Death Carousel: Gatling Gun. The most formidable multi-barreled weapon in Russia and the USA Do-it-yourself gatling machine gun

7.62-mm six-barreled aircraft machine gun M134 "Minigan" (in the US Air Force it has the designationGAU-2 B/ A) was developed in the early 1960s by General Electric. When it was created, a whole range of unconventional solutions, previously not used in the practice of designing small arms.

Firstly, in order to achieve a high rate of fire, a multi-barrel weapon scheme with a rotating block of barrels was used, which is used only in aircraft guns and high-speed anti-aircraft guns. In a classic single-barreled weapon, the rate of fire is 1500 - 2000 rounds per minute. In this case, the barrel is very hot and quickly fails. In addition, it is necessary to reload the weapon in a very short period of time, which requires high speeds movement of parts of automation and leads to a decrease in the survivability of the system. In multi-barreled weapons, the reloading operations of each barrel are combined in time (a shot is fired from one barrel, a spent cartridge case is removed from another, a cartridge is sent to the third, and so on), which allows you to make the interval between shots minimal and at the same time prevents the barrels from overheating.

Secondly, to drive the automation mechanisms, the principle of using energy from an external source was chosen. With this scheme, the bolt carrier is not set in motion by the energy of the shot, as in traditional automation engines (with recoil of the bolt, barrel or removal of powder gases), but with the help of an external drive. The main advantage of such a system is the high survivability of the weapon, due to the smooth movement of the moving parts of the automation. In addition, there is practically no problem of unloading ammunition during strong impacts of automation links that occur in high-temperature weapons. In the 1930s, the developers of the ShKAS rapid-fire machine gun faced this problem, as a result of which a 7.62-mm cartridge with a reinforced design was created and adopted specifically for it.

Another advantage of an external drive is the simplification of the device of the weapon itself, in which there are no return springs, a gas regulator and a number of other mechanisms. In an externally driven weapon, it is much easier to regulate the rate of fire, which is extremely important for aircraft weapons, which often have two firing modes - both at a low rate (for firing at ground targets) and at a high rate (for combating air targets). And, finally, the advantage of the circuit driven by an external source is that in the event of a misfire, the cartridge is automatically removed by the bolt and ejected from the weapon. However, it is impossible to instantly open fire from such a weapon, since it always takes some time to spin up the block of barrels and reach the required speed of its rotation. Another disadvantage is that a special device is needed to prevent a shot when the bolt is not completely locked.

The idea of ​​creating multi-barrel systems is far from new. Their first samples appeared even before the invention of automatic weapons. First, double-barreled, triple-barreled, four-barreled guns and pistols appeared, and in the middle of the 19th century, the so-called canisters were created - firearms obtained by imposing several barrels on one gun carriage. The number of shotgun barrels changed from 5 to 25, and their rate of fire reached an unprecedented figure for those times - 200 rounds per minute. Gatling's shotguns are best known, named after American inventor Richard Jordan Gatling. By the way, today in the USA all samples of firearms made according to a multi-barreled scheme with a rotating block of barrels are called Gatling guns.

After the end of the Second World War, the rate of fire of the best examples of aviation single-barreled machine guns reached 1200 rounds per minute (Browning M2). The main way to increase the firepower of aviation was to increase the number of firing points, which reached 6–8 on fighters. To arm the bombers, bulky twin mounts were used, which were twins of two conventional machine guns (DA-2, MG81z). Appearance in post-war period high-speed jet aviation required the creation of small arms and cannon weapons systems that had a higher rate of fire.

In June 1946 American company General Electric began work on the Vulcan project. By 1959, several prototypes of the T45 multi-barrel gun were created for ammunition of various calibers: 60, 20 and 27 mm. After rigorous testing, a sample of 20 mm caliber was selected for further development and received the designation T171. In 1956, the T171 was put into service ground forces and the US Air Force under the name M61 "Volcano".

The gun was a model of an automatic weapon driven by an external source. To unwind a block of 6 barrels and drive the automation mechanisms, a hydraulic drive or compressed air was used. Thanks to this design scheme, the maximum rate of fire from the cannon reached 7200 rounds per minute. A mechanism was provided to regulate the rate of fire from 4,000 to 6,000 rounds per minute. The ignition of the powder charge in the ammunition was carried out by an electric primer.

Somewhat later, the Vulkan gun was modernized - a linkless ammunition supply system appeared. A 30 mm version of the 6-barrel gun was also developed under the designation M67, but it was not further developed. The fate of the M61 turned out to be more successful, the gun soon became (and still serves) the main model of the aircraft gun armament of the US Air Force and many other states.

Versions of the gun were developed for anti-aircraft towed (M167) and self-propelled (M163) installations, as well as the ship-based version of the Vulkan-Phalanx to combat low-flying aircraft and anti-ship missiles. To equip helicopters, General Electric developed lightweight versions of the M195 and M197 guns. The last of them had three, not six barrels, as a result, the rate of fire was halved - up to 3000 rounds per minute. The followers of the "Volcano" were the heavy 30-mm seven-barreled gun GAU-8 / A "Avenger" and its lightweight five-barreled 25-mm version of the GAU-12 / U "Equalizer", designed to arm the A-10 Thunderbolt attack aircraft and fighters, respectively. AV-8 Harrier VTOL bombers.

Despite the success of the Vulcan cannon, it was of little use for arming light helicopters, which began to enter service with the American army in large quantities during Vietnam War. Therefore, initially, the Americans included either slightly modified versions of the conventional 7.62-mm M60 infantry machine gun, or light 20-mm M24A1 aircraft guns and 12.7-mm Browning M2 heavy machine guns in the helicopter armament system. However, neither infantry machine guns, nor conventional cannon and machine gun installations made it possible to obtain the density of fire necessary for aviation weapons.

Therefore, in the early 1960s, the General Electric company proposed a fundamentally new model of an aircraft machine gun that used the Gatling principle. The six-barreled "Minigun" was developed on the basis of the proven scheme of the M61 gun and outwardly very much resembled its smaller copy. The rotating block of barrels was driven by an external electric drive, powered by three 12-volt batteries. The standard 7.62 mm NATO screw cartridge (7.62 × 51) was used as ammunition.

The rate of fire from a machine gun could be variable and usually ranged from 2000 to 4000-6000 rounds per minute, but if necessary, could be reduced to 300 rounds per minute.

The production of the M134 Minigun was launched in 1962 at the General Electric plant in Burlington, where the Vulcan gun was also produced.

Structurally, the M134 machine gun consists of a barrel unit, receiver, rotor block and gate block. Six 7.62mm barrels are inserted into the rotary block, and each of them is fixed by turning 180 degrees. The barrels are interconnected by special clips that protect them from displacement and are also designed to reduce the vibration of the barrels when firing. The receiver is a one-piece casting, inside which is a rotating rotor block. It also houses the receiver, mounting pins and control handle. On the inner surface the receiver has an elliptical groove into which the shutter rollers enter.

The rotor block is the main element of the weapon. It is mounted in the receiver with ball bearings. The front of the rotary block holds six barrels. In the side parts of the rotor there are six slots in which six gates are placed. Each groove has an S-shaped notch, which is designed to cock the drummer and fire a shot. The barrel bore is locked by turning the bolt head. The role of the extractor is played by the combat larva and the stem of the shutter.

The drummer is spring-loaded, has a special protrusion that interacts with the S-shaped cutout on the rotor block. Closures, in addition to forward movement along the grooves of the rotor block, rotate together with the rotor.

Machine gun mechanisms operate as follows. Pressing the release button on the left side of the control handle causes the rotation of the rotary unit with the barrels in a counterclockwise direction (when viewed from the breech of the weapon). As soon as the rotor begins to spin, the roller of each shutter is driven by an elliptical groove on the inner surface of the receiver. As a result, the shutters move along the grooves of the rotor block, alternately capturing the cartridge from the receiver's feed fingers. Further, under the action of the roller, the shutter sends the cartridge into the chamber. The bolt head, interacting with the groove in the bolt, rotates and locks the barrel. The drummer under the action of the S-shaped groove is cocked and in the extreme forward position of the bolt is released, firing a shot.

The shot comes from the barrel, which is in the position corresponding to the 12 o'clock position of the hour hand.

The elliptical groove in the receiver has a special profile that does not allow unlocking until the bullet leaves the barrel and the pressure in the barrel reaches a safe value. After that, the shutter roller, moving in the groove of the receiver, returns the shutter back, unlocking the barrel. The shutter, when moving backwards, removes the spent cartridge case, which is reflected from the receiver. When the rotary block turns 360 degrees, the automation cycle is repeated.

The ammunition load of a machine gun is usually 1500-4000 rounds connected by a link belt. If the length of the hanging tape is large enough, an additional drive is installed to supply cartridges to the weapon. It is possible to use a chainless ammunition supply scheme.

Helicopter weapon systems using the M134 were extremely diverse. The "Minigun" could be installed both in the opening of the sliding side door of the helicopter, and on remotely controlled triangular installations (in the bow, as on the AN-1 "Hugh Cobra", or on the side pylons, as on the UH-1 "Huey"), and in fixed hanging containers. The M134 was equipped with multi-purpose UH-1, UH-60, light reconnaissance OH-6 Keyyus, OH-58A Kiowa and fire support helicopters AN-1, AN-56, ASN-47. During the Vietnam War, there were cases when the Minigun was converted into an easel weapon in the field.

In the US Air Force, the 7.62-mm Minigun machine gun was used to arm light attack aircraft of the A-1 Skyrader and A-37 Dragonfly type, designed for counterinsurgency operations. In addition, they were equipped with fire support aircraft special purpose"Ganship", which are converted military transport aircraft (S-47, S-119, S-130), equipped with a whole artillery battery, including a 105-mm infantry howitzer, a 40-mm cannon, 20-mm guns "Volcano" and "Miniguns". Shooting from the onboard weapons of the "Ganship" is not carried out as usual - along the course of the aircraft, but perpendicular to the direction of flight ().

In 1970–1971 A small-caliber modification of the Minigun was created chambered for 5.56 mm caliber. The XM214 machine gun also had an external electric drive that provided a rate of fire of 2000-3000 rounds per minute and resembled a smaller copy of the M134. However, this sample did not turn out to be as successful as its prototype, and was not further developed.

The Minigun scheme with a rotating block of barrels was used to create larger caliber machine gun modules. In the mid-1980s, General Electric developed a new 12.7 mm multi-barreled aircraft machine gun, designated the Gecal-50. The machine gun was developed in two versions: six-barreled (basic) and three-barreled. The maximum rate of fire is 4000 rounds per minute with link feed and 8000 - with linkless feed. Shooting is carried out with standard 12.7-mm American and NATO cartridges with high-explosive fragmentation incendiary, armor-piercing incendiary and practical bullets. Unlike the Minigun, the Gecal-50 is used not only to arm helicopters, but also ground combat vehicles.

In the USSR for replacement heavy machine gun A-12.7, which since the beginning of the 1950s was the only model of small arms for helicopters (Mi-4, Mi-6, Mi-8 and Mi-24A), the designers of TsKIB SOO B.A. Borzov and P.G. Yakushev created a new multi-barreled machine gun. The sample, designated YakB-12.7, entered service in 1975 ().

YakB-12.7, like the "Minigan", had a rotating block of four barrels, providing a rate of fire of 4000-45000 rounds per minute. Special two-bullet cartridges 1SL and 1SLT were developed for the machine gun, however, conventional 12.7 mm ammunition with B-32 and BZT-44 bullets can also be used for firing. The YakB-12.7 could be installed in the NSPU-24 nose mobile units of the Mi-24B, V and D combat helicopters, as well as in the GUV-8700 suspension units (Mi-24, Ka-50 and Ka-52).

Today, machine guns have given way on board combat helicopters to automatic cannons of 25-30 mm caliber, often unified with cannon armament of infantry fighting vehicles. This is due to the fact that in order to defeat enemy armored vehicles on the battlefield, fire support helicopters needed more powerful weapon than machine guns. In tactics of action army aviation new concepts appeared: "air combat between helicopters", "air combat between a helicopter and an aircraft", which also required an increase in the firepower of helicopters.

However, it is still too early to talk about the death of aviation machine-gun weapons. There are several areas of combat use of multi-barreled aircraft machine guns where they have no competition.

Firstly, this is the armament of special forces aviation, designed to solve reconnaissance, sabotage, search and rescue and anti-terrorist operations. A light multi-barreled machine gun of 7.62–12.7 mm caliber is an ideal and highly effective tool for combating unprotected enemy manpower and for self-defense tasks. Since operations of this kind are often carried out behind enemy lines, the interchangeability of ammunition for aviation and infantry weapons is also of no small importance.

The second task is self-defense. For this purpose, airborne, multi-purpose, reconnaissance, search and rescue helicopters, for which fire support is not the main task, are armed with machine guns. Multi-barreled machine guns can be used not only in aviation, but also on ground vehicles ( anti-aircraft system"Avenger" with a 12.7-mm machine gun Gecal-50), as well as to protect ships and ships.

And, finally, a multi-barreled machine gun can be successfully used for installation on light training and combat training aircraft carrying a limited combat load. By the way, many developing countries who are unable to purchase modern expensive combat aircraft are showing great interest in purchasing such aircraft. Equipped with light weapons, they are used as fighters and attack aircraft.

Comparative tactical specifications cannon M61A1 and machine gun M134 "Minigan"

FROM THE EDITORIAL OF THE MAGAZINE

An inexperienced reader may have an opinion that Russia is lagging behind the West in the field of creating multi-barreled rapid-fire small arms. However, this is not the case. Back in 1937, serial production of 7.62-mm Savin-Norov single-barreled machine guns, which fired 3,000 rounds per minute, was launched at the Kovrov Arms Plant. The single-barreled 7.62-mm machine gun, developed by the designer Yurchenko and produced at the same factory in a small series, had a rate of fire of 3600 rounds per minute.

During the Second World War, the German army used the MG-42 infantry machine gun, the rate of fire of which was 1400 rounds per minute. The 7.62-mm ShKAS aviation machine gun, which was then in service with the Red Army, made it possible to fire 1600 rounds per minute. The popularity of this machine gun was facilitated by the assertiveness of its authors and the personal sympathy of Stalin and Voroshilov for them. In fact, the ShKAS machine gun is not the best rapid-fire machine gun of those times. According to the automation scheme - the most common, but forced to the limit sample. Its rate of fire was restrained by the problem of "unpatronizing" *. Unlike the ShKAS, the Savin-Norov and Yurchenko machine guns were designed taking into account the high rate of fire, and the problem of "unpatronizing" them practically did not concern them.

By the beginning of World War II, 7.62 mm caliber aviation weapons were recognized as ineffective. On the Soviet fighters of that era, automatic guns of 23, 37 and 45 mm calibers were installed. Aircraft of the German Luftwaffe were armed with three types of powerful 30-mm guns. American fighter "Cobra" - 37-mm automatic cannon.

Multi-barreled weapons, characterized by a rotating block of barrels, were created back in the middle of the 19th century by the American Gatling. As time passes weapon Gatling type was revived Soviet designers in the mid-thirties, in particular, by the Kovrov gunsmith I.I. Slostin. In 1936, a 7.62-mm machine gun was created with an eight-barrel block of barrels, which was rotated by gases removed from the barrels. The rate of fire of the Slostin machine gun reached 5000 rounds per minute.

At the same time, the Tula designer M.N. Blum developed a machine gun with a block of 12 barrels. Soviet models of multi-barreled weapons were distinguished by the fact that instead of an external manual or electric drive, they were powered by powder gases discharged from the barrel channels. Then this direction was abandoned by our designers, since the military did not show interest in it.

In the second half of the fifties, an American open magazine was received at NIISPVA (Research Institute for Small Arms and Cannon Armament of Aviation) with a brief report on some experimental American model of a 20-mm weapon. It was also reported there that when firing bursts, individual shots were completely indistinguishable. This information was regarded as a foreign attempt to revive the Gatling system at a modern level. Soviet gunsmiths - designer Vasily Petrovich Gryazev and scientist Arkady Grigoryevich Shipunov, then twenty-six-year-old leading engineers, and now academicians and professors, began to create a domestic analogue. At the same time, it was theoretically substantiated that such a weapon with a gas-operated automatic drive would be much lighter than an American electric one. Practice has proven the validity of this assumption.

A captured American air gun "Volcano" (20 mm) arrived from Vietnam. Experience has shown that, compared to our more powerful six-barreled AO-19 (23 mm), the American Vulcan looked like a bulky crocodile.

V.P. Gryazev and A.G. Shipunov developed new models of 23-mm and 30-mm multi-barreled guns, creating their various variants - aviation, sea and land transportable.

Under the 7.62-mm rifle cartridge in the USSR, only one helicopter four-barreled electric machine gun was created - GShG-7.62. Its sole designer is a friend of the youth of the author of this peer review, Evgeny Borisovich Glagolev, the leading designer of the Tula KBP.

To the creation of an infantry variant similar weapons military customers showed no interest.

The record development of a weapon with a rotating block of barrels belongs to the senior engineer of NII-61 Yu.G. Zhuravlev. His model of a 30-mm air gun with a drive of a six-barrel block jet engine showed a rate of fire of 16 thousand rounds per minute! True, the block of trunks could not withstand such a regime. The centrifugal force of the untwisted block tore it apart already on the 20th shot.

Along with this, I would like to note that the opinion of the editorial staff of the journal does not completely coincide with the opinion of the author of the article.

Expert consultant Dmitry Shiryaev

* "Unpatronization" - dismantling or deformation of the cartridge as a result of impacts and inertial overloads when it moves within the weapon.

What can a clockwork, woodcarving, rubber bands for wrapping banknotes and slightly hooligan mischief have in common? All this forms the basis of an exciting hobby - the construction of wooden crossbows.

Sergey Apresov Alexander Zelentsov

There is such a blasphemous concept that came to us from the West: open space, or an office in a common space. Now in most large companies workplaces are organized according to this principle: in a huge room there are numerous tables separated by partitions. Structural divisions are separated from each other by high walls, inside the departments there are smaller “fences”. Even big bosses sit in personal aquariums with walls but no ceiling. You say "hello" - the whole floor hears. Oddly enough, it is precisely this “open” environment that often encourages employees to constantly look at the monitor without raising their heads, diligently imitate hectic activity and talk about the weather only through e-mail. Another common phenomenon, to which it is difficult to attribute any national roots, is routine work. Boring, monotonous, soporific and itchy.

But the third thing that I want to remember, on the contrary, is fun and exciting. This is fun from childhood - shooting with rubber bands from your fingers or a ruler. These three terms are perfectly combined with each other. Firstly, the office is full of rubber bands (they are used to tighten folders with reports or wads of cash, depending on the success of the enterprise), as well as rulers. Secondly, open space, with due skill, allows you to send an elastic band along ballistic trajectory in any colleague he liked (or didn’t like) so that he would never guess where the gift fell on his head from. In addition, rubber bands can be fired not only from rulers, but also from weapons specially designed for this purpose. It turns out that the design and manufacture of such crossbows is an interesting and very complex technical hobby that will help you escape from any routine.

The most time-consuming part of working on a machine gun is marking and sawing teeth in the barrels. The higher the designer's ambitions in terms of the number of barrels, the more time he has to spend on this monotonous work. It makes sense to round the sharp edges of the teeth so that the rubber bands do not cling to them during shooting. For the manufacture of handles, we glued the boards in three layers, and the resulting thick blanks were turned and polished. The result is an ergonomic weapon with a comfortable grip.

hourly accuracy

The invention of wooden crossbows is an activity that has something of watch mechanics. The task of the designer is to develop a trigger mechanism for a multi-shot crossbow that allows you to shoot single shots or bursts. It is possible that there are more such mechanisms for wooden weapons than for real ones. The Japanese have been the most successful in this, but the rest of the world is not far behind.

A classic example of a multi-shot trigger is a rack-and-pinion magazine with a rubber band attached to each prong. A special drummer is located opposite the gum and, when the trigger is pressed, pushes it off the tooth. The complexity of this mechanism is that with each shot the magazine must move, substituting the next prong for the drummer. Its movement is controlled by something like a ratchet.

The procedure for charging the weapon to its full capacity of 720 rubber bands takes about an hour. The situation is complicated by the fact that charging must be done in strict sequence, row by row. If you use the “lightweight” version with charging one rubber band per prong, the procedure is greatly simplified: you can load each barrel in turn and even work on several barrels at the same time. Together we loaded the machine gun with 240 shots in less than 10 minutes.

The ratchet mechanism can be used for a wooden "revolver" in pure form. Imagine a gear wheel with a rubber band stretched over each tooth. A ratchet connected to the trigger turns the wheel one tooth for each shot. The principle of operation is as close as possible to a real revolver: the muscular strength of the shooter is used to reload. Many other recharge mechanisms use the energy of stretched rubber bands to work, waiting in the wings.

Jigsaw in hand

We also wanted to join an exciting hobby and try our hand at building a crossbow. Being new to this business, we decided not to try to invent a qualitatively new escapement mechanism, but instead paid maximum attention to the quantitative side of the issue. Our 16-barrel Gatling machine gun, with an estimated rate of fire of ten rounds per second, has a maximum ammunition capacity of 720 rubber bands. The most repeating crossbow that we heard about before was designed for 504 shots, so we have every right to claim the record.

The manufacture of wooden weapons is a very delicate work. The ideal tool and material for a gunsmith is the same as that of a ship modeler - desktop a circular saw and balsa slats. Milling and drilling machine, a drill for fine work and a grinder to give the product smooth shapes and a chic shine. For the first time, we decided to limit ourselves to an electric jigsaw with a special table and an electric screwdriver. The barrels and disks on which they are attached, the body and stock, handles and drive mounting parts are sawn from a board 12 mm thick. In order to get an electric motor with a gearbox and a battery for a machine gun, we sacrificed another electric screwdriver. A high-quality spruce rolling pin acted as a drum on which the trigger cable is wound. Useful and useful little things- glue, sandpaper, screws and nylon cord.

In each of the 16 barrels, 16 5 mm cuts were made, forming 15 hooks for elastic bands. One large hook is made at the ends of the trunks. When the gum breaks off the tooth, it moves along the trunk for some time, acquiring inertia in a given direction. Therefore, most wooden crossbows shoot very accurately and you can find a sight on many of them.

The classic trigger mechanism of our machine gun works very simply: a cord is wound around the drum with barrels so that it passes through each cut of each barrel. Elastic bands are put on over the cord. When the shooter presses the release button, the electric motor is started, which reels the line. The cord, in turn, rotates the drum with the barrels and breaks the rubber bands from the teeth. To reach a record ammo capacity, you need to put on three elastic bands for each prong. This is done as follows: a cord is wound around the first row of teeth and elastic bands are put on. Then, over the elastic bands, the cord is wound a second time on the same row and the elastic bands are put on again. The operation is repeated a third time, after which you can move on to the next row. As a result, we have three rubber bands on 15 teeth of each of the 16 barrels - a total of 704 rounds.

Demonstrating our machine gun in action, one cannot fail to mention its main drawback: before shooting, three people loaded the gun for half an hour. So for office wars, if anything, it is better to prepare in advance. But now, in order not to drown in the routine and take a break from work, we have as many as three activities to choose from: monotonous - pulling elastic bands on hooks, one after another; intellectual - to design a system for quick reloading of a machine gun; and social - to arrange rubber rain for boring colleagues behind the wall!

triggers

The trigger mechanism is the very essence of a wooden crossbow. Only a shooter who personally developed and implemented the original reloading mechanism can be considered a true master of rubber shooting

Two combs. A very ingenious trigger mechanism with two combs is notable for the fact that in it the rubber bands intended for shooting also work as a trigger return spring. One comb is fixed on the body, and the other is combined with the trigger. The teeth on both combs are arranged alternately or, in other words, offset. When the shooter presses the trigger, the movable part goes beyond the fixed part, and all the rubber bands jump off on its teeth. At the same time, the upper gum does not find a tooth and flies away to the target. When the shooter removes his finger, the movable part goes inside the body, and all the rubber bands are again on the fixed comb, but already one tooth higher.

Slalom. In this fun double-shot design, two rubber bands navigate a tricky path along a winding, curved line. The main thing here is the correct setting of the corners of the “slalom course” and smoothly polished surfaces on which the elastic band slides. The "path" is carved in the same detail as the trigger. For the mechanism to work, the trigger must be spring loaded.

Long slalom. The slalom trigger mechanism can be not only double-charged. The capacity of the "magazine" depends on the number of turns of the "slalom track"

Downhill. The cord wound around the barrels under the rubber bands is a simple but most effective trigger option when it comes to high rate of fire and especially multi-barreled machine guns. Other downhill options are very difficult, but still possible. For example, one of famous models wooden machine gun, commercially available, is equipped with a trigger mechanism with gear wheels. One gear wheel is installed on each barrel, on each tooth of which an elastic band is put on. When firing, the wheels rotate, releasing the rubber bands into flight.

Since the advent of firearms, the military has been concerned with increasing its rate of fire. Starting from the 15th century, gunsmiths tried to achieve this in the only way available at that time - by increasing the number of barrels.

Stepan Zhilin

Such multi-barreled guns were called organs or ribodekens. However, the name “quick-firing” did not suit such systems much: although it was possible to simultaneously fire a volley from a large number trunks, further reloading required a lot of time. And with the advent of buckshot, multi-barreled guns completely lost their meaning. But in the 19th century they revived again - thanks to a man who, out of the best of intentions, wanted to reduce combat losses.

In the second half of the 19th century, the military was extremely puzzled by the declining effectiveness of artillery against infantry. For the usual shot with buckshot, it was necessary to let the enemy in at 500-700 m, and the new long-range rifles that entered service with the infantry simply did not allow this. However, the invention of a unitary cartridge marked a new direction in the development of firearms: an increase in the rate of fire. As a result, several solutions to the problem appeared almost simultaneously. The French gunsmith de Reffy designed a mitrailleuse, consisting of 25 fixed barrels of 13 mm caliber, capable of releasing up to 5-6 volleys per minute. In 1869, the Belgian inventor Montigny improved this system, bringing the number of barrels to 37. But mitrailleuses were very bulky and were not widely used. A fundamentally different solution was required.

kind doctor

Richard Gatling was born on September 12, 1818 in Hartford County, Connecticut to a farmer's family. Since childhood, he was fond of inventing, helping his father to repair agricultural machinery. Richard received his first patent (for a seeder) at the age of 19. But, despite his passion, he decided to become a doctor and in 1850 he graduated from the medical college in Cincinnati. However, the passion for invention won. In the 1850s, Gatling invented several mechanical seed drills and a new system propeller, but his most famous invention came later. On November 4, 1862, he received patent number 36,836 for a design that forever inscribed his name in the history of weapons - the Revolving Battery Gun. Nevertheless, the author of the deadly invention, as befits a doctor, had the best feelings for humanity. Gatling himself wrote about it this way: “If I could create mechanical system shooting, which, due to its rate of fire, would allow one person to replace a hundred shooters on the battlefield, the need for large armies would disappear, which would lead to a significant reduction in human losses. (After Gatling's death, Scientific American published an obituary that read: "This man was unparalleled in kindness and cordiality. It seemed to him that if the war became even more terrible, then the nations would finally lose the desire to resort to arms.")

Despite the development of technologies and materials, the principle of operation of the Gatling gun has not changed. All the same block of trunks is spun by an external drive. By the way, precisely because, unlike their ancestors, modern Gatlings are powered by an electric motor (or other engine), their use as infantry weapons is very impractical ... The Terminator, apparently, always had a portable diesel power station.

The merit of Gatling was not at all that he was the first to make multi-barreled weapons - as already noted, multi-barreled systems were no longer a novelty by that time. And not in the fact that he arranged the trunks "in a revolving" manner (this scheme was widely used in handguns). Gatling designed an original mechanism for feeding cartridges and ejecting cartridges. A block of several barrels rotated around its axis, under the influence of gravity, the cartridge from the tray entered the barrel at the upper point, then a shot was fired with the help of a striker, with further rotation from the barrel at the lower point, again, under the influence of gravity, the sleeve was extracted. The drive of this mechanism was manual, with the help of a special handle the shooter rotated the block of barrels and fired. Of course, such a scheme was not yet fully automatic, but it had a number of advantages. Mechanical reloading was at first more reliable than automatic: weapons of early designs constantly jammed. But even this simple mechanics provided a fairly high rate of fire for those times. The barrels overheated and became fouled with soot (which was a significant problem, since black powder was widely used at that time) much slower than single-barreled weapons.

machine guns

The Gatling system usually consisted of 4 to 10 barrels of 12-40 mm caliber and made it possible to fire at a distance of up to 1 km with a rate of fire of about 200 rounds per minute. In terms of firing range and rate of fire, it surpassed conventional artillery pieces. In addition, the Gatling system was rather cumbersome and was usually mounted on carriages from light guns, therefore it was considered an artillery weapon, and it was often not quite correctly called a "shotgun" (in fact, this weapon is correctly called a machine gun). Before the adoption of the St. Petersburg Convention of 1868, which banned the use of explosive projectiles weighing less than 1 pound, there were Gatlings and large caliber guns that fired explosive projectiles and shrapnel.

In America, the Civil War was going on, and Gatling offered his weapons to the northerners. However, the Ordnance Department was inundated with proposals for the use of new types of weapons from various inventors, so, despite a successful demonstration, Gatling failed to get an order. True, individual copies of the Gatling machine gun still fought a little at the end of the war, having proven themselves very well. After the war, in 1866, the American government nevertheless placed an order for 100 Gatling guns, which were produced by Colt under the Model 1866 marking. Such guns were put on ships, they were also adopted by the armies of other countries. British troops used Gatlings in 1883 to put down a mutiny in Egyptian Port Said, where the weapon earned a fearsome reputation. Russia also became interested in it: the Gatling gun here was adapted by Gorlov and Baranovsky under the "Berdanov" cartridge and put into service. Later, the Gatling system was repeatedly improved and modified - the Swede Nordenfeld, the American Gardner, the British Fitzgerald. Moreover, it was not only about machine guns, but also about small-caliber cannons - a typical example is the 37-mm five-barreled Hotchkiss cannon, adopted by the Russian fleet in 1881 (a 47-mm version was also produced).

But the monopoly on the rate of fire did not last long - soon the name "machine gun" was assigned to automatic weapons, who worked on the principles of using powder gases and recoil for reloading. The first such weapon was the Hiram Maxim machine gun, which used smokeless powder. This invention relegated the Gatlings to the background, and then completely ousted them from the armies. The new single-barreled machine guns had a much higher rate of fire, were easier to manufacture and less bulky.

Gatlings in the air The pilot can change the rate of fire of the GAU-8 cannon depending on the task. In the "low" rate of fire mode, this is 2000 rds / min, when switching to the "high" mode - 4200. The optimal conditions for using the GAU-8 are 10 two-second bursts with minute breaks to cool the barrels.

Eruption"

Ironically, the revenge of the Gatlings over single-barreled automatic guns took place more than half a century later, after the Korean War, which became a real testing ground for jet aircraft. Despite their fierceness, the battles between the F-86 and MiG-15 showed low efficiency. artillery weapons new jet fighters, migrated from piston ancestors. Aircraft of that time were armed with whole batteries of several barrels with a caliber from 12.7 to 37 mm. All this was done for the sake of increasing the second salvo: after all, a continuously maneuvering enemy aircraft was kept in sight for only a fraction of a second, and in order to defeat it, it was necessary to create an enormous density of fire in a short time. At the same time, single-barreled guns practically approached the "design" rate of fire limit - the barrel overheated too quickly. An unexpected solution was found by itself: the American corporation General Electric, back in the late 1940s, began experiments with ... old cannons Gatling, taken from museums. The block of barrels was spun by an electric motor, and a 70-year-old gun immediately gave out a rate of fire of more than 2000 rounds per minute (it is interesting that there is evidence that an electric drive was installed on Gatling guns at the end of the 19th century; this made it possible to achieve a rate of fire of several thousand rounds per minute - but in At that time, such an indicator was not in demand). The development of the idea was the creation of a gun that opened up a whole era in weapons business - M61A1 Vulcan.

When reloading, the GAU-8 module is completely dismantled from the aircraft. This greatly improves the ease of maintenance of the gun. The rotation of the block of barrels is carried out by two hydraulic motors operating from the common hydraulic system of the aircraft.

The Vulcan is a six-barreled gun weighing 190 kg (without ammunition), 1800 mm long, 20 mm in caliber and with a rate of fire of 6000 rounds per minute. Automation "Volcano" works at the expense of an external electric drive with a power of 26 kW. Ammunition supply is linkless, carried out from a drum magazine with a capacity of 1000 shells through a special sleeve. Spent cartridges are returned to the store. This decision was made after the incident with the F-104 Starfighter aircraft, when the cartridges ejected by the cannon were thrown back. air flow back and severely damaged the fuselage of the aircraft. The huge rate of fire of the cannon also led to unforeseen consequences: the oscillations that occurred during firing forced a change in the rate of fire in order to eliminate the resonance of the entire structure. The recoil of the cannon also brought a surprise: in one of the test flights of the ill-fated F-104, while firing, the Vulcan fell off the carriage and, continuing to fire, turned the entire nose of the aircraft with shells, while the pilot miraculously managed to eject. However, after correcting these shortcomings, the US military received light and reliable weapons that have served faithfully for decades. M61 guns are used on many aircraft and in the Mk.15 Phalanx anti-aircraft system, designed to destroy low-flying aircraft and cruise missiles. Based on the M61A1, a six-barreled rapid-fire machine gun M134 Minigun with a caliber of 7.62 mm was developed, thanks to computer games and filming in numerous films, which became the most famous among all the Gatlings. The machine gun is designed for installation on helicopters and ships.

The most powerful cannon with a rotating block of barrels was the American GAU-8 Avenger, designed for installation on the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft. The 30-mm seven-barrel gun is designed to fire primarily at ground targets. Two types of ammunition are used for it: high-explosive fragmentation shells PGU-13 / B and those with increased initial speed armor-piercing PGU-14 / B with a core of depleted uranium. Since the gun and the aircraft were originally designed specifically for each other, firing from the GAU-8 does not lead to a severe violation of the controllability of the A-10. When designing the aircraft, it was also taken into account that the powder gases from the gun should not enter the engines aircraft(this can lead to their stop), - special reflectors are installed for this. But during the operation of the A-10, it was noticed that unburned powder particles settle on the blades of engine turbochargers and reduce thrust, and also lead to increased corrosion. To prevent this effect, electric afterburners are built into the aircraft engines. Igniters turn on automatically when fire is opened. At the same time, according to the instructions, after each shot ammunition, the A-10 engines must be washed from soot. Although during combat use the gun did not show high efficiency, psychological effect from use turned out to be on top - when a stream of fire literally pours from the sky, it's very, very scary ...

The tower of the automatic gun AK-630 is uninhabited. Guidance of the gun is carried out remotely, with the help of electrohydraulic drives. AK-630 is a universal and effective "means of self-defense" of our warships, which allows us to defend ourselves against a variety of misfortunes, whether it be an anti-ship missile, Somali pirates or surfaced (as in the film "Peculiarities of National Fishing") naval mine…

In the USSR, work on rapid-fire guns began with the development of ship-based short-range air defense systems. The result was the creation of a family of anti-aircraft guns designed in the Tula Precision Instrument Design Bureau. The 30-mm AK-630 guns still form the basis of the air defense of our ships, and the modernized machine gun is part of the Kortik naval anti-aircraft missile and gun system.

In our country, they realized late the need to have an analogue of the Vulkan in service, so almost ten years passed between the tests of the GSh-6-23 gun and the decision to put it into service. The rate of fire of the GSh-6-23, which is installed on the Su-24 and MiG-31 aircraft, is 9000 rounds per minute, and the initial spin-up of the barrels is carried out by standard PPL squibs (rather than electric or hydraulic drives, as in American counterparts), which made it possible significantly improve the reliability of the system and simplify its design. After the squib is triggered and the first projectile is fed, the barrel block is spun by using the energy of the powder gases discharged from the barrel channels. The supply of the gun with shells can be both linkless and link.

The 30-millimeter gun GSh-6-30 was designed on the basis of the ship's anti-aircraft gun AK-630. With a rate of fire of 4600 rounds per minute, it is capable of sending a 16-kilogram volley at the target in 0.25 seconds. According to eyewitnesses, a 150-shell burst from the GSh-6-30 looked more like a thunderclap than a burst, while the aircraft was shrouded in a bright fiery glow. This gun, which had excellent accuracy, was installed on the MiG-27 fighter-bombers instead of the regular "double-barreled" GSh-23. The use of the GSh-6-30 on ground targets forced the pilots to exit the dive sideways in order to protect themselves from fragments of their own shells rising to a height of 200 m. 27 was not originally designed for such powerful artillery. Therefore, due to vibrations and shocks, equipment failed, aircraft components were deformed, and in one of the flights, after a long line in the cockpit, the instrument panel fell off - the pilot had to return to the airfield, holding it in his arms.

Firearms Gatling schemes are practically the limit of the rate of fire of mechanical weapons systems. Despite the fact that modern rapid-fire single-barrel guns use liquid cooling of the barrel, which significantly reduces its overheating, systems with a rotating block of barrels are still more suitable for long-term firing. The effectiveness of the Gatling scheme allows you to successfully complete the tasks assigned to the weapon, and this weapon rightfully takes its place in the arsenals of all the armies of the world. In addition, it is one of the most spectacular and cinematic types of weapons. Shooting from a Gatling is an excellent special effect in itself, and the menacing appearance of the barrels spun before firing made these guns the most memorable weapons of Hollywood action films and computer games.

In 1831, 13-year-old Richard Gatling, the son of an American farmer, patented his first invention, the seed drill. Later, having received a medical degree, he creates ... several models of mechanical seeders and an original propeller. His finest hour came in November 1862, when he became the owner of a patent for the Revolving Battery Gun - a high-speed multi-barreled weapon that went down in history as a Gatling machine gun.

From mitrailleuse to machine gun

French mitrailleuse - the prototype of the Gatling machine gun

He made the trunks spin

The peculiarity of the Gatling machine gun was that each of the barrels could make one shot, free itself from the sleeve and charge again. The rotation of the trunks was done manually. Such a scheme had very important advantages - a high rate of fire up to 1000 rounds per minute and the possibility of cooling the barrel during rotation.

"Carousel of Death"

Second wind

In the 50-60s, General Electric created a whole series of multi-barreled rapid-fire systems. Among them, it is worth highlighting the six-barreled gun M61 "Volcano" (cal. 20 mm). Its record rate of fire is up to 100 rounds per second. Continued the M134 Minigan series - six-barreled machine gun(7.62 mm count), "distinguished" in Vietnam and GAU-8 / A - a powerful 30-mm aircraft gun, with which A-10 attack aircraft turn armored targets into a sieve.

Gatling in Tula