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The good doctor

Richard Gatling was born September 12, 1818 in the district of Hartford (CT) in the family farmer. From childhood he was interested in inventions, helping his father repair agricultural machinery. His first patent (to drill), Richard was at the age of 19 years. But, despite his passion, he decided to become a doctor, and in 1850 graduated from the Medical College in Cincinnati. However, a passion for inventions won. In 1850 Gatling invented several mechanical drills and the propeller of the new system, but the most famous invention made later. November 4, 1862, he received patent number 36,836 on the design, forever inscribed his name in the history of weapons, - Revolving Battery Gun. Nevertheless, the author of lethal invention, as befits a doctor, had for humanity the best feelings. Gatling himself put it this way: "If I could create a mechanical firing system, which due to its rate of fire would allow one person to replace the battlefield hundred shooters, the need for large armies would disappear, which would lead to a significant reduction in loss of life." (After the death of Gatling magazine Scientific American published an obituary in which were the words: "This man had no equal on the kindness and cordiality. It seemed to him that if the war will become even more terrible, the people have lost last hunting resort to arms.") < br />
Gatling merit consisted not in the fact that he was the first multi-stemmed weapons - as already noted, Multilateral System at that time were no longer a novelty. And not that he placed the barrels "of turret" (such a scheme is widely used in handguns). Gatling designed the original feeder cartridges and ejection. Block several cranks shafts around its axis, under the action of gravity of the cartridge tray fed into the barrel at the top, then a plunger expels, with further rotation of the stem at the lowest point, again by gravity by extraction sleeve. The drive of this mechanism was manually, using a special handle arrows rotate the blocks and barrels produced fire. Of course, such a scheme has not yet fully automated, but it had a number of advantages. Mechanical recharge was at first reliable automatic: weapons early designs are constantly jammed. But even this simple mechanics provided a fairly large for the time rate of fire. Trunks overheated and polluting coke (which is a significant problem, because at the time was widely used black powder) is much slower than single-barreled weapons.





Here it



There was another such.

GAU-8 cannon next to the Volkswagen Beatle.



The Soviet response

In the USSR work on rapid-guns began to develop near the ship's air defense assets. The result was the creation of a family of anti-aircraft machine constructed in the Tula Design Bureau of precision instruments. 30-mm guns AK-630 is still the basis of our air defense ships, and an upgraded machine is a part of the marine anti-aircraft missile and gun complex "Dirk".

In our country, later we realized the need to be armed with an analogue of "Volcano", so between tests gun GSH-6-23, and the decision to adopt it for service has been almost ten years. Rate of fire GSH-6-23, which is installed on the Su-24 and MiG-31, is 9000 rounds per minute, and the initial promotion barrel by standard pyrotechnical PPL (not electric or hydraulic drives, as in the American counterpart), which allowed significantly increase reliability and simplify its structure. After triggering the release unit and the delivery of the first shell unit trunks unwound by the energy of powder gases discharged from the bores. Power cannon shells can be both bezzvenevym and team leader.

30-mm cannon GSH-6-30 was designed on the basis of the ship's anti-aircraft AK-630. With a rate of fire of 4,600 rounds per minute, it is capable of 0, 25 to send the target 16-pound volley. According to eyewitnesses, the 150 ammunition of all GSH-6-30 was more like a clap of thunder, than all, and the plane thus envelops the bright glow of the fire. This gun has excellent accuracy, installed on fighter-bombers MiG-27 instead of the regular "shotgun" GS-23. Using the GS-6-30 on ground targets forced the pilots to leave the dive sideways to protect themselves from their own fragments of shells, rises to a height of 200 m., And criticism is a huge force impact: unlike its American "colleagues" A-10, MiG- 27, initially was not calculated by a powerful artillery. Therefore, because of the vibrations and shocks of equipment failure, the aircraft components were deformed, and one of the flights after a long queue in the cockpit instrument panel has fallen off - the pilot had to return to the airport, holding her in his arms.

Firearms Gatling circuit - virtually the limit rate of mechanical weapons systems. Despite the fact that in today's rapid-single-barrel guns used water-cooled barrel, significantly reduces overheating, the system with the rotating block trunks still better able to conduct prolonged shooting. The effectiveness of the scheme Gatling to successfully fulfill tasks weapons, and these weapons are rightly takes place in the arsenal of all armies in the world. In addition, it is one of the most spectacular and movie versions weapons. Shooting of "Gatling" itself - great special effects, and menacing look unwinding before firing the gun barrels made this the most memorable weapon Hollywood action and computer games.



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