Important Guns in History #2

Gatling Gun, 1862

Dr. Richard Gatling's invention was one of the first real machine guns, with a practical rate of fire of more than 700 .50-caliber rounds per minute. The Gatling gun is a rotating six-barreled weapon driven by a hand crank. Each barrel was loaded and fired mechanically in turn as the barrel rotated, with ammunition fed from a clip by gravity. The gun made a brief appearance in the American Civil War but proved more effective in the Spanish-American War. The British used Gatling guns to deadly effect in colonial wars against massed Zulus in South Africa, Mahdists in the Sudan, and many other wars of this period.