Machine guns are mainly used to shoot long-distance effective forces, and can also shoot light thin-walled armored targets or shelters in the air, water or ground. Machine guns include light machine guns, assault machine guns, heavy machine guns, aviation machine guns, and ship machine guns.
Puckle and gatling invented the hand-held machine gun. Since the rifle became the main weapon of the army, the loading method of the rifle has been greatly improved, thus increasing the firing speed. However, the firing speed of firearms still cannot meet the needs of war. In order to improve the firing speed of firearms, before the 195s, many countries developed multi-shot firearms. The single-barrel hand-cranked machine gun invented by Englishman Puckle was patented in Britain in 1718. However, because the gun body is too heavy and it is difficult to load, it has not attracted universal attention. Some countries try to arrange many barrels in parallel or in a ring for volley or continuous shooting.
in p>1862, American R. J. gatling invented a hand-held machine gun, in which six barrels with a diameter of 14.7 mm were placed on the gun rack, and the shooter turned the crank, and the six barrels were fired in turn, thus solving the problem of firing rate. During intense operation, 3 to 35 bullets could be fired per minute. The gun was patented in 1862 and played a great role in the American Civil War from 1861 to 1865.
Maxim heavy machine gun and Madsen light machine gun The world's first machine gun powered by fire and gas was invented by H·S· Ma Keqin, a British American. In 1883, he successfully experimented with the automatic principle of short recoil of barrel, and in 1884, the machine gun applying this principle was patented. This is a major technological breakthrough in the history of firearms development. The theoretical firing rate of this machine gun is about 6 rounds/minute, and the weight of the gun body is 27.2 kg. Later generations called it Maxim heavy machine gun.
In the Battle of the Somme in World War I, on July 1, 1916, the British army launched an attack on the German army. The German army used Maxim heavy machine guns to shoot at the British army in dense formation violently and continuously, and the British army suffered nearly 6, casualties in one day. People really realized the giant power of this automatic heavy machine gun.
After the invention of Maxim's heavy machine gun, many countries have imitated or developed various new heavy machine guns, and have begun to develop light machine guns that can fight with infantry. In 192, the Danish W. Madsen designed a machine gun with two legs and a stock that can be used to trigger shots. The whole gun weighs 9.98 kilograms and has a maximum range of 2 meters, which is called a light machine gun. Since then, with Maxim heavy machine guns and Madsen light machine guns as the mother models of automatic machine guns, a large number of new large-caliber machine guns began to appear, and aircraft, tanks and warships began to be equipped, becoming a repressive weapon second only to artillery.
Nordenfeld invented the multi-tube array machine gun. In 1878, Nordenfeld of the United States invented the multi-tube array machine gun. Its structure was that five barrels were arranged in a row and fixed. The recoil and reentry of this machine gun are all done by pulling the handle on the side. The magazine is installed vertically on the gun, and the bullets in the magazine drop by their own weight. When launching, five barrels are launched at the same time. In the development of automatic weapons, multi-tube array machine guns have played a great role in promoting. The main mechanism of automatic weapon is very similar to that of multi-tube array machine gun, but the difference is that automatic weapon uses the energy generated by gunpowder gas when launching to rotate the mechanism for continuous shooting.
improvement and development of machine guns as soon as machine guns appeared, ships were first equipped as suppression weapons for ships. After the outbreak of World War I, the advent of military aircraft and tanks required infantry to have corresponding air defense and anti-armor capabilities, so large-caliber machine guns appeared. In 1918, the German army was first equipped with a 13.2 mm Suluotong machine gun. Then Britain was equipped with a 12.7 mm Vickers machine gun. Military aircraft and tanks are also equipped with aviation machine guns and tank machine guns accordingly. Before and during the First World War, Germany designed MG34 and MG42 universal machine guns. The MG34 gun body has two tripods and weighs 12 kilograms. In 1934, it was equipped with troops, drums and tripods for light machine guns, and chains and tripods for heavy machine guns. After the Second World War, new general machine guns developed by various countries appeared one after another, such as the M6 machine gun of the United States, the PKM／PKMS machine gun of the Soviet Union and the 1967-2 machine gun of China. Their total weight is generally around 2 kilograms. The gun body can be used for both light and heavy purposes, and the gun rack can be used for both high and flat purposes, and can be modified for use on tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, helicopters or ships. These machine guns have played a great role in the Vietnam War, the Korean War and local wars around the world after the war.
O'Dwyer invents the fastest-firing machine gun known as "metal storm". At the end of 1995, an Australian named "metal storm" was invented by Mike O'Dwyer, whose firing rate was 2 times higher than that of the existing fastest-firing machine guns in the world. This kind of machine gun may bring revolution to weapon technology. During the test, this machine gun can fire 135, bullets at the target every minute, and its firing rate is very fast, and it can even be used to intercept "smart" bombs guided by lasers. Senior Australian officials said that although their evaluation of this new weapon is not over yet, it may be a "very important" weapon. Since the Argentines hit the British warship Sheffield with the flying fish ship-to-ship missile flying close to the sea in the Malvinas Islands War in 1982, the warship designers have covered the warship with a "dense array" near-defense weapon system that can fire 3, rounds per minute, which plays an important role in intercepting ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.
O'Dwyer, the inventor of "Metal Storm" machine gun, adopted the principle when firearms were just born in the 14th century, that is, weapons can throw more bullets than the existing technology. Its principle is extremely simple, and no moving parts are needed. MAB Engineering Company, which specializes in manufacturing guns for the Australian Olympic Shooting Team, has produced a sample of this rapid-fire machine gun, and its development cost is 7.23 million US dollars, which is insignificant compared with the development cost of most weapons. Although the conventional American gatling rapid-fire machine gun is a multi-barrel machine gun, each barrel has to be reloaded after firing a bullet. The "Metal Storm" machine gun can arrange multiple bullets in the barrel in turn. The latest sample can store 9 bullets in each barrel. According to this calculation, a large tube machine gun can fire 54 bullets very quickly.