In the summer of 1861, Gatlin began to design and conceive a rotating machine gun. The machine gun model was completed by the end of that year and verified the following year. On November 4, 1862, Gatling obtained a patent for the rotating barrel machine gun. In addition to the technical description of the 1862 Gatling machine gun model, it also included a statement of the unique design features of the two-point rotating barrel machine gun: a A cylindrical rotating body with a firing pin inside that provides the locking chamber, which rotates with the barrel; each barrel has an independent firing pin. This makes all future designs similar to the Gatling gun unpatentable.
The Type 1862 Gatling rotating machine gun has two different structures. The first used a separate steel chamber (the chamber was separated from the barrel), which had a closed rear end and was equipped with a percussion cap. The shooter drives the barrels evenly arranged around the circumference to rotate by cranking the crank, and the ammunition chamber filled with ammunition enters the locking groove behind each barrel from the ammunition supply hopper. When the barrel is turned to a specific position, the firing pin fires the ammunition. When the barrel rotates to another position, the fired cartridge exits the machine gun. The cartridge chamber can be reused. One rotation of the barrel can complete the loading, firing and ejection of 6 rounds of ammunition. The rate of fire reaches 200 rounds per minute. However, there are shortcomings such as leakage of gunpowder and gas. This is mainly because it was the most popular weapon when it was used. The most common bullets are paper shells, while metal shells are not yet popular. To solve this problem, Gatling used independent metal-cased ammunition developed at the time. This ammunition structure was used by all subsequent machine gun designers. Another construction uses a .58-inch copper-cased rimfire ammunition. To overcome the problem of making a separate chamber coaxial with the barrel, Gatling used a tapered barrel with a larger diameter at the rear, making it easier for projectiles to enter the barrel. As a result, in the late 19th century, it became an important weapon for European countries to control and expand their colonies; the improved Gatling gun's firing rate reached a maximum rate of 1,200 rounds per minute, which was an astonishing number in 1882. But it also has a problem: its biggest weakness is that the shooter will be emotionally excited and red-eyed because the distance between him and himself is constantly getting closer during the enemy's charge on the battlefield. He cannot control himself and will turn the handle further and further like crazy. Coming faster and faster, causing the machine gun to overheat and jam or explode. The Gatling gun was invented in 1861, improved accordingly in 1865, and equipped to the U.S. Army in 1866. The Gatling gun can be said to be the forerunner of modern machine guns. In the 19th century, when the development of metal bullets gradually matured, American inventors began to design manual machine guns. However, it was not until the American Civil War that machine guns were taken seriously by the military. During this period, multi-barreled "Lepti" machine guns, "Bartley" machine guns and "Cratonic" machine guns that interested the military also appeared one after another. But the inventor of this machine gun was not a gunsmith or a machinist, but Richard Jordan Gatlin, MD.
After 1865, the Gatling gun was changed from 4 barrels to 6 barrels. From 1867 to 1868, it was increased to 10 barrels and began to be distributed to the US border guards. In 1870, after comparative testing, the British government built a factory in England to produce Gatling guns. At the same time, the Russian government also purchased Gatling guns and renamed them Golov machine guns.
Since 1884, automatic weapons using automatic principles such as tube retreat, gas guide, free bolt and semi-free bolt have been invented one after another. Compared with these single-barreled automatic weapons, the advantages of the Gatling rotating machine gun no longer exist, but the shortcomings are more obvious. When Richard Jordan Gatling's long life came to an end in 1903, the multi-barreled hand-operated rotating machine gun had basically disappeared. Most of the world's militaries switched to automatic weapons such as the barrel-operated Maxim machine gun, the gas-operated Browning machine gun, and the Hachikis machine gun. Many Gatling guns are discarded as scrap metal and completely destroyed, while others are buried in dusty warehouses or unearthed and used for display in museums and private collections. The reason for this is very simple. First, the operation of a Gatling gun requires 4 people, while the Maxim machine gun only requires 1 person.
The second is the rate of fire. Although 200-400 rounds per minute is already very fast, other machine guns such as the Maxim machine gun have a rate of fire of up to 600 rounds per minute. Third, the size and weight of Gatling machine guns are far greater than other automatic firearms, so most of them are installed on towering large wheel frames to ensure stable shooting. This makes its maneuverability and concealment incomparable to other machine guns. .
In modern times, some people have applied its principles to cannons to achieve high rates of fire; the most famous example is the 20mm M61 "Vulcan" cannon used by the U.S. Air Force. Gatling guns and machine guns after the 1960s were nothing more than changing the source of power for barrel rotation from manual to electric or using the power derived from propellant gas to drive the barrel to rotate. The former is called external energy (commonly used by the Gatling cannon used by the United States), and the latter is called internal energy (commonly used by the Soviet Union). There is also another 7.62 mm caliber six-barreled machine gun called the "Gatling gun" that is always circulating on the Internet. In fact, it is the US military's M134 rapid-fire machine gun. It is the first Gatling-type light weapon after World War II, but It should not be called a Gatling gun directly, which has led to many people confusing it with early hand-cranked Gatling guns. At the 2015 Defense and Security Expo in London, Rheinmetall used four units with 20 power each. The kilowatt laser transmitters fire at the same time, using a technology called "superposition" to combine to produce a powerful beam of 80 kilowatts. This is a powerful new laser "Gatling gun".
Gatling laser guns can hit drones from 500 meters away. The laser can also detonate explosives and artillery shells, disable sensors on other ships, and even burn holes in smaller ships. The company claims that by combining each laser gun unit, they can unleash "infinite" amounts of energy.