Pucker and gatling invented hand-cranked machine guns.
Since the rifle became the main weapon of the army, the loading method of the rifle has been greatly improved, thus increasing the shooting speed. However, the firing speed of firearms still cannot meet the needs of war. In order to improve the firing speed of firearms, many countries developed multi-barrel firearms before 1950s. The single-barrel hand-cranked machine gun invented by Englishman Pucher was patented in Britain in 17 18. However, because the gun body is too heavy and difficult to load, it has not attracted widespread attention. Some countries try to arrange many barrels in parallel or in a circle for volley or continuous shooting.
1862, American R·J· gatling invented the hand-held machine gun. There are six barrels with the caliber of 14.7 mm on the gun rack. The shooter turned the crank and six barrels fired in turn, which solved the problem of firing rate. In intense combat, 300 to 350 bullets can be fired every minute. The gun was patented in 1862, which played a great role in the American Civil War from 186 1 to 1865.
Maxim heavy machine guns and Madsen light machine guns.
H·S· Ma Keqin, an Englishman, invented the world's first fire and gas machine gun. 1883 he successfully tested the principle of short recoil automatic gun barrel, 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 600 rounds per minute, and the weight of the gun body is 27.2 kg. Later people called it Maxim heavy machine gun.
In the Battle of the Somme in World War I, on July 19 16, 1 day, the British army launched an attack on the German army. The Germans used Maxim's heavy machine guns to shoot at the dense formation of the British army, and the British army suffered nearly 60,000 casualties in one day. People really realized the great power of this automatic heavy machine gun.
After Maxim's heavy machine gun was invented, many countries copied or developed various new heavy machine guns, and began to develop light machine guns that could be maneuvered with infantry. In 1902, Danish W. Madsen designed a machine gun with two tripods and stock, which can be used to trigger shooting. The whole gun weighs 9.98 kilograms and has a maximum range of 2000 meters. It 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.
Denfield invented the multi-tube array machine gun.
1878, Norden Fei of the United States invented the multi-tube array machine gun, whose structure is that five barrels are arranged in a row and fixed. The recoil and reentry of this machine gun are accomplished by pulling the handle on the side. The magazine is installed vertically on the gun, and the bullets in the magazine fall 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 weapons is very similar to that of multi-tube array machine guns, but the difference is that automatic weapons use 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 emergence of military aircraft and tanks required infantry to have corresponding air defense and anti-armor capabilities, so large-caliber machine guns appeared. 19 18 years, the Germans first equipped 13.2 mm Suluotong machine guns. Then Britain was equipped with a 12.7mm 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 with a total weight of 12kg. 1934 equipped troops, light machine guns with drums and two tripods, and heavy machine guns with chains and tripods. After the Second World War, new general machine guns developed by various countries appeared one after another, such as the M60 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 20 kilograms. The gun body is light and heavy, and the gun frame is high and flat, which can be modified to be used on tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, helicopters or ships. These machine guns played a great role in the Vietnam War, the Korean War and local wars around the world after the war.
O'Dwyer invented the fastest machine gun known as the "metal storm"
1At the end of 995, Australian Mike O'Dwyer invented a machine gun called "Metal Storm", which was 20 times faster than the fastest existing machine gun in the world. This kind of machine gun may revolutionize weapon technology. During the test, this machine gun can fire 1.35 million bullets at the target every minute, which is very fast and can even be used to intercept laser-guided "smart" bombs. 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 a flying fish-type ship-to-ship missile flying close to the sea in the Falklands War 1982, the warship designers have covered the warship with a "dense array" weapon system that can fire 3,000 bullets per minute, which has played an important role in intercepting ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.
O'Dwyer, the inventor of the "Metal Storm" machine gun, adopted the principle when firearms were just born in the14th century, that is, weapons can throw more bullets than the prior art.. Its principle is extremely simple and does not need any moving parts. MAB engineering company, which specializes in manufacturing guns for Australian Olympic shooting team, has produced samples 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 gatling rapid-fire machine gun in the United States 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 turn in the barrel. The latest sample can store 90 bullets per barrel. According to this calculation, a large tube machine gun can shoot 540 bullets quickly.