Gatling machine gun is the scientific name of Gatling machine gun, and its prototype is1revolver which appeared in Britain in the early 8th century. This kind of weapon has achieved some success in the battlefield, but their defects are also obvious-huge volume, inconvenient operation, low firing rate, inconvenient application in field conditions and so on. -this has prompted people to always maintain a strong yearning for new rapid-fire weapons.
Drawing on the experience of predecessors and the development of new technology, gatling invented a Gatling machine gun (186 1- 1865) during the American Civil War, which was later called "Gatling machine gun". This is the first successful multi-barrel machine gun in the world. Six barrels are installed side by side on a rotating cylinder, and each barrel completes loading, shooting, shell unloading and other actions in turn every time the handle rotates. Gatling machine gun is a masterpiece of manual gun. Its appearance became an important turning point in the history of firearms, which had a far-reaching impact on the development of modern weapons and military thought.
When Gatling machine gun was first born, gatling took his machine gun everywhere to participate in various competitions. In a competition, 100 Prussian infantry and a Gatling machine gun fired at a target 800 meters away. A minute later, the judges came to the target position, and 100 rifle shooter fired 72 1 round, and only 196 rounds hit the target position; The Gatling machine gun fired 246 rounds, but it hit 2 16. The officers watching the battle were silent-they knew in their hearts that if they met on the battlefield, their soldiers would definitely be no match for Gatling machine guns.
The appearance of Gatling machine guns coincided with the American Civil War in full swing, but gatling didn't get orders from both warring parties immediately. In addition to the influence of secular ideas, the gun's technical defects, excessive weight and unfavorable rapid deployment in combat are also important reasons why it is not optimistic. Later, after gatling further lost weight, General Benjamin Butler of the Union Army first purchased the 12 Gatling machine gun and applied it to the front line of Gettysburg. The first appearance of Gatling machine gun surprised the soldiers on both sides of the war with its power and efficiency. Interestingly, gatling himself sympathized with the south, but in the end only the northern army bought his machine gun during the war.
1865, gatling improved the shell casing into an integral shell casing structure, designed a new locking mechanism, and solved the ammunition supply problem caused by the air leakage of the ammunition feeder. This very important improvement led to the appearance of six Gatling machine guns with a caliber of 1 inch. The gun technology is relatively mature and is favored by the US military. In the following years, European countries were attracted by gatling's advanced performance, and bought this kind of high-rate rotating machine gun in succession.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Mr. gatling continued to improve his revolver machine gun. The main improvement direction is to improve the reliability of the ammunition supply system, reduce the weight and improve the firing rate.
Just when Gatling machine gun reached its peak, the appearance of automatic weapon Maxim machine gun put Gatling machine gun in a dilemma. Since 1884, automatic weapons with automatic principles such as pipe shrinkage, air guide, free bolt and semi-free bolt have been invented one after another. Compared with these single-barrel automatic weapons, the advantages of gatling's barrel machine guns no longer exist, but the disadvantages are more and more obvious. For example, Gatling machine guns are larger than single-barrel machine guns, and the corresponding transportation tools have limited capacity, which is not convenient for maneuvering; The high firing rate of Gatling machine gun was of little significance to the battlefield conditions at that time, and the light and compact automatic machine gun was powerful enough to provide support for infantry. In addition, the newly developed metal shell ammunition is expensive, and excessive firing rate will cause great waste. So 19 1 1 year, Gatling machine guns were retired after serving in the US military for 45 years. Many retired Gatling machine guns were completely destroyed as scrap metal, while others were buried in dusty warehouses or collected by museums and private collections.
However, 35 years later, the style of war has changed greatly, and the plane has entered the military field as a modern high-speed means of transportation. At the end of World War II, American weapons and equipment experts began to pay attention to the airborne weapons of future fighters. At that time, the aviation machine guns were mainly improved land machine guns, which were installed on airplanes. When supersonic aircraft is used as the shooting target, its shortcomings are exposed-when fleeting combat opportunities appear, the fighters are seriously short of firepower and can't give their opponents a fatal attack at all. In order to give full play to the firepower advantage in air combat, airborne weapons must be able to fire more deadly ammunition at a speed several times higher than the current machine guns at that time, while ensuring good shooting accuracy and longer range. The most successful weapon that can meet these requirements is the Gatling machine gun in gatling.
1945, a special research group was set up at the suggestion of the US Army to further study the mobility and reliability of Gatling machine guns. 1946, Colonel Johnson suggested that the Gatling machine gun system driven by external power be used as an aviation machine gun. The Army Equipment Department of the US Air Force immediately formulated a joint plan, including the Vulcan Plan for the production of air transshipment weapons, and General Electric Company won the development contract. 1956, the 20mm Gatling cannon code-named T- 17 1 was finalized as M6 1 by the US Air Force and Army, and was mass-produced and ordered, making it the most widely used cannon in American aviation history.
In this way, the tube-passing weapon once again appeared in the equipment of the US military and became the focus of attention, which triggered the interest of countries all over the world in the tube-passing weapon. In the following decades, based on M6 1 20 mm six-tube turret gun, General Electric Company of the United States successively developed several series of turret weapons, which were widely used in airplanes, ships and armored vehicles. M6 1 20 mm 6 barrel gun has the advantages of high firing rate, great power and long service life, which lays a solid foundation for the later development of barrel weapons.
1968, American general electric company began to develop gau-8/a 30mm 7-tube turret gun, which was first installed on A 10 attack machine in 1979 for test firing, and was later approved by the Ministry of national defense. In addition, General Electric Company of the United States has developed a variety of transfer weapons. Especially worth mentioning is M 134 "Mini Machine Gun" (GTA: VC's "Mini Gun") 7.62mm barrel machine gun. The miniature machine gun was developed by General Electric Company in the early 1950s. The machine gun has six 7.62 mm barrels, which are driven by DC motor, and each barrel fires 1 bullet every revolution. The theoretical firing rate of the mini gun is 6000 rounds per minute, which is equivalent to 10 times that of the ordinary machine gun, so some people call it "the fastest machine gun in the world".
In addition to the United States, some other countries have successfully developed or are developing their own barrel guns. Without exception, these barrel weapons all adopted the gatling principle, which made the barrel weapon family in gatling more prosperous.
Minigun Gatling machine gun is mainly composed of gun body, gun base, magazine and control box (power box). The gun body includes barrel, shell, rotating body, movement, ammunition supply device, motor and other parts. Gun stock includes bracket, bracket, column, base, etc.
The motor drives six barrels to rotate, and the maximum firing rate is as high as 6000 rounds per minute. The rotation of the barrel is driven by the DC motor, so the firing rate is determined by the rotational speed of the DC motor. Any firing rate from 300 rounds per minute to 6000 rounds per minute can be obtained by changing the current.
The barrel of the mini gun is light, and the weight of a single tube is only1.08kg.. When assembling the gun barrel, just insert the gun barrel through the gun barrel hoop, insert it into the corresponding hole on the rotating body, and rotate it by 180 degrees. Usually six barrels are placed in parallel and flush; Sometimes, if you have special needs, you can use special barrel hoop. After the gun tube bundle is fixed, it can be tapered, thus changing the dispersion of projectiles and making the gun focus on a certain target in a certain range.
The shell is an integral casting, which contains a rotating body and is also a fixed bracket for the buffer and the guide plate of the ammunition feeder. On the inner surface of the shell, there is the motion curve of the bolt roller.
The rotating body is the main part of the barrel of the rotating barrel machine gun, which is installed in the shell with roller bearings to make the barrel rotate. Six cylinders are installed at the front end of the rotating body, and there are six motion guide grooves on the cylindrical surface, and six detachable motion guide rails are fixed on ribs between the guide grooves by bolts. There is also an "S"-shaped firing guide groove at the bottom of each movement guide groove, which is used to control the firing and firing of the needle.
The six sets of actions of Gatling machine gun belong to the corresponding barrel respectively, and the locking mode is head turning. The movement moves linearly in the guide groove of the movement and rotates together with the rotor. The machine core consists of a machine head, a machine body, a striking needle, etc. There is a hard shell hook on the nose. There is a crank-shaped protrusion at the back end of the striking needle, which is stuck in the S-shaped firing guide groove of the rotating body.
The structure of the ammunition feeding device of micro-gun is very complicated, and its ammunition feeding action is completed under the drive of the rotating body. The release mode is vertical direct push. The guide plate fixed on the shell is an important part, which enables the bullet to accurately enter the rotating body from the ammunition feeder and be placed in the groove of the bullet pulling hook. In addition, after the bullet is fired, the shell is separated from the rotating body to complete the shell throwing action.
principle of operation
The working principle of Gatling weapon is quite different from our common single-tube automatic weapon, which is unique and more complicated. The biggest feature of the rotating barrel machine gun is that the barrel can rotate, and the high firing rate is achieved through the high-speed rotation of the barrel, and each barrel is equivalent to a machine gun.
The main power switch of the mini gun revolver gun, press the firing button on the handle, the gear starts to rotate, and the rotor rotates with the six barrels. At the same time, the rear gear of the rotator drives the gear of the ammunition supply device to rotate. Each machine core rotates with the rotating body, and the roller of each machine core is constrained by the arc groove on the inner surface of the shell, so that it reciprocates linearly along the guide rail on the rotating body to complete a series of actions such as taking bullets and pushing the chamber. The machine head rotates and locks under the action of the locking inclined plane on the machine body.
At the same time, the crank-shaped protrusion at the end of the striker is limited by the "S"-shaped firing guide groove in the rotator, so that the striker is in a fired state (the striker spring is compressed). When the bolt rotates to the position directly above with the rotating body, the nose is locked, and the crank-shaped protrusion of the firing pin disengages from the S-shaped guide groove and fires the bullet. There is a straight line in front of the arc groove on the inner surface of the shell. After the bullet is fired, the movement moves in it and always keeps locked, that is, the movement only rotates with the rotating body, but cannot unlock and retreat, thus playing the role of mechanical safety after firing.
When the moving roller crosses the straight section of the curved groove, the machine body retreats to drive the machine head to rotate and unlock. After that, the whole movement drives the shell to retreat and the shell is pulled out of the bore. When the motion retreats, it still rotates with the rotating body. When turning to the lower position, the guide plate makes the shell separate from the rotating body and throw it downward. At this point, a bolt machine has completed the 360-degree automatic cycle and is ready for the next bullet. Six actions repeat the above actions in turn, as if six machine guns were fired in turn.
When the electric firing button is released, the bolt stops pushing the bullet out of the ammunition conveying guide plate, and then the empty chamber is locked. Therefore, there is no danger of continuing to fire bullets within 1 second from cutting off the power supply to stopping the rotation of the barrel.
Because the mini gun is driven by external energy, the misfire bomb is also retracted like a shell casing and thrown down into the serpentine tube, so the shooting will not be interrupted.
Theoretically, when the driving mode and caliber are fixed, the firing rate of the Gatling weapon depends largely on the number of barrels. But it doesn't mean that the firing rate can be increased indefinitely by increasing the number of barrels, because too high firing rate will lead to too large recoil and volume. Gatling weapons have special requirements for recoil when they are airborne or shipborne. On the premise of not changing the number of barrels, a higher firing rate can be achieved by appropriately reducing the caliber of the barrel weapon. At the same time, the radial size of the weapon is reduced, which is beneficial to the arrangement of the Gatling weapon on other carriers.
The unique internal structure and working principle have created many excellent performances of barrel machine guns. Gatling weapons use multiple guns. The most obvious feature of Gatling weapons is its high firing rate, which is 3~ 10 times higher than that of ordinary single-tube automatic weapons (directly related to the number of tubes), which significantly improves the damage probability to targets, especially high-speed targets. Compared with other high-rate weapons, the service life of rotating tube weapons is longer, and its life advantage is highlighted in the ablation wear of gun (gun) tubes and the fatigue damage of stressed components. Because multiple guns (barrels) and multiple sets of movements bear the total number of projectiles, the service life of the weapon is doubled compared with that of the general single-barrel weapon.
The main moving parts of a Gatling weapon-the movement of the movement-are mechanically forced (avoiding inertial movement), so the weapon has high reliability and will not stop shooting when it encounters misfire. The failure rate can generally be controlled in a few ten thousandths, which is one order of magnitude lower than that of ordinary automatic weapons. Because gatling weapons rely on external energy to rotate the barrel, and the power of external energy is adjustable, which can change the speed of the weapon and thus change the firing rate, and the firing rate can be adjusted according to different targets, which is another unique feature of Gatling machine gun. Of course, the shortcomings of the Gatling weapon are also obvious, that is, it is large in size, concentrated in weight, takes up a lot of space on the weapon platform, and is inconvenient to assemble and disassemble; Ammunition consumption is also much higher than that of single-tube automatic weapons; The rotating tube weapon driven by external energy needs the carrier to provide certain energy, which is instantaneous, but it also increases the burden on the carrier.