FIRST ATTEMPTS TO FILE MULTIPLE SHOTS
The word “machine gun” itself is modern, but the principle it denotes has been used since ancient times. The idea of automatically firing a series of shots in the era of arrows was realized with the invention of the polyball.
While modern systems rely on a single barrel and multiple ammunition, medieval inventors had to rely on multiple barrels.
It may turn out that multi-barreled weapon is one of the earliest inventions, even ahead of cannons. In fact, the antiquity of "fire pots" or vases made entirely of metal does not require confirmation, while cannons made of long metal strips and rings appeared a little later. It is logical to assume that the first guns were small. It was unsafe to hold the bronze cast barrels found in Sweden when shooting. The simplest way to use them was to attach them to a solid base, and their small size suggests the possibility of attaching several of them to a large wooden platform. We are “sensible” about the existence of such a method of armament. “This is the ribodecken, the ancestor of the modern machine gun.
The name itself - ribodecene - was used even before the invention of gunpowder, just like other other names firearms used to designate guns of other types. The Ribaudequin, a descendant of chariots with scythes attached to the wheels, was a two-wheeled vehicle equipped with a huge bow for firing incendiary darts, quorrels or pellets. Some authors insist that throwing tubes were also used on ribodecanes " Greek fire" Since this weapon was intended to protect narrow passages or roads where it could be quickly rolled, it was equipped additional protection in the form of spears, pikes and other sharp weapons. The invention of firearms only led to the addition of new weapons to an already ready-made carrier.
An ancient document dating back to about 1339 mentions these ribodecins and the payment received in 1342 by a blacksmith from Saint-Omer for a prop to strengthen the wooden base of the machine; from the same source we learn that it was supposed to carry ten cannons. Curious. , that the expense report of the city of Bruges in Belgium also shows the payment of iron strips for attaching "ribods" to carts, which are here called "new cars".
The British immediately took advantage of the new invention. In February 1345, King Edward III ordered the collection of "guns and shells". At least a hundred ribods “pro passagio Regis versus Nonnarmiam”1 had to be made, and over the next six months, the keeper of the Tower wardrobe, Robert de Mildenhall, assembled the wooden wheels and axles required for this.
These ribodecins were made in the Tower of London by the king's own workers.
Invoices for the ingredients of gunpowder are included in a report filed after the great expedition had set sail, and even more intriguing is the fact that we have no evidence of the use of these weapons before the siege of Calais in 1347. Although these guns were undoubtedly useful as siege weapons, it is difficult to avoid the wishful thinking that they did see action in battles such as Crécy. While most of siege weapons were facing the city and aimed at its destruction, ribodecens were directed in the opposite direction and were intended to fire at the enemy attacking from the rear. The fact that they successfully coped with their task is evidenced by the fact that Philip of Valois, who led the French army, having received news of their presence in the army he intended to attack, refused to seriously attack and retreated.
The “Annual Account Book of the Administration of the City of Renta” in 1347 shows that ribodecins had already become widespread, no doubt as a defensive weapon, as, for example, during the siege of Tournai, when they were used to protect the city gates.
Froissart gives a description of the Ribaudequins, belonging to the citizens of Ghent, who acted in 1382 against the Count of Flanders. The townspeople, numbering only 5,000 people with 200 such carts, attacked the forty thousand army that threatened Bruges and defeated it. Their ribodecens were light carts pushed by hands on high wheels, equipped with ones that were put forward while moving in battle formation infantry with iron pikes. Napoleon III, in his study of the history of artillery, writes that the ribaudequins were the first gunpowder artillery to take part in the battle, and that their barrels fired small lead balls or quorrels.
Since the weight of the core of a small cannon was very small, they hoped to achieve the results from the use of this invention due to the large number of barrels. One Italian document speaks of 144 small bombards mounted on a single base and arranged in such a way that they could fire at a time from 36 barrels arranged in three rows. A separate gunner was required to serve each row, and four strong horses were needed to transport the entire cart. This makes a curious contrast to our times, when one person is expected to perform similar duties. Three such monstrous machines were made in 1387 for Antonio della Scala, ruler of Verona.
Juvenil de Ursaint in his History of Charles VI, short
: la France", reports that in 1411 the Duke of Burgundy
1sky had with his army of 40,000 people 4,000 cannons and 2,000 ribodecans - a very high ratio, if only his data corresponds to reality. Monstrelet, describing the same army, says that there were a great many mounted ribodecens in it. They were two-wheeled, protected by wooden shields - mantlets, and each was armed with one or two veuglaires, in addition to the usual defense of pikes and spears. At that moment, the idea of a multi-barreled gun was temporarily forgotten. The use of veuglaires or breech-loading guns was necessitated because with muzzle-loading guns the gunner would have to run the risk of going out in front of the cart.
The wooden shield was necessary to protect the gunners while loading their guns, as well as to protect them when moving the vehicle in the face of the enemy. Later illustrations show the horses turned in the shafts and pushing rather than pulling the cart forward, a practice that was to cause many accidents. A Latin manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris, entitled "Pauli Saventini Ducensis tractus de re militari et de machinis bellicus,"1 shows one such machine which, although captured by the Turks, returned from Constantinople to Louvain in 1688.
It is two-wheeled, equipped with scythes, and the shaft between the two horses is extended to carry a Molotov cocktail.
At the beginning of the 15th century, the term "ribaudequin" was no longer applied to the cannon cart, but began to be used to refer to the arque-bus-en-croc type firearms used to defend narrow passages, which were sometimes also mounted on the cart.
However, the old idea of ribodecane reappears in the form of the organ, or orgelgeschutze, a name that makes us imagine cannon barrels arranged in close rows, like organ pipes, playing the theme of death. Indeed, these instruments were also known as totenorgel - the organ of death.
The Sigmaringen Museum has a mid-15th century orgelgeschutze with five muzzle-loading barrels. These serpentine cannons are made of wrought iron and appear to be a clumsy embodiment of original idea. Nicholas Glohenton, who prepared images of the arsenals of Maximilian the Great around 1505, depicted an organ of forty serpentines pressed tightly against one another. He also painted one cart of the old type, with spears and other sharp weapons, surrounding on all sides an elegant metal shield covering the front and top of four bronze cannons with curved butts.
Here we can also recall the existence of an ingenious design called “Wagenburg”, which, strictly speaking, does not belong to the category of multiple-strike weapons, but is a variant of the ribodecane. The Va-Hopburg was something like a mobile gun on a four-wheeled cart, in which several separate and independently installed guns were located. During the battle, gun ports opened in the walls, allowing them to fire. As a rule, the Vagen-urgs were freely placed around the encamped city and served as a temporary fortress wall.
Needless to say, Henry VIII had his own very definite ideas regarding cannon wagons. These carts can be seen in ancient engravings, repeating wall paintings telling about the siege of Boulogne. These are two-wheeled carts with handles that allow you to push them forward with your hands. The structure is covered with a long shield shaped like half a cone, the front part of which ends in a pike. With two cannons partially protruding from behind the shield, they are controlled from under cover. In 1544, a list of army personnel included "55 gunners assigned to the shrimps, two to each." The wit of the era demanded that this strange invention be designated by the name of the despicable crustacean, which makes one think of a similar case that happened much later when armored fighting vehicles were called “tanks”1.
On the battlefield, "organs" were used mainly to protect the main forces of archers, therefore, after the latter lost their military significance, the same thing happened with the organ and related structures. The Tower's inventory for 1575 listed 200 machines capable of firing twenty-four bullets at a time, but a German workshop had a late-16th-century machine with sixty-four barrels, which must have been monstrously wasteful of bullets.
At the same time, in the Netherlands the term “ribodecane” was used for a very long time, perhaps for the reason that it originated there. The inhabitants of Maastricht, besieged in 1579 by the troops of the Prince of Parma, with the help of ri-baudecens, victoriously defended the gaps made in their fortifications by Spanish cannonballs. These vehicles are described as two-wheeled carts equipped with rows of arquebus cannons.
The Swiss created organ instruments around 1614 because large number The shells they fired were called “greleuses” - “throwing hail”. The shot was fired using a common seed channel. The installation of these devices on wheeled carriages and armament with long iron lances gave them the nickname “porcupine”.
The term "organ" began to fall out of use, and in England a similar machine began to be called a "barricade". By the way, by 1630, one of the standard sizes of a cannon barrel began to be called ribodecane. By the way, it is known that during the Civil War in England multi-barreled guns were used, and Clarendon in his “History of the Great Mutiny” reports that in 1644 the cavaliers1 at Copredy Bridge captured two wooden “barricades”, moving on wheels and armed with each “family small bronze and leather cannons."
In the sources of that time, these “barricades” were also called “Wagenburgs,” a name that seemed to have long fallen out of use.
The collection of the Principality of Liechtenstein in Vaduz contains a model of a totenorge dating back to around 1670, which had a triangular machine with three groups of barrels of twelve each. After one group fired using the central fuse, the fuse could be turned to the other side with new group trunks. Military writers of the late seventeenth century still retained an attachment to the idea of the "organ", and Monte Cuccoli1 in his Memoirs writes that the "organ" is an assembly of many cannons on a two-wheeled carriage, which are fired by a single application of fire. Their chambers are loaded from the breech.” This shows that loading from the treasury was still in use. The inventory of the castle of Gesden in Artois, dated 1689, includes an "organ" of twelve musket cannons, but before the end of the century the term "organ" ceased to apply to battery-fire engines and began to designate breach or breach batteries. During this period, individual light cannons or heavy fortress cannon-muskets mounted on light mobile installations with wheels on the front support2 became weapons for protecting narrow passages or gates.
Systems with many barrels connected in one gun were also tried, as in the three-barreled cannon of the era of Henry VIII or in the French triple cannon of the Marlborough period, but their description relates rather to the history of the cannon. Another approach was to try to fire several charges in succession from a single barrel. We understand the revolver principle used in early experiments, but with the invention of the Marquis of Worcester the situation is not so clear. In 1663, this gentleman stated that he had found a way to place six muskets on one carriage and fire "with such rapidity that one can, without any danger, load, aim, and fire sixty times in a minute, two or three together." Two years later he proposed "a four-barreled cannon that could fire 200 bullets an hour, and a cannon that could fire twenty times in six minutes" with its barrel remaining so cold that "a pound of butter placed on the breech It won’t melt.” We can only guess what this strange invention was, but the essence of another new product from the same period is not so difficult to unravel. This. " Fire Dragon", patented by Drummond of Hawthorndean, which consisted of many barrels fastened together in one machine. The Tower inventory for 1687 mentions a "machine of 160 musket barrels" which could be something from a forgotten old age. The inventory also lists six- and twelve-barrel vehicles believed to have been captured in 1685 at Sedgemoor from the Duke of Monmouth's rebel forces.
REVOLVER CANNON TOWER
The first inventor to propose a machine gun, the design of which went beyond the stage of theoretical speculation, was the Englishman James Puckle, born during the reign of Charles II and died in 1724. A prolific writer, he was a solicitor by profession, or, in the terminology of those days, a “public notary.” Not only does the specification for Patent No. 418 of 1718, preserved in the Patent Office, contain illustrations and a detailed description of his cannon, but both his first experimental metal sample and the complete cannon were retained by the Duke of Buccloch and sent to the Tower of London. The weapon, called "Protection" in the specification, was mounted on a "triped", or tripod, of surprisingly modern design. Top part The turret rotated freely in a horizontal and toe position, being inserted into a pipe fixed to the base. Aiming and movement in the vertical plane are carried out using a “crane with a limiter,” but the most important part of the invention was the detachable drum, which housed six to nine charging chambers. Rotate the handle of the sub-camera one after another to the breech, and to achieve tight contact, a special quick-release screw fastening was used from a half-screw and a half-screw, which required only a rotation of 180 degrees for fixation. Each chamber had a flintlock for firing a shot and was loaded with various projectiles. Thus, there were “round bullets for Christians”, cubic ones for use “against the Turks” and even “trenadas”, that is, grenades made up of twenty cubic bullets. In addition to these Christian sentiments, the drums were also decorated with patriotic couplets and engravings depicting King George and scenes from Holy Scripture. There were many get-rich-quick schemes at that time, and it is not surprising that Puckle created a company to exploit his invention, the shares of which were quoted at £8 in 1720. Public tests of the machine gun were carried out, and the London Journal on March 31 1722 noted that one man fired sixty-three rounds from "Mr. Puckle's machine" in seven minutes while it was raining. However, even this remarkable result did not lead to immediate success, since the machine gun was not put into production, and the tabloid At that time, the situation was commented on as follows: “Only those who bought shares in the company were injured by this machine.”
But other inventors did not despair. The pursuit of an endless stream of bullets continued. There is a revolving gun in the Tower, to which is attached an engraved plate with the inscription "Durlachs, 1739", which had four barrels, turned by hand, but it was still the same old design with many barrels. In 1742, the Swiss inventor Welton made a small copper cannon that had a slot in the breech near the ignition hole. A large plate was passed through it, ten charges were inserted there, each of which was fired when it was opposite the bore. But even in the middle of the 18th century, a certain Dutch inventor did not find anything better than to return to the good old proven scheme, and built a machine that had twenty-four barrels, arranged in four rows of six pieces, each of which could fire a volley using a flintlock . This later version of the organ is preserved in the Delhi Arsenal.
More attempts were made to improve the revolver principle, and after the death of Nelson, a British gunsmith named Knock made a special cannon to clear the combat tops of an enemy ship. It had a central trunk surrounded by six others. The flintlock flint first sent a spark to the charge of the central barrel, and then to the other six. This was supposed to provide some kind of massive fire, but the weapon itself seems to be just a curious curiosity.
In 1815, a machine with thirty-one barrels and a smoothbore gun that took eighteen interchangeable charging chambers, which was invented by the American General Joshua Gorgas, were brought to England from Paris. It is interesting to note that when the American Samuel Colt sued the Massachusetts Arms Company for infringement of his patent rights, the defendants tried to prove that the inventor of the revolver was not Colt, but James Puckle. They submitted a model based on a specification from the Patent Office, but it was considered insufficient evidence. It is curious how the case could have ended if the completed bronze structure had been discovered in time to be presented to the court.
The supremacy of continental European inventors was challenged by the rapidly developing American nation. In the New World, preference was given to complete, practical developments rather than strange curiosities. In 1861, the Billing-Hurst Requa battery gun was created in Rochester, New York, and took part in the American Civil War and was first used in 1864 in an attack on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina. It was a battery of twenty-five synchronously firing barrels, the elevation of which was regulated by a common screw with a wing nut. Mounted on two light wheels, it resembled the “organs” of the 14th and 15th centuries. With all this in mind, this system did not represent much progress in the field of rapid fire.
In 1862, another American, Dr. Richard J. Gatling of North Carolina, received a patent for a very successful battery gun or machine gun. Its basic principle consisted of rotation around a central axis using the handle of several (from four to ten) rifled barrels. Multiple barrels were necessary to avoid overheating. The cartridges were fed continuously from the tray under the influence of their own gravity, and the shooting was carried out non-stop until the handle continued to rotate or the mechanism jammed. This weapon was used during the American Civil War in the defense of the James River, where it replaced the Requa gun. In 1871, it was adopted by the British government and used in the war with the Zulu. However, frequent jamming did not contribute to the popularity of this system.
Gatling guns continued to be used in various theaters of war in various versions of several different calibers. By 1876, the five-barrel .45 caliber model could fire 700 rounds per minute, or even up to 1,000 rounds in short bursts.
Less than twenty years later, Gatling guns were electrically powered and fired at 3,000 rounds per minute. The multi-barrel system proved successful in terms of rate of fire and cooling, but the weight of many barrels was a major disadvantage, and therefore, when high-speed single-barrel systems were created, Gatling guns disappeared1. But the history of their combat use turned out to be very long: the war with the Ashanti tribes in 1874, the Zulu War and Kitchener’s campaign in Sudan. The use of “gat-lings” against white people seemed morally suspicious at that time, but, nevertheless, during this period they were in service in America, China, Japan, Turkey and Russia. In Russia, they generally became so popular that their production was established under the name “Gorolova” guns, after the name of the officer under whose leadership they were copied.
Similar to the system just discussed is the Nordenfeldt gun system with horizontal movement of the barrels. Its inventor was the engineer H. Palmkranz, but the development was financed by Thorston Nordenfeldt, a Swedish banker from London. The number of trunks here varies from three to six. In the three-barrel version, twenty-seven cartridges were mounted on a wooden strip that could fire projectiles at a rate of 350 rounds per minute. Gatling guns jammed due to the type of ammunition they used, whereas the Nordenfeldt system used brass Boxer cartridges and did not have this problem. "Gatlings" did not immediately lose popularity, however Navy in 1881 he began to widely introduce Nordenfeldt guns on torpedo boats, and their use in 1884 during operations in Egypt was considered very effective.
The machine gun, invented by United States Army Captain William Gardner, was introduced around 1876; it used the Nordenfeldt gun principle. Although the system was initially multi-barrel, it eventually evolved into a single-barrel system with better cooling and improved charger. The first versions had trays for thirty-one cartridges, mounted on a wooden base. The great advantage of this machine gun was its machine, ideally suited for firing through the parapet. The cartridges were fed from a vertically positioned clip, and firing could be carried out either in single shots or at a rate of 120 rounds per minute, depending on the speed at which the handle was rotated. The Gardner was widely used in the British Army before the adoption of the Maxim machine gun. At that time it was classified as a “portable” machine gun and, with a tripod and 1000 rounds of ammunition, weighed less than 200 pounds, which made it possible to transport it on horseback if necessary.
A very common pattern multi-barreled machine gun there was a French mitrailleuse. The Belgian engineer Joseph Montigny from Fontaine-l'Evêque near Brussels made a machine gun based on the original idea of another Belgian, Captain Faschamps. This weapon resembled appearance a field gun, but containing thirty-seven (later twenty-five) rifled barrels, loaded simultaneously with a clip of thirty-seven (or twenty-five) cartridges, made a very strong impression on Napoleon III. Turning the handle lowered one impact mechanism after another, and in a minute it was possible to shoot twelve such clips, which ensured a rate of fire of 444 rounds per minute. The British did not accept this machine gun for service, since in tests the Gatling machine gun showed significantly better results. However, the French believed in their mitrailleuse, which was originally called “canon a bras”1.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, mitrailleuses were used as cannons, while the Prussians tried to disable them at the first opportunity, which is why these weapons could not demonstrate their full capabilities. The French believed that their weapons were “secret”, but in Prussia they had all the necessary information, and the Bavarian units even had guns of a similar design. The original Montigny design was used from 1851 to 1869, then the French government began producing them with various improvements suggested by Colonel de Reffy. It was quite an effective weapon when used against large clusters infantry, but it could not serve as a replacement for heavy artillery, in which capacity the French tried to use it.
MACHINE GUN MAXIMA
Hiram S. Maxim, an American born in Maine and later a British citizen, worked extensively in Europe and created a machine gun design based on a new principle. He was a true innovator, moving forward in a fundamentally new way and ultimately achieving unconditional success and a knighthood. In his younger years, he had the opportunity to become closely acquainted with the recoil effect of a battle rifle. The idea of a terrible waste of energy was firmly imprinted in his mind, and he managed to find a useful use for it. At the Paris Exhibition, Maxim was demonstrating new products in the field of electricity when some compatriot gave him the idea that he could make a lot of money if he could invent faster and more efficient ways for Europeans to rip each other's throats out. Maxim by that time was already a wealthy man and had a staff of capable engineers. He came up with the idea of using the recoil energy to reload the gun. So, in 1881, Maxim went to London to develop a weapon, which, according to him, was a complete novelty, since no one before him had thought about a weapon that, when fired, would load itself. The existing designs were useless to him, and therefore at the beginning of 1884 he created a mechanism, which is still in the South Kensington Museum, equipped with a sign: “This device charges itself and fires, using the force of its own recoil. This is the first device in the world in which the combustion energy of gunpowder is used to load and fire weapons.” Maxim used the method of loading using a tape, which in itself was an innovation; in addition, he used the bold idea of mounting the weapon not on wheels, but on a tripod. Its design was regarded as a remarkable achievement.
But visitors came from all over the world, even the Duke of Cambridge, Lord Wolseley, and senior officials from the War Office, and everyone wanted to see the apparatus in action. An exceptionally large number - 200,000 - rounds of ammunition were fired during the tests. An unusually high rate of fire was not necessarily an absolute preference then. Indeed, the King of Denmark and the envoy of China were unpleasantly surprised by the enormous consumption of cartridges, of which £5 was fired per minute, and decided that this machine gun was too expensive for their countries. However, this weapon was not a figment of fantasy, it was quite tangible, and the British government wanted to be the first to order it, stipulating that the machine gun should not weigh more than 100 pounds and that its rate of fire should be 400 rounds per minute. The inventor responded by creating a weapon weighing 40 pounds that fired 2,000 rounds in 3 minutes. The original version has undergone changes and improvements, but the original idea of the system remains the same. As long as the machine gunner kept his finger on the trigger guard, the recoil of the shot ejected the spent cartridge case, sent a new cartridge into the chamber and fired - and so on until all the cartridges were used up or the trigger was released. The exceptionally high rate of fire led to strong heating of the barrel, but this problem was solved by using a water cooling casing. After 600 rounds the water boiled and began to evaporate, so for every 1000 rounds a supply of I1/ pints of water was required.
Maxims, produced at the Vickers-Maxim plant, were widely used during the First World War, during which Maxim died in 1915. A lighter model of his machine gun was created, weighing only 25 pounds, 50 pounds - fully equipped with a tripod. It could be transported by horse and differed from the heavier type by using air cooling instead of water. Model "Vickers M.G. Mark I" was put into production in November 1912 and weighed 28"/lb without water. This type of machine gun is still in use after two world wars. It now weighs half as much as the original model, has a water-cooling casing made of stamped steel instead of the original one, made of bronze, and uses a reactive gas muzzle attachment to speed up the rate of fire with 303 caliber cartridges.Both the Germans and the Russians subsequently used the Maxim machine gun with machines of their own designs.
The idea of using the wasted energy of powder gases was applied in its own way in different designs. For example, a native of Vienna, Captain Baron A. Odkolek von Ogezd, designed a weapon in which powder gases were vented through a special hole in the barrel to operate a piston in the cylinder. Using this method, the spent cartridge case was removed and a new cartridge was sent.
American Benjamin Berkeley Hotchkiss, a native of Connecticut, was engaged in the production of weapons in 1875 in Saint-Denis near Paris, including a machine gun very similar to the Gatling; at the same time he experimented with explosive and large-caliber projectiles. In 1876, during comparative tests of his weapons with the Nordenfeldt system, the palm went to the latter. However, the Hotchkiss machine gun was improved: it became single-barrel and received a window for venting gases, which activated the shutter mechanism, ejected the spent cartridge case and reloaded. As a result, he began to fire 600 rounds per minute, which led to overheating of the barrel. Cooling was carried out by a flow of air deflected by special screens onto the radiators. The French adopted Hotchkiss and used them during World War I, as did the Americans and some British cavalry units. Hotchkiss machine guns are still in use today.
Another person who appreciated the benefits of using spent powder gases was John Moses Browning. He was born in 1855 into the family of an American gunsmith and was raised to practice his father's craft. In 1889, drawing attention to the effect produced by powder gases flying out of the barrel after a shot was fired at the foliage of a tree, Browning came up with the idea of using them. He attached a conical nozzle to the barrel of the rifle and ensured that it moved forward under the influence of the escaping gases. This nozzle was connected by a light rod to the bolt, which also moved forward along with it. Six years later, in 1895, his idea was used in the United States by the Colt Arms Company. Improvements to the design resulted in a fully automatic machine gun powered by a canvas belt that held 250 rounds. Powder gases through a hole in the lower part of the barrel threw back the piston, which unlocked the bolt and ejected the spent cartridge case. This system is famous for its use on aircraft.
The invention of the machine gun completely changed the military industry.
On turn of the 19th century and the 20th century, European pacifists more than once came out with a demand for a complete ban on the use of new weapons, which gave an undeniable advantage during the battle. Some models of machine guns are still used in the army arsenal around the world, having established themselves as a standard.
The largest caliber machine gun
Few truly successful models of heavy machine guns have been created throughout history. One of them is the KPVT - a large-caliber Vladimirov tank machine gun with a caliber of 14.5 mm. It is recognized as the largest-caliber serial machine gun. The KPVT fires up to 600 bullets per minute, penetrating 32mm armor from half a kilometer away.KPVT - the largest-caliber machine gun among serial ones
The largest caliber of existing machine guns was recorded in the experimental Belgian model FN BRG-15 - 15.5 mm; this machine gun came close to small-caliber guns. In 1983, Fabrique Nationale presented an experimental prototype, which was subsequently improved. The final version could penetrate 10 mm thick armor at an angle of 30 o from a distance of 1.3 kilometers. However, the model never went into mass production: in 1991, due to financial difficulties, the company froze the project, switching efforts to creating the P90 submachine gun.
The fastest firing machine gun
To find out which machine gun is the fastest, let's first take a trip to the origins of this weapon. 
The very first machine gun
People began to think about creating weapons that could fire a large number of bullets in a short period of time already in the Middle Ages. The first prototype of a machine gun was created back in 1512 by Spanish inventors: a row of loaded barrels was fixed along the deck, and a trail of gunpowder was poured in front of them. It turned out that the barrels fired almost simultaneously. 
Later, the barrels began to be attached to a rotating shaft, each barrel had its own mechanism and a flint lock - this weapon was called the “Organ” or, as it was known in Russia, a card case.
One of the first machine guns was patented in 1862 by inventor Richard Gatling. This engineer invented a multi-barreled rapid-firing machine gun, which was adopted by the northern army during civil war in USA.
The innovation of the Gatling gun was that the cartridges were fed freely from the bunker. This allowed even an inexperienced shooter to fire at a high rate: at least 400 rounds per minute. However, the barrels of the first Gatling guns had to be manually operated.
Improvement of the Gatling gun continued continuously. By the beginning of the 20th century. it was equipped with an electric drive, thanks to which the rate of fire increased to 3000 rounds per minute. Multi-barrel Gatling guns were gradually replaced by single-barrel machine guns, but were successfully used on ships as air defense systems.
In 1883, American Maxim Hiram announced the creation of the first automatic machine gun. The rate of fire was higher than that of Gatling's invention - 600 rounds per minute, and the cartridges were reloaded automatically. The model has undergone a huge number of modifications and became one of the progenitors of automatic firearms.
The fastest firing multi-barreled machine gun
In 1960, General Electric created an innovative machine gun prototype using a Gatling gun as a basis. The new product consisted of 6 barrels of 7.62 mm caliber, which were driven by an electric motor. Thanks to the unique design of the machine gun belt, it could fire up to 6,000 rounds per minute, and was immediately put into service armored forces and US helicopters. 
The unsurpassed machine gun, which received the army index M134 Minigun (modifications for the navy and air force - GAU-2/A), still retains the lead in rate of fire among serial machine guns. Of course, this is not the most dangerous weapon in the world, but it is definitely one of the fastest.
M134 machine gun in action
The fastest firing single-barreled machine gun
In 1932 entered service Soviet army the innovative single-barrel machine gun ShKAS (Shpitalny-Komaritsky aviation rapid-fire) was adopted. The model with a caliber of 7.62 mm was developed specifically for the domestic Air Force, and its design was not based on existing samples, but was created from scratch. Aviation machine gun was presented in three variations: turret, tail and synchronous. The turret and tail models could fire at speeds of up to 1,800 rounds per minute, while the synchronized model could fire up to 1,650 rounds. 
Five years later, Shpitalny and Komaritsky presented a modification of the UltraShkas, the rate of fire of which reached 3000 rounds per minute, but due to the low reliability of the model after Soviet-Finnish War it was discontinued.
The fastest firing light machine gun
In 1963, American designer Eugene Stoner completed the development of a modular system small arms Stoner 63. Based on his invention, the Stoner 63A Command light machine gun was created, capable of firing up to 1000 rounds per minute. During army tests, the model showed high demands, so it was not adopted for service. Of course, there can be no question of an unambiguous assessment, because every experienced shooter has his own preferences. But the majority of domestic and foreign experts agree that the best heavy machine gun in terms of all its technical characteristics is the serial heavy machine gun "KORD" ( Large Weapons Degtyarevtsev).Demonstration of the power of the KORD machine gun
In the armed forces, the KORD is called a “sniper machine gun” for its amazing accuracy and mobility, which is unusual for this type of weapon. With a caliber of 12.7 mm, its weight is only 25.5 kilograms (body). Also, “KORD” is highly valued for its ability to fire both from a bipod and from the hands at a speed of up to 750 rounds per minute.
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In 1873, the South American inventor Hiram Stephens Maxim invented a weapon, the introduction of which influenced the ending of many battles of the late 19th and first half of the 20th centuries. It was an easel machine gun, the mechanism of which was based on the use of recoil when firing. It can be called the first automatic weapon in the history of the world's population.
A decade before Maxim, Richard Gatling had already invented a machine gun, but to fire it you had to turn the handle, so it could be called “automatic” very conditionally. So the first automatic shooting device was invented specifically by Hiram Stevens Maxim.
Maxim did not specialize only in the development of weapons; his interests lay in other areas, so 10 years passed between the drawings of a new device and the creation of the first working standard.
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In 1883, the inventor showed his brainchild to the South American military, on whom it did not make a good impression. The generals considered that the Maxim system machine gun had a very high rate of fire, and this was bad because it led to a large waste of ammunition.
Good start
Hiram emigrated to England and offered his gun there. The British military also did not show any particular ecstasy towards the machine gun, although it aroused their enthusiasm. The release of the new device began thanks to banker Nathaniel Rothschild, who financed the new endeavor.
The arms company created by Maxim began to produce and advertise machine guns. The operation scheme of this weapon, painstakingly developed by the inventor, was so perfect that, amazed by its reliability and reliability, the British adopted the machine gun, and it was successfully used during the Anglo-Boer War, causing countless protests among pacifist organizations.
Maxim comes to Russia
The inventor brought a machine gun to Russia in 1887. The caliber of the gun was 11.43 mm. Then it was made for the caliber of the Berdan rifle cartridge, which was then in service in the Russian army. The military department placed a small order. The sailors also showed enthusiasm for the machine gun. Then the gun was converted to the 7.62 mm caliber of the Mosin rifle cartridge.
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From 1897 to 1904, about 300 machine guns were purchased, and the history of the use of this weapon in the Russian army began. The weight of the machine gun was great - 244 kg. Mounted on a heavy wheeled carriage, similar to a cannon and equipped with a huge armor shield, the Maxim machine gun was supposed to be used for the defense of fortresses. Therefore, he was assigned to the artillery department. Since 1904, Maxim began to be produced at the Tula Arms Factory.
The new machine gun proved its extraordinary effectiveness during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Already on the ground, it was removed from the cannon carriage, the dimensions of which were very significant, and installed on tripods.
And from 1910 it begins Russian history this weapon. The gunsmiths of the Tula plant, Pastukhov, Sudakov and Tretyakov, modernized the machine gun, and Sokolov equipped it with a comfortable, small-sized carriage. The design has been changed. The gun began to weigh about 70 kg together with water, which was poured into the casing to cool the barrel.
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The machine gun received the following performance characteristics:
- cartridges caliber 7.62 mm;
- initial bullet speed 800 m/s;
- target firing range 3000 m;
- combat rate of fire 300 rounds per minute;
- weight 66 kg.
The weapon was successfully used during the First World War and the Civil War in Russia. The gun was mounted on cavalry carts, which can be seen in countless films showing this period of Russian history.
Next upgrades
Modernization of the machine gun was also carried out in 1930, but was already insignificant. Thus, the hole for pouring water into the casing was expanded, which made it possible to fill it with snow in winter. And for long-distance shooting, the languid bullet of the 1930 standard was used. The caliber of the gun has not changed. For clearer shooting, the machine gun began to be stuffed optical sight and a protractor. The barrel casing received longitudinal corrugation, which increased its strength. Other properties have also been changed.
We can say that the Maxim machine gun is a frequently encountered Russian machine gun during the Great Russian War.
Use of guns on aircraft and air defense forces
The Maxim machine gun began to be installed on airplanes, tanks, and armored vehicles. It has not gained much popularity on airplanes. The prerequisite was the heavy weight of the gun.
Back in 1928, the machine gun was mounted on a tripod and began to be used as an anti-aircraft gun, which has been very successfully used against aircraft since then. In 1931, the famous Russian gunsmith N.F. Tokarev created an anti-aircraft installation consisting of 4 machine guns. A special sight was also developed. This installation was successfully used throughout the Great Russian War.
Making a light machine gun
Back in 1924, the same gunsmith made a Russian light machine gun based on a heavy machine gun, significantly reducing its weight. The Maxim light machine gun weighed only 12.5 kg, and even that was considered a lot. Nevertheless, it was put into service, and in just one year the Tula Arms Plant produced almost 2.5 thousand units of this weapon. But its popularity, as annoying as it may sound, was far from the popularity of its easel brother.
End of production, but continuation of the story
In 1943, the Maxim was replaced in the army by a new weapon - the SG-43. This was the name of a new machine gun with an air-cooled barrel, developed by gunsmith P. Goryunov. Its caliber was also chambered for 7.62, but it had different performance characteristics. Its properties were more adapted to combat in the changed conditions, although it also had a fairly large weight - 27.7 kg on a tripod. The release of Maxim ended, but the story did not, and it continued to be used. The latest application of this famous gun it is believed to date back to 1969, when Russian border guards used it during the conflict on the Damansky Peninsula.
There are facts that Maxim was used in 2014 during the defense of the airport in the town of Donetsk. Thus, the history of this weapon has lasted for more than 100 years.
Now in every museum you can see either a real Maxim machine gun or a model of a Maxim machine gun. They also make models of the famous machine gun for interior decoration.
Fascinating fact. In the inventor's surname, the emphasis was placed on the first syllable. But when talking about this weapon, the emphasis is usually placed on the last syllable, as is customary in the Russian language. Although, in the works of some poets, the Maxim machine gun is still played out with the original emphasis.
Video about the Maxim machine gun
Machine gun in action
In 1718, English lawyer James Puckle patented the world's first machine gun. This weapon was designed on the principle of a revolver. Subsequently, the machine gun was improved by many designers, but the first truly effective model appeared in 1883 - it was made by the American Hiram Maxim.
At first, the military underestimated the new weapon and treated it with disdain. However, in the First World War, the machine gun showed what it was capable of: it accounted for 80 percent of all combat losses. We can say that it was from the machine gun that all traditional ideas about war were shot.
Depending on their design and purpose, machine guns are divided into several main types. The light machine gun can be carried by one person. The support for such a machine gun is the bipod and butt. The heavy machine gun is used for firing from fortified positions. The machine gun has a belt feed of cartridges, a massive barrel for continuous shooting and is mounted on a special machine on wheels or on a tripod. Single machine guns are capable of firing both from a bipod and from a machine gun. Quickly replacing the barrel avoids overheating of the machine gun and ensures continuous shooting.
Large-caliber machine guns are designed to combat lightly armored combat vehicles and aerial targets. Special machine guns can be classified as a separate group. These include aircraft, tank, anti-aircraft machine guns and anti-aircraft machine gun installations.
The M 134 “Minigun”, created for arming helicopters and armored forces, is considered the fastest-firing machine gun. It has 6 barrels rotated by an electric motor and can fire 6,000 rounds per minute (almost 10 times more than a conventional machine gun).
By the way, Australia has developed a 36-barreled machine gun that is capable of firing a million rounds per minute. Instead of mechanical strikers, special electronic starters are built into the barrels of this machine gun.
In 1987, the American film Predator was released, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. In one of the episodes, a group of special forces fires with all guns, including a six-barreled machine gun. Subsequently, similar machine guns were seen in other films.
In reality, none of these machine guns can be used as hand weapons: firstly, a person would have to carry a heavy electric motor with a battery on his back; secondly, the portable ammunition would only be enough for one minute of fire; thirdly, even Schwarzenegger could not withstand the recoil of such a machine gun.
For the film "Predator" they made a special version of the machine gun, which only fired blank cartridges. Power was supplied to it through an electrical cable. The actor had to wear a mask and body armor so as not to be injured by the shell casings flying out at high speed.
On May 17, 1718, James Puckle patented his gun, which became the prototype of the machine gun. Since that time, military engineering has come a long way, but machine guns still remain one of the most formidable types of weapons.
"Pakla's Gun"
Attempts to increase the rate of fire of firearms were made repeatedly, but before the advent of a unitary cartridge they failed due to the complexity and unreliability of the design, the extremely high cost of production and the need to have trained soldiers whose skills would go significantly beyond the scope of automated manipulations with a gun.
One of the many experimental designs was the so-called “Pakla gun”. The weapon was a gun mounted on a tripod with a cylinder with 11 charges acting as a magazine. The crew of the gun consisted of several people. With coordinated crew actions and no misfires, a rate of fire of up to 9-10 rounds per minute was theoretically achieved. This system was supposed to be used at short distances in naval combat, but due to unreliability this weapon was not widespread. This system illustrates the desire to increase firepower rifle fire by increasing the rate of fire.
Lewis machine gun
The Lewis light machine gun was developed in the United States by Samuel McClane, and was used as a light machine gun and aircraft gun during the First World War. Despite the impressive weight, the weapon turned out to be quite successful - the machine gun and its modifications were kept for quite a long time in Britain and its colonies, as well as the USSR.
In our country, Lewis machine guns were used until the Great Patriotic War and visible on the chronicle of the parade on November 7, 1941. In domestic feature films, this weapon is found relatively rarely, but a frequent imitation of the Lewis machine gun in the form of a “camouflaged DP-27” is present very often. An authentic Lewis machine gun is depicted, for example, in the film " White sun desert" (except for shots of shooting).
Hotchkiss machine gun
During the First World War, the Hotchkiss machine gun became the main machine gun of the French army. Only in 1917, with the spread of light machine guns, its production began to decline.
In total, the easel "Hotchkiss" was in service in 20 countries. In France and a number of other countries, these weapons were kept during the Second World War. Hotchkiss was supplied to a limited extent before the First World War and to Russia, where a significant part of these machine guns was lost during the East Prussian operation in the first months of the war. In domestic feature films, the Hotchkiss machine gun can be seen in the film adaptation of Quiet Don, which shows a Cossack attack on German positions, which from a historical point of view may not be typical, but is acceptable.
Maxim machine gun
The Maxim machine gun went down in history Russian Empire and the USSR, remaining officially in service much longer than in other countries. Along with the three-line rifle and revolver, it is strongly associated with the weapons of the first half of the 20th century.
He served from the Russo-Japanese War to the Great Patriotic War inclusive. Powerful and distinguished by a high rate of fire and accuracy of fire, the machine gun had a number of modifications in the USSR and was used as an easel, anti-aircraft and aviation one. The main disadvantages of the easel version of the Maxim were the excessively large mass and water cooling of the barrel. Only in 1943 was the Goryunov machine gun adopted for service, which by the end of the war began to gradually supplant the Maxim. In the initial period of the war, the production of Maxims not only did not decrease, but on the contrary, it increased and, in addition to Tula, was deployed in Izhevsk and Kovrov.
Since 1942, machine guns were produced only with a receiver under a canvas tape. Production legendary weapons was stopped in our country only in the victorious year of 1945.
MG-34
The German MG-34 machine gun has a very difficult history of adoption, but, nevertheless, this model can be called one of the first single machine guns. The MG-34 could be used as a light machine gun, or as an easel machine gun on a tripod, as well as as an anti-aircraft and tank gun.
Its low weight gave the weapon high maneuverability, which, combined with a high rate of fire, made it one of the best infantry machine guns of the early World War II. Later, even with the adoption of the MG-42, Germany did not abandon the production of the MG-34, until now this machine gun is in service with a number of countries.
DP-27
From the beginning of the 30s, the light machine gun of the Degtyarev system began to enter service with the Red Army, which became the main light machine gun of the Red Army until the mid-40s. First combat use DP-27 is most likely associated with the conflict on the Chinese Eastern Railway in 1929.
The machine gun performed well during the fighting in Spain, Khasan and Khalkhin Gol. However, by the time the Great Patriotic War began, the Degtyarev machine gun was already inferior in a number of parameters such as weight and magazine capacity to a number of newer and more advanced models.
During operation, a number of shortcomings were identified - a small magazine capacity (47 rounds) and an unfortunate location under the barrel of the return spring, which was deformed from frequent shooting. During the war, some work was carried out to eliminate these shortcomings. In particular, the survivability of the weapon was increased by moving the return spring to back receiver though general principle The operation of this sample has not undergone any changes. New machine gun(DPM) began to enter the troops in 1945. On the basis of the machine gun, a very successful DT tank machine gun was created, which became the main Soviet tank machine gun of the Great Patriotic War.
Machine gun "Breda" 30
One of the first places in terms of the number of shortcomings among mass-produced samples can be given to the Italian Breda machine gun, which, perhaps, collected the maximum number of them.
Firstly, the magazine is unsuccessful and only holds 20 rounds, which is clearly not enough for a machine gun. Secondly, each cartridge must be lubricated with oil from a special oil can. Dirt, dust gets in and the weapon instantly fails. One can only guess how it was possible to fight with such a “miracle” in the sands of North Africa.
But even at sub-zero temperatures, the machine gun also does not work. The system was highly complex to manufacture and low in cost. light machine gun rate of fire. To top it off, there is no handle for carrying the machine gun. However, this system was the main machine gun of the Italian army in World War II.
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