounds per minute.
The M134 rotary tube machine gun is actually a miniature version of the M61, with a caliber of 7.62 mm. Electric automation technology has given the Gatling machine gun a new lease of life. The turbojet engines used by U.S. military aircraft have enough power to supply the rotary tube machine gun.
The rate of fire of the m134 was already high enough to turn the barrel into a consumable. The m134 lasts only 30,000 rounds per barrel. Why use "only" here? Because the M134 has a maximum rate of fire of 6,000 rounds per minute. This is a hundred turns in the true sense of the word. This means that the barrel of the gun will be changed after five minutes of full fire. A bullet velocity of 869 meters per second can destroy a ground target before it hears a sound.
The rate of fire of the m134 depends on the speed of the 28 volt DC motor. So the m134 can switch the firing mode by changing the current size. In actual combat, the rate of fire is generally adjusted to 2,000 rounds per minute to 4,000 rounds per minute.
The barrel of the m134 generates centrifugal force during high-speed rotation, increasing the bullet dispersion area. Shooting at a distance of 800 meters produces an error of one meter. But they didn't worry about the lack of accuracy at all, because the machine gun was designed to kill cluster targets, and the firepower was strong enough.
Many people think that M134 can shoot alone, just like in the Hollywood blockbuster Terminator.
But in fact, the mini gun machine gun is very unsuitable for individual soldiers, both in terms of weight and fire sustainability. General Electric has also never launched a portable version of the M134.
Text/Winds of Peace
Resources: 1. Gatling and the Gatling Machine Gun, Volta 2. "Gatling Transfer Tube Machine Gun and Its Model - Minigang M134 Transfer Tube Machine Gun", Zhang Sen, Yang Peng, Su Guangxiong