The first " rapid firing " firearms were usually similar to the 19th century Gatling gun, which would fire cartridges from a magazine as fast as and as long as the operator turned a crank.

The first weapon generally considered in this category is the Gatling gun, originally a carriage-mounted, crank-operated firearm with multiple rotating barrels that was fielded in the American Civil War.

The Gatling gun is one of the best known early rapid-fire weapons and a forerunner of the modern machine gun.

The Gatling gun was designed by the American inventor Dr. Richard J. Gatling in 1861 and patented November 4, 1862.

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.

Nonetheless, the Gatling gun represented a huge leap in firearm technology.

Prior to the Gatling gun, the only weapons available to militaries capable of firing many projectiles in a short space of time were mass-firing volley weapons like the French Reffye mitrailleuse in 1870 – 71, or field cannons firing canister, much like a very large shotgun.

In comparison, the Gatling gun offered a rapid and continuous rate of fire without having to manually reload 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 neither in the rotating mechanism ( featured by many revolvers of the day ) nor in the use of multiple barrels to limit overheating ( used by the mitrailleuse gun ); rather, the innovation was the gravity feed reloading mechanism, which allowed unskilled operators to achieve a relatively high rate of fire of 200 rounds per minute.

The Gatling gun was first used in warfare during the American Civil War.

Howard of the Connecticut National Guard had an interest in the company manufacturing Gatling guns, and took a personally-owned Gatling gun to Saskatchewan in Canada in 1885 for use with the Canadian military against the Métis during Louis Riel's North-West Rebellion.

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 Gatling gun was used most successfully to expand European colonial empires by killing warriors of non-industrialized societies mounting massed attacks, including the Matabele, the Zulu, the Bedouins, and the Mahdists.

A British 1865 Gatling gun at Firepower-The Royal Artillery Museum

The Gatling gun was hand-crank operated with six barrels revolving around a central shaft, although some models had as many as ten.

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.

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.

After the Gatling gun was replaced in service by newer recoil-or gas-operated non-rotating machine guns and automatic cannons, the approach of using multiple rotating barrels fell into disuse for many decades, reappearing after World War II with the development of the M61 Vulcan.

* -- Gatling gun

Gatling guns have several barrels on a rotating carousel and a system of cams that load, cock, and fire each mechanism progressively as it rotates through the sequence.

When General Sumner refused to allow the Army's Gatling Gun Detachment-which had priority-to disembark from the transport Cherokee on the grounds that the lieutenant commanding the Detachment did not have the rank to enforce his priority, Shafter had to personally intervene, returning to the ship in a steam launch to enforce his demand that the guns come off immediately.

Custer's defenders, however, including historian Charles K. Hofling, have asserted that Gatling guns would have been slow and cumbersome as the troops crossed the rough country between the Yellowstone and the Little Bighorn.

We ’ d never have been able to take Kettle Hill if it hadn ’ t been for Parker ’ s Gatling guns.

Fraser indicated that, had the show continued, Gatling would have won the election and Benson would have become a Senator.

Custer, however, had refused for unclear reasons to bring Gatling guns with the ability to shoot 150 rounds per minute, that would have strongly increased his regimental fire power.

Automatic revolver cannons have been produced by many different European manufacturers, whereas the United States and to some extent Russia, generally favor the Gatling gun. Revolver cannon

Automatic revolver cannons generally have a lower maximum sustained rate of fire than Gatling guns, as all the rounds are fired through a single barrel, which suffers from much higher heating loads.

Cannon-calibre Gatling guns have a rate of fire of up to 10, 000 rounds per minute or less ( Gryazev-Shipunov GSh-6-23 ), while revolver cannon typically have a rate of fire of up to 2, 000 rounds per minute or less.

Various forms of the weapon have been designed, including aircraft-mounted guns firing downward, man-portable artillery packs and defensive applications, such as ship-based anti-missile defense systems ( for which Gatling guns are currently used ).

Newbolt's reference to the Gatling is incorrect as the British force at Abu Klea had the American Gardner machine gun, whose name scans just as well as Gatling ( but perhaps he knew that in listening to the poem the name " Gardner " could have been misheard as " gardener ").

" Custer had been offered the use of Gatling guns but declined, believing they would slow his command.

In 1839, when he was 21 years old, Gatling created a screw propeller for steamboats, unknown to him that a screw propeller had been patented just months prior to Gatling ’ s invention by John Ericsson.

After the Spanish positions atop San Juan had been taken, two of Lt. Parker's Gatling guns were dragged by mules up the slope to the captured position on San Juan ridge, where both were hurriedly emplaced among a line of skirmishers.

In the show, Benson DuBois ( Robert Guillaume ) had been hired to be the head of household affairs for scatterbrained and widowed Governor Eugene Gatling ( James Noble ), and his daughter Katie ( Missy Gold ).

The American forces also lacked effective support fire, as the single Gatling Gun Detachment had been sent to support the troops assaulting San Juan heights.

A wide variety of ammunition has been designed for the 20x102 caliber of the M168 six-barrel Gatling gun.

During the bombardment a small naval engagement occurred when, at 09: 05, the obsolete Glasgow fired upon the St George using her armament of 7 nine-pounder guns and a Gatling gun which had been a present from Queen Victoria to the sultan.

Invented by Richard Gatling, it is known for its use by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s, which was the first time it was employed in combat.

The Gatling gun, patented in 1861 by Richard Jordan Gatling, was the first to offer controlled, sequential fire with automatic loading.

* The first 20 mm M61 Vulcan Gatling gun prototypes are completed.

Dr. Richard Jordan Gatling ( September 12, 1818 – February 26, 1903 ) was an American inventor best known for his invention of the Gatling gun, the first successful machine gun.

During the 2 July assault, V Corps ' newly-formed Gatling Gun Detachment participated in the first use by the U. S. Army of machine gun fire for mobile fire support in offensive combat.

The first " mitrailleuse " was a manually fired 50-barrel volley gun originally developed in Belgium in 1851, 10 years before the advent of the Gatling gun, by the Belgian Army Captain Fafschamps, who made a rough prototype and drawings of his invention.

The first, the HWF-91 Gundam F91 Heavy Weapons Type or Powered Weapon Type, replaces the VSBRs with a pair of 4-barrel beam Gatling guns and 2-tube anti-ship missile pods.

The Gatling gun was a field weapon, first used in warfare during the American Civil War and subsequently by European and Russian armies.

In 1949 General Electric began testing the first model of its modified Gatling design, now called the Vulcan Gun.

The first proposed replacement for the Duster was the Sperry Vigilante, which referred to the six-barreled 37 mm Gatling gun proposed as the basis for a new SPAAG.