Machine-guns of a primitive kind are found in the early history of
gunpowder artillery, in the form of a grouping or binding of several
small-calibre guns for purposes of a volley or a rapid succession of
shots. The earliest field artillery (q.v.) was indeed chiefly designed
to serve the purpose of a modern machine-gun, i.e. for a mechanical
concentration of musketry. Infantry fire (till the development of the
Spanish arquebus, about 1520) was almost ineffective, and the
disintegration of the masses of pikes, preparatory to the decisive
cavalry charge, had to be effected by guns of one sort or another (see
also INFANTRY). Hence the "cart with gonnes," although the prototype of
the field gun of to-day was actually a primitive _mitrailleuse_.
Ribaudequins.
"Organs."
Weapons of this sort were freely employed by the Hussites, who fought in
laager formation (_Wagenburg_), but the fitting of two or more hand-guns
or small culverins to a two-wheeled carriage garnished with spikes and
scythe blades (like the ancient war-chariots) was somewhat older, for in
1382 the men of Ghent put into the field 200 "chars de canon" and in
1411 the Burgundian army is said to have had 2000 "ribaudequins"
(meaning probably the weapons, not the carts, in this case). These were
of course hardly more than carts with hand-gun men; in fact most armies
in those days moved about in a hollow square or lozenge of wagons, and
it was natural to fill the carts with the available gunners or archers.
The method of breaking the enemy's "battles" with these carts was at
first, in the ancient manner, to drive into and disorder the hostile
ranks with the scythes. But they contained at least the germ of the
modern machine-gun, for the tubes (_cannes, canons_) were connected by a
train of powder and fired in volleys. As however field artillery
improved (latter half of 15th century), and a cannon-ball could be fired
from a mobile carriage, the ribaudequin ceased to exist, its name being
transferred to heavy hand-guns used as rampart pieces. The idea of the
machine-gun reappeared however in the 16th century. The weapons were now
called "organs" (_orgues_), from the number of pipes or tubes that they
contained. At first used (defensively) in the same way as the
ribaudequins, i.e. as an effective addition to the military equipment of
a war-cart, they were developed, in the early part of the 16th century,
into a really formidable weapon for breaking the masses of the enemy,
not by scythes and spikes but by fire. Fleurange's memoirs assign the
credit of this to the famous gunner and engineer Pedro Navarro, who made
two hundred weapons of a design of his own for Louis XII. These "were
not more than two feet long, and fired fifty shots at a round," but
nevertheless "organs" were relatively rare in the armies of the 16th
century, for the field artillery, though it grew in size and lost in
mobility, had discovered the efficacy of case shot (then called
"perdreaux") against uncovered animate targets, and for work that was
not sufficiently serious for the guns heavy arquebuses were employed.
Infantry fire, too, was growing in power and importance. In 1551 a
French army contained 21 guns and 150 arquebuses _à croc_ and one _pièce
façon d'orgue_. By about 1570 it had been found that when an "organ" was
needed all that was necessary was to mount some heavy arquebuses on a
cart, and the organ, as a separate weapon, disappeared from the field,
although under the name of "mantelet" (from the shield which protected
the gunners), it was still used for the defence of breaches in siege
warfare. Diego Ufano, who wrote in the early years of the 17th century,
describes it as a weapon consisting of five or six barrels fired
simultaneously by a common lock, and mentions as a celebrated example
the "Triquetraque of Rome" which had five barrels. Another writer,
Hanzelet, describes amongst other devices a mitrailleuse of four barrels
which was fired from the back of an ass or pony. But such weapons as
these were more curious than useful. For work in the open field the
musket came more and more to the front, its bullet became at least as
formidable as that of an "organ," and when it was necessary to obtain a
concentrated fire on a narrow front arquebuses _à croc_ were mounted for
the nonce in groups of four to six. The "organ" maintained a precarious
existence, and is described by Montecucculi a century later, and one of
twelve barrels figures in the list of military Stores at Hesdin in 1689.
But its fatal defect was that it was neither powerful enough to engage
nor mobile enough to evade the hostile artillery.
Enthusiastic inventors, of course, produced many models of machine-gun
in the strict sense of the word--i.e. a gun firing many charges, in
volleys or in rapid succession, by a mechanical arrangement of the lock.
Wilhelm Calthoff, a German employed by Louis XIII., produced arquebuses
and muskets that fired six to eight shots per round, but his invention
was a secret, and it seems to have been more of a magazine small arm
than a machine-gun (1640). In 1701 a Lorrainer, Beaufort de Mirecourt,
proposed a machine-gun which had as its purpose the augmentation of
infantry-fire power, so as to place an inferior army on an equality with
a superior. At this time inventors were so numerous and so embarrassing
that the French grand master of artillery, St Hilaire, in 1703 wrote
that he would be glad to have done with "ces sortes de gens à secrets,"
some of whom demanded a grant of compensation even when their
experiments had failed. The machine-gun of the 17th and 18th centuries
in fact possessed no advantage over contemporary field artillery, and
the battalion gun in particular, which possessed the long ranging and
battering power that its rival lacked, and was moreover more efficacious
against living targets with its case-shot or grape. As compared with
infantry fire, too, it was less effective and slower than the muskets of
a well-drilled company. Rapid fire was easily arranged, but the rapid
_loading_ which would have compensated for other defects was
unobtainable in the then existing state of gun-making.
Thus a satisfactory machine-gun was not forthcoming until breech-loading
had been, so to speak, rediscovered, that is until about 1860. At that
time the tactical conditions of armament were peculiar. As regards
artillery, the new (muzzle-loading) long-range rifle sufficed, in the
hand of determined infantry, to keep guns out of case-shot range. This
made the Napoleonic artillery attack an impossibility. At the same time
the infantry rifle was a slow loader, and the augmentation of the volume
of infantry fire attracted the attention of several inventors. The
French, with their artillery traditions, regarded the machine-gun
therefore as a method of restoring the lost superiority of the gunner,
while the Americans, equally in accordance with traditions and local
circumstances, regarded it as a musketry machine. The representative
weapons evolved by each were the _canon à balles_, more commonly called
_mitrailleuse_, and the Gatling gun.
The Canon a Balles, 1866-1870.
The declared purpose of the _canon à balles_ was to replace the old
artillery case-shot attack. Shrapnel, owing to the defects of the
time-fuzes then available, had proved disappointing in the Italian War
of 1859, and the gun itself, of the existing model, was not considered
satisfactory. Napoleon III., a keen student of artillery, maintained a
private arsenal and workshop at the château of Meudon[2] and in 1866, in
the alarm following upon Königgrätz, he ordered Commandant Reffye
(1821-1880), the artillery officer he had placed in charge of it, to
produce a machine-gun. Reffye held that the work of a mitrailleuse
should only begin where that of the infantry rifle ceased. The handbook
to his gun issued to the French army in 1870 stated that it was "to
carry balls to distances that the infantry, and the artillery firing
case, could not reach." The most suitable range was given as 1500-2000
yards against infantry in close order, 2000-2700 against artillery. As
the French shrapnel (_obus à balles_) of these days was only used to
give its peculiar case-shot effect between 550 and 1350 yards, and even
so sparingly and without much confidence in its efficacy, it is clear
that the _canon à balles_ was intended to do the field-gun's work,
except at (what were then) extreme field artillery ranges (2800 and
above), in which case the ordinary gun with common shell (time or
percussion) alone was used.
Constructed to meet these conditions, the Reffye machine-gun in its
final form resembled outwardly an ordinary field gun, with wheeled
carriage, limber and four-horse team. The gun barrel was in reality a
casing for 25 rifle barrels disposed around a common axis (the idea of
obtaining sweeping effect by disposing the barrels slightly fan-wise
had been tried and abandoned). The barrels were held together at
intervals by wrought-iron plates. They were entirely open at the
breech, a removable false breech containing the firing mechanism (the
cartridge cases were of brass, solid-drawn, like those of the American
and unlike those of the British Gatlings). This false breech, held in
the firing position by a strong screw--resembling roughly those of
contemporary B.L. ordnance such as the Armstrong R. B. L.--consisted
of a plate with 25 holes, which allowed the points of the strikers to
pass through and reach the cartridges. The plate was turned by hand so
that one striker was admitted at a time, the metal of the plate
holding back the rest. To avoid any deflection of the bullet by the
gases at an adjoining muzzle the barrels were fired in an irregular
order. Each gun was provided with four chambers, which were loaded
with their 25 cartridges apiece by a charger, and fixed to the breech
one after the other as quickly as the manipulation of the powerful
retaining screw permitted. The rates of fire were "slow," 3 rounds or
75 shots a minute, and "rapid," 5 rounds or 125 shots per minute. One
advantage as against artillery that was claimed for the new weapon was
rapidity of ranging. Any ordinary target, such as a hostile gun,
would, it was expected, be accurately ranged by the mitrailleuse
before it was ready to open fire for effect. The ordinary rifle bullet
was employed, but to enhance the case-shot effect a heavy bullet made
up in three parts, which broke asunder on discharge, was introduced in
1870 in the proportion of one round in nine. The weapon was sighted to
3000 metres (3300 yds.). The initial velocity was 1558 f.s.; and the
weight of the gun 350 kg. (6.45 cwt.), of the carriage 371 kg. (6.86
cwt.); total behind the team, 1,485 kg. (27.1 cwt.).
For an artillery effect, dispersion had to be combined with accuracy.
The rifle-barrels when carefully set gave a very close grouping of
shots on the target, and dispersion was obtained by traversing the gun
during the firing of a round. When this was skilfully performed a
front of 18 metres (about 20 yds.) at l,000 metres range was
thoroughly swept by the cone of bullets.
The design and manufacture of these mitrailleuses under the personal
orders and at the expense of the emperor enabled the French authorities
to keep their new weapon most secret. Even though, after a time,
mitrailleuses were constructed by scores, and could therefore no longer
be charged to a "sundry" or "petty cash" account in the budget, secrecy
was still maintained. The pieces were taken about, muffled in
tarpaulins, by by-ways and footpaths. In 1869, two years after the
definitive adoption of the weapon, only a few artillery captains were
instructed in its mechanism; the non-commissioned officers who had to
handle the gun in war were called up for practice in July 1870, when
Major Reffye's energies were too much absorbed in turning out the
material so urgently demanded to allow him to devote himself to their
instruction. The natural consequence was that the mitrailleuses were
taken into battle by officers and men of whom nine-tenths had never seen
them fire one round of live cartridges. The purpose of this fatal
secrecy was the maintenance of prestige. No details were given, but it
was confidently announced that war would be revolutionized. One foreign
officer only, Major Fosbery, R.A. (see _R.U.S.I. Journal_, v. xiii.),
penetrated the secret, and he felt himself bound in honour to keep it to
himself, not even communicating it to the War Office. But public
attention was only too fully aroused by these mysterious prophecies.
"The mitrailleuse paid dearly for its fame." The Prussians, who had
examined mitrailleuses of the Gatling or infantry type, were well aware
that the artillery machine-gun was at the least a most formidable
opponent. They therefore ostentatiously rejected the Gatling gun, taught
their troops that the new weapons were in the nature of scientific toys,
and secretly made up their minds to turn the whole weight of their guns
on to the mitrailleuse whenever and wherever it appeared on the field,
and so to overwhelm it at once. This policy they carried into effect in
the War of 1870; and although on occasions the new weapon rendered
excellent service, in general it cruelly disappointed the over-high
hopes of its admirers. And thus, although the Gatling and similar types
of gun were employed to a slight extent by both sides in the later stage
of the war, machine-guns, as a class of armament for civilized warfare,
practically disappeared.
As a good deal of criticism--after the event--has been levelled at the
French for their "improper use of the machine-gun as a substitute for
artillery," it is necessary to give some summary of the ideas and
rules which were inspired by the inventor or dictated by the
authorities as to its tactical employment. The first principle laid
down was that the gun should not be employed within the zone of the
infantry fight. Officers commanding batteries were explicitly warned
against infantry divisional generals who would certainly attempt to
put the batteries, by sections, amongst the infantry. The second
principle was that the mitrailleuses were to share the work of the
guns, the latter battering obstacles with common shell, and the former
being employed against troops in the open, and especially to cover and
support the infantry advance. This tendency to classify the roles of
the artillery and to tell off the batteries each in its special task
has reappeared in the French, and to a more limited extent in the
British, field artillery of to-day (the Germans alone resolutely
opposing the idea of subdivision). The mitrailleuse of 1870 was, in
fact, intended to do what the perfected Shrapnel of 1910 does, to
transfer the case-shot attack to longer ranges. But, as we have seen,
secrecy had prevented any general spread of knowledge as to the uses
to which the _canon à balles_ was to be put, and consequently, after a
few weeks of the war, we find Reffye complaining that the machine-guns
were being used by their battery commanders "in a perfectly idiotic
fashion. They are only good at a great distance and when used in
masses, and they are being employed at close quarters like a rifle."
The officers in the field, however, held that it was foolish to pit
the mitrailleuse against the gun, which had a longer range, and
exerted themselves to use it as an infantry weapon, a concentrated
company, for which, unlike the Gatlings of 1870 and the machine-guns
of to-day, it was never designed. As to which was right in the
controversy it is impossible to dogmatize and needless to argue.
Gatling Gun.
Very different was the Gatling gun, the invention of Richard Jordan
Gatling (1818-1903), which came into existence and was to a slight
extent used in the field in the latter years of the American Civil
War,[3] and also to a still slighter extent by the Bavarians and the
French in the latter part of the war of 1870. This was distinctively an
infantry type weapon, a sort of revolving rifle, the ten barrels of
which were set around an axis, and fired in turn when brought into
position by the revolving mechanism. This weapon had a long reign, and
was used side by side with the latest automatic machine gun in the
Spanish-American War of 1898. The following account of the old British
service Gatling (fig. 1), as used in the Egyptian and Sudanese
campaigns, is condensed from that in the article "Gun-making," _Ency.
Brit._ 9th ed.
A block of ten barrels is secured round an axis, which is fixed in a
frame _a a_. On turning the handle _h_ (fig. 2) the spindle _g g_
causes the worm _f_ to act on the pinion _w_, making the axis and
barrels revolve. A drum T (figs. 1 and 4) is placed on the top at the
breech end of the barrels over a hopper, through a slot in which the
cartridges drop into the carrier (fig. 3). The construction of the
lock is shown in fig. 4. A A A A is a cam, sloping as in the drawing,
which, it must be understood, represents the circular construction
opened out and laid flat. As the barrels, carrier and locks revolve
the slope of the cam forces the locks forward and backward
alternately. At position I. the cartridge has just fallen into the
carrier, the lock and bolt are completely withdrawn. At positions II.,
III., IV., the cam is forcing them forward, so that the bolt pushes
the cartridge into the barrel. At IV. the cocking cam R begins to
compress the spiral spring, releasing it at V. Position VI. shows the
cartridge just after firing; the extractor is clutching the base of
the cartridge case, which is withdrawn as the locks retreat down the
slope of the cam, till at X it falls through an aperture to the
ground. The drum consists of a number of vertical channels radiating
from the centre. The cartridges are arranged horizontally, one above
the other, in these channels, bullet ends inwards. The drum revolves
on the pivot b (fig. 3). and the cartridges fall through the aperture
B. When all the channels are emptied, a full drum is brought from the
limber, and substituted for the empty one. Each barrel fires in turn
as it comes to a certain position, so that by turning the handle
quickly an almost continuous stream of bullets can be ejected.
Experimental Gatlings were constructed which could be made to fire
nearly 1000 shots a minute, and an automatic traversing arrangement
was also fitted.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.--Gatling Gun.]
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
[Illustration: FIG. 4.--Lock of Gatling Gun.]
As has been said, this weapon had a long reign. It was used with great
effect in the Zulu War at Ulundi and in the Sudan. But a grave
disadvantage of the English pattern was that it had to be used with the
Boxer coiled cartridge supplied for the Martini-Henry rifle, and until
this was replaced by a solid-drawn cartridge case it was impossible to
avoid frequent "jams." The modern, fully automatic, machine gun suffers
from this to a considerable extent, and it was an even more serious
defect with a hand-operated weapon, as the British troops found in their
campaigns against the Mahdists. But the Gatling had many advantages over
its newer rivals as regards simplicity and strength. Theodore Roosevelt,
who commanded sections of both types in the Spanish-American War, speaks
with enthusiasm of the old-fashioned weapon[4] while somewhat
disparaging the Colt automatic.
[Illustration: FIG. 5.--Nordenfeldt Machine-Gun.
1-10, Parts of frame;
11, Breech plug;
12, Striker;
13, Extractor;
14, Cartridge receiver;
15-18, 23-31, Lock and trigger parts;
19-22, Locking action;
32-35, Loading action;
36-39, Cartridge receiver;
40, Cover;
41-44, Parts of hand-lever,
45-49, Traversing action,
50-55, Elevating and trailing action;
56, 57, Hopper and slide.]
The Gardner was another type which had a certain vogue[5] and was used
by the British in savage warfare. But, next to the Gatling, the most
important of the hand-operated machine guns was the Nordenfeldt, which
was principally designed for naval use about the time when torpedo-boats
were beginning to be regarded as dangerous antagonists.
Nordenfeldt Gun.
In this weapon the barrels are placed horizontally, and have no
movement. A box containing the locks, bolts, strikers and spiral
springs, one of each corresponding to each barrel, moves straight
backwards and forwards when worked by the handle of the lever on the
right. When the box is drawn back the cartridges fall from the holder
on the top into the carriers simultaneously. When the box is pushed
forward the bolts push the cartridges into the barrel, cocking-catches
compress the spiral springs, the lever releases the catches one after
the other at very minute intervals of time, and the cartridges are
fired in rapid succession. In this piece, careful aim can be taken
from a moving platform, and at the right moment the barrels can be
fired at the object almost simultaneously.