Since the advent of firearms, its designers have tried to increase the rate of fire, tk. the advantages of massive fire became clear almost immediately. For quite a long time, the rate of fire was increased in an indirect way: by training the shooter. But no matter how you train a soldier, the rate of fire will not increase significantly. Some idea was needed to improve the design of the weapon. One of the earliest and simplest ideas was to equip the gun with multiple barrels.
Volley from Europe
The first examples of such systems appeared more than five centuries ago. But loading from a muzzle, without detracting from the density of the fire, had a bad effect on the overall rate of fire. As a result, the overall effectiveness of the weapon was not much higher than that of individual shooters. The idea with several barrels had to be postponed for the time being.
Austro-Hungarian mitrailleuse Montigny model 1870 Numbers denote 1 - reloading device lever, 2 - magazine, 3 - chamber
The time of multi-barrel systems came only in the middle of the 19th century. In 1851, the Belgian Montigny made a gun with a block of rifle barrels, loaded from the breech. The recently appeared unitary cartridges turned out to be very handy. It was easy to load them into special clips that looked like a metal plate with holes. The clip was inserted into the breech of the installation and all the cartridges were fired at the same time. Due to the clip, in comparison with the guns of the 15th century, the rate of fire increased significantly. Already in 1859, this sample was adopted in France under the name "mitraleza". In Russia, this word was translated literally - grape-shot. Nevertheless, the bullets flew in a small "flock" and the affected area was not high. It happened that one enemy soldier managed to "catch" several pieces of lead at once. The dispersion reached acceptable values only at very large distances, where the energy of the bullets dropped to unacceptable values. Another problem with the first mitrailleuses was the simultaneous firing of all barrels. On later models, ammunition savings were provided by alternately firing several rows of barrels. But even with this innovation, grape-shooters did not receive much fame. The fact is that the French did not bother to develop tactics for their use, and simply put them on the battlefield in rows, almost "anywhere", and not in potentially dangerous directions.
Hurdy-gurdy of death
Overseas, in the United States of America, at that time the doctor R. J. Gatling was working on his brainchild. He also decided to use several barrels, but not for volley fire. If a cartridge is to be sent into the barrel, then it shoots, and then the cartridge case must be thrown away … Why not make several barrels, each of which is loaded and ejects the cartridge case while the others are firing? This is exactly what Gatling reasoned. The result of his inventions was an easel machine with six barrels. The shooter, like on a barrel organ, twisted the handle in the breech of the weapon, setting in motion a block of barrels. Cartridges from the box magazine at the top of the gun were fed into the chamber under their own weight. For each turn of the block, each individual barrel had time to receive a cartridge, shoot and throw out the sleeve. The extraction of spent cartridges, it should be noted, was also carried out due to the force of gravity. It is necessary to make a reservation: the very idea of a rotating barrel unit was not new, by that time there were already multiple-shot revolvers of the pepperbox type. The main merit of Gatling is the system for feeding cartridges and distributing the loading-shot-extraction cycle along the turn of the block.
The main units of R. Gatling's canister: 1 - barrel bore, 2 - rotating magazine, 3 - chamber, 4 - axis of rotation of the barrels
The original Gatling gun was patented in 1862, and adopted by the Army of the North in 1866. The first models could fire at a rate of up to 200 rounds per minute. Later, using gears, it was possible to bring the rate of fire to almost a thousand shots. Since the energy source was external (for the then Gatling gun - a person), the machine gun fired as long as there were cartridges in the store, until a misfire occurred or a cartridge jammed in the barrel. Later, an automatic weapon with an external drive will be called a mechanized automatic. But before this name was still several decades.
At the end of the 19th century, attempts were made to "wean" a person from twisting a handle and replace him with an electric motor. But at that time, the electrical components were of such dimensions that no 2500-3000 rounds per minute, to which they accelerated the machine gun, could give them a start in life. In addition, the notorious H. Maxim has already released on the market his much more mobile machine gun, the maximum rate of fire of which was at the level of the first Gatling machines. Gradually, the multi-barreled machine guns were removed from service, and then they were generally forgotten.
One hundred years after Dr. Gatling
In the middle of the 20th century, weapons with a high rate of fire were again required. In particular, it was required by aviation and air defense: they now had to fight with such fast targets that the rate of fire even in one and a half thousand might not be enough. It was possible, of course, to use developments on machine guns like UltraShKAS (about 3000 rounds per minute), but its caliber was insufficient, and it was not profitable to recycle the design for other cartridges. Another factor that prevented the designers from overclocking the classic scheme lay in the temperatures. One barrel heats up during continuous shooting, and, having gained a certain temperature, it can collapse. Of course, before that, due to deformation, ballistics will drastically deteriorate. This is where the Gatling system came in handy. There was already an experience with accelerating it to two or three thousand shots, which, together with new alloys for barrels, looked encouraging.
Six-Barrel Cannon "Volcano"
Experiments were carried out in many countries, but the American M61 Vulcan became the first production sample of the "new" Gatling guns. Designed in 1949, it had six 20mm barrels with a hydraulically driven block. The Vulcan has two firing modes - 4 and 6 thousand rounds per minute. The design allowed more, but there were concerns about the stable behavior of the links of the cartridge belt. Therefore, the new modification of the M61A1 cannon received a generally linkless ammunition supply. Even six thousand rounds were enough to make the Vulcan cannon the standard armament for American fighters for many years to come.
Later in the United States, several more samples of Gatling Guns will be created under different cartridges and with different drives. The experimental XM214 Microgun machine gun of the 70s had the smallest caliber - 5, 56 mm; the largest - in the also experimental T249 Vigilante of the 56th year - 37 mm.
In the Soviet Union, weapons with a rotating block of barrels were also not ignored. Back in 1939 I. I. Slostin made his own eight-barreled 7.62 mm machine gun. For a number of reasons (heavy weight and dampness of the structure), it did not go into production, but some of the developments were used later. Work on multi-barreled systems was resumed in the early 60s, when the fleet ordered the gunsmiths a six-barreled 30 mm cannon. Thanks to the Tula KBP and designers V. P. Gryazev and A. G. Shipunova, the sailors received the AK-630 ship anti-aircraft gun, a little later on its basis the GSh-6-30 aircraft cannon will be created. This gun had a rate of fire of 4-5 thousand rds / min, which, together with the caliber, was more than enough to defeat most of the targets with which fighters work. Almost simultaneously with the 30-mm cannon, a smaller-caliber GSh-6-23 (23 mm) gun was created. It was already originally an aircraft cannon with a rate of fire of up to nine thousand rounds. Both Tula weapons, GSh-6-30 and GSh-6-23, have a gas engine for rotating the barrel block, but differ in the starter: on the first gun it is pneumatic, on the second - pyrotechnic.
GSh-6-23
GSHG
In the late 60s, work began on multi-barreled machine guns. These were four-barreled GShG (Tula KBP) chambered for 7, 62x54R, giving up to 6 thousand rounds per minute and YakB-12.7 (TsKIB, designers P. G. Yakushev and B. A. Borzov) chambered for 12, 7x108 mm, with rate of fire 4-4, 5 thousand rds / min. Both machine guns were intended for use in helicopters. In particular, the YakB-12, 7 was installed on a number of modifications of the Mi-24 in a mobile installation.
Several interesting rumors or, if you prefer, legends are associated with Soviet multi-barreled guns. Both concern GSh-6-30. According to the first, this gun was tested not on trucks, like other weapons, but on tanks, because with a rate of fire of 6000 shots, a volley of less than a second was required to completely destroy the first. The second legend says that when firing from the GSh-6-30, the shells fly out so often that in the air they almost bump into each other. Interestingly, amusing things are also told about the American GAU-8 / A Avenger cannon (7 barrels, 30 mm, up to 3, 9 thousand rpm). For example, when firing from it, the A-10 attack aircraft stops in the air from recoil. Here it is, the glory of the people.
Germans, cartridges, two barrels
Multi-barreled weapon systems don't end with the Gatling scheme. There is another, slightly less popular and less well-known scheme - the Gast system. In 1917, the German gunsmith K. Gast combined in one machine gun automatic with a short barrel stroke and multi-barrel. His machine gun, called the Gast-Maschinengewehr Modell 1917, caliber 7, 92 mm, worked according to the following principle: one of the two barrels, rolling back after a shot, loaded the second barrel through a special bracket and vice versa. On tests, the Gast machine gun accelerated to 1600 rounds per minute.
In 1965, the designers of the Tula KBP created their own version of the weapon according to the Gast scheme - GSh-23. She was equipped with various types of aircraft and helicopters. Moreover, both in the version of forward-facing armament (MiG-23, Su-7B, etc.), and for installation on mobile rifle installations (Tu-95MS, Il-76, etc.). Interestingly, despite the lower rate of fire (up to 4 thousand rounds per minute) than the six-barreled GSh-6-23, the GSh-23 was one and a half times lighter - 50.5 kg versus 76.
In the late 70s, the GSh-30-2 cannon, also made according to the Gast scheme, was specially designed for the then Su-25 attack aircraft. Its two barrels fire only three thousand rounds, but this is compensated by a caliber of 30 millimeters. Later, a version of the gun with longer barrels was created, intended for installation on Mi-24P helicopters.
What's next?
Next year, the Gatling system will be 150 years old. Gast's scheme is a bit younger. Unlike their predecessors - mitralez - these systems are actively used and no one is going to abandon them yet. At the same time, for a long time, multi-barreled systems did not have significant increases in the rate of fire. There are two main reasons for this: firstly, for the next increase in the rate of fire, new materials and technologies are needed. The Americans, for example, already had to deal with the jamming of the then available link projectile belts. Secondly, there is, frankly, little sense to accelerate the cannons or machine guns: the density of fire will grow exclusively with the consumption of ammunition. Based on the foregoing, it can be assumed that in the future the appearance of multi-barreled weapons will not change, but new materials and various know-how will be introduced.
