Odds are you won’t see a
Gatling Gun in action very often, however this iconic weapon certainly notable
in the series of Famous Guns in History.
Many historians are quick to point out that our country may never have
known President Teddy Roosevelt if not for this famous machine.
The fast-firing mounted gun
served to help the Rough Riders and Buffalo Soldiers when they made their
charge up Kettle Hill and later San Juan Hill.
The Gatling fired over 18,000 rounds on the Spanish defensive positions
in a very short period of time causing President Roosevelt to remark, “They
folded like jackrabbits.”
The Gatling gun is one of the
most well-known early rapid-fire, spring-loaded, hand-cranked weapons and is
the forerunner to the modern machine gun.
Its namesake comes from being the brain-child of Dr. Richard
Gatling. Dr. Gatling wrote that he
created the weapon in an effort to reduce the size of militias and thus reduce
the number of deaths by combat, and to show how futile war can be.
The original Gatling gun was a
field weapon which used multiple rotating barrels turned by a hand crank, which
fired loose metal cartridge ammo through a hopper. The multiple barrels limited overheating, and
the rotating mechanism coupled with a gravity-fed reloading system that allowed
unskilled operators to achieve a very high rate of fire, a necessary
achievement considering the gunner was a top target for sniper fire.
During the Civil War the
utilization of the Gatling gun was not as common as Dr. Gatling thought it
would be, however the weapon saw increased action during the siege of
Petersburg as well as on Gun Boats.
Union Commanders had to personally purchase the weapon for their units
as the U.S. Army did not accept them until early in 1866 after a sales rep
demonstrated the effectiveness of the gun in live combat, greatly impressing the
Generals enough to purchase over 200 units.
The gun was used as a “shock-and-awe”
tool during the draft dodger riot in July of 1863 after being brought in by the
National Guard from Philadelphia.
General Custer owned four
Gatling Guns, but refused to bring them during his march to Little Big Horn due
to their large size, making them difficult with which to travel.
This now famous weapon was
eventually sold world-wide between 1870 & 1890. In 1885 it was used by the Canadian Military against
Metis rebels during the Northwest Rebellion, and saw action for the British
during the Zulu encounters in Africa before becoming the main weapon used to
expand European Colonial Empires. The
down-side to the Gatling was its heavy weight and cumbersome artillery
carriage, making it hard to keep up with advancing troops, particularly in area
such as Cuba where roads were non-existent.
In 1893, the Gatling was adapted to fire a new .30 Army smokeless
cartridge laying down between 800-900 rounds per minute.
The Gatling Gun was eventually
replaced by newer machine guns, but its name and iconic status endures
today. 150 years later, the design of
the Gatling lives on in the form of the M134 mini-gun and auto-cannons such as
the GAU-8 that is used on the United States Air Force’s A-10, making it much
more than museum attraction.
Stay tuned for more Famous
Guns throughout History presented by the Rockwall Gun Club, and be sure to
visit them online at http://www.rockwallgunclub.com
or call 972.551.0470 for more information.
No comments:
Post a Comment