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87-548: The M13 multiple gun motor carriage (MGMC), otherwise known as the M13 half-track, was a self-propelled anti-aircraft gun used by the U.S. Army during World War II that was armed with two .50 caliber M2HB heavy-barrel Browning machine guns. Developed in response to a requirement for a mobile anti-aircraft (AA) vehicle, the vehicle was produced by the White Motor Company between July 1942 and May 1943. The only time it

174-400: A 2 pounder ) on a truck. This was to prevent the weapon from being damaged by long-distance towing across rough, stony deserts, and it was intended only to be a carrying method, with the gun unloaded for firing. However, crews tended to fire their weapons from their vehicles for the mobility this method provided, with consequent casualties. This undoubtedly inspired their Morris C9/B (officially

261-690: A M3 Half-track . The British developed their own SPAAGs throughout the war mounting multiple machine guns and light cannon on various tank and armoured car chassis and by 1943, the Crusader AA tanks , which mounted the Bofors 40 mm gun or two-three Oerlikon 20 mm cannon . Although used during the Normandy landings, by that point German aircraft were contained by the Allies own air forces and they were largely unneeded. The introduction of jet engines and

348-491: A Portuguese fleet sent to India to take part in a colonial war in the 1740s. Also in 1737, it was mentioned that a German engineer had invented a 10-pounder cannon capable of firing 20 times in a minute. In 1740, a cannon able to shoot 11 times per minute was developed by a Frenchman called Chevalier de Benac. Meanwhile, not long after in England, in 1747 a cannon able to simultaneously charge and discharge itself 20 times in

435-421: A swivel gun that did not need cleaning or muzzle-loading and was capable of being made to any dimensions and used as an ordinary cannon at a moment's notice and firing 40 shots a minute was invented by a native of Ireland. Also in 1828 a revolver cannon capable of firing 12 shots a minute and worked by 2 artillerymen was invented by a Frenchman called Lesire-Fruyer. In 1854 this cannon would be put on display at

522-516: A tripod or on a vehicle; when carried on foot, the machine gun and associated equipment (tripod, ammunition, spare barrels) require additional crew members. Light machine guns are designed to provide mobile fire support to a squad and are typically air-cooled weapons fitted with a box magazine or drum and a bipod; they may use full-size rifle rounds, but modern examples often use intermediate rounds. Medium machine guns use full-sized rifle rounds and are designed to be used from fixed positions mounted on

609-416: A French artist known as Renard invented a piece of ordnance that could be operated by one man and fired 90 shots a minute. Also in 1792, a French mechanic called Garnier invented a musket battery made up of 15 barrels capable of firing 300 shots in 2 minutes for a total rate of fire of 150 shots a minute or 10 shots per minute per barrel and of being operated by one man. In the early and mid-19th century,

696-411: A bipod and drum in the light machine gun role or a tripod and belt feed in the medium machine gun role. Machine guns usually have simple iron sights, though the use of optics is becoming more common. A common aiming system for direct fire is to alternate solid ("ball") rounds and tracer ammunition rounds (usually one tracer round for every four ball rounds), so shooters can see the trajectory and "walk"

783-407: A breech-loading volley gun , similar to the later mitrailleuse, was invented by a Frenchman called Du Perron which was worked by 3 or 4 men and capable of discharging 24 barrels 10 times a minute for a total rate of fire of 240 shots per minute. In 1776, a gun capable of charging and discharging itself 120 times 'by the motion of one hand only' in a minute was invented in England by an inventor from

870-431: A cartridge to overheat and detonate even when the trigger is not pulled, potentially leading to damage or causing the gun to cycle its action and keep firing until it has exhausted its ammunition supply or jammed; this is known as cooking off (as distinct from runaway fire where the sear fails to re-engage when the trigger is released). To guard against cook-offs occurring, some kind of cooling system or design element

957-530: A cheap way to counter unmanned aerial systems (drones), cruise missiles, and ultralight aircraft. Anti-aircraft machine guns have long been mounted on trucks, and these were quite common during World War I . A predecessor of the WWII German "88" anti-aircraft gun, the WWI German 77 mm anti-aircraft gun, was truck-mounted and used to great effect against British tanks. The British QF 3 inch 20 cwt

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1044-644: A class of military kinetic projectile weapons, machine guns are designed to be mainly used as infantry support weapons and generally used when attached to a bipod or tripod , a fixed mount or a heavy weapons platform for stability against recoils . Many machine guns also use belt feeding and open bolt operation, features not normally found on other infantry firearms. Machine guns can be further categorized as light machine guns , medium machine guns , heavy machine guns , general-purpose machine guns , and squad automatic weapons . Unlike semi-automatic firearms , which require one trigger pull per round fired,

1131-618: A common feed source. The continuous nature of the rotary action and its relative immunity to overheating allow for a very high cyclic rate of fire , often several thousand rounds per minute. Rotary guns are less prone to jamming than a gun operated by gas or recoil, as the external power source will eject misfired rounds with no further trouble; but this is not possible in the rare cases of self-powered rotary guns. Rotary designs are intrinsically comparatively bulky and expensive and are therefore generally used with large rounds, 20 mm in diameter or more, often referred to as Rotary cannon – though

1218-443: A full-power rifle cartridge from a closed bolt are called automatic rifles or battle rifles , while rifles that fire an intermediate cartridge are called assault rifles . Assault rifles are a compromise between the size and weight of a pistol-caliber submachine gun and a full-size battle rifle, firing intermediate cartridges and allowing semi-automatic and burst or full-automatic fire options (selective fire), sometimes with both of

1305-424: A given amount of heat, while at the same time they are also much better at shedding the excess, as the extra barrels provide a larger surface area from which to dissipate the unwanted thermal energy. In addition to that, they are in the nature of the design spun at very high speed during rapid fire, which has the benefit of producing enhanced air-cooling as a side-effect. In weapons where the round seats and fires at

1392-573: A machine capable of firing 600 balls in a few minutes. In 1720, a French inventor called Philippe Vayringe invented a small cannon that could fire 16 shots in succession, which he demonstrated before the Duke of Lorraine. In 1737, it was mentioned that Jacob de Weinholtz, a Dane who was serving in the Portuguese army, had invented a cannon capable of firing 20 to 30 shots a minute though requiring 15 people to work it. The cannons were brought along with

1479-494: A machine gun is designed to continue firing for as long as the trigger is held down. Nowadays, the term is restricted to relatively heavy crew-served weapons , able to provide continuous or frequent bursts of automatic fire for as long as ammunition feeding is replete. Machine guns are used against infantry , low-flying aircraft , small boats and lightly/un armored land vehicles , and can provide suppressive fire (either directly or indirectly ) or enforce area denial over

1566-549: A minute of use. Because they become very hot, the great majority of designs fire from an open bolt , to permit air cooling from the breech between bursts. They also usually have either a barrel cooling system, slow-heating heavyweight barrel, or removable barrels which allow a hot barrel to be replaced. Although subdivided into " light ", " medium ", " heavy " or " general-purpose ", even the lightest machine guns tend to be substantially larger and heavier than standard infantry arms. Medium and heavy machine guns are either mounted on

1653-503: A minute though the rate of fire was limited by the overheating of the barrel. In 1819, an American inventor from Baltimore designed a gun with 11 barrels that could fire 12 times in a minute for a total rate of fire of 132 shots a minute. In 1821, a muzzle-loading repeating cannon capable of firing 30 shots in 6 minutes or 5 shots per minute was demonstrated in England by the French-American "Fire King" Ivan Ivanitz Chabert. It

1740-822: A minute was invented by James Allis and presented to the Royal Society of England. In 1750, in Denmark, a Prussian known as Captain Steuben of the Train of Artillery invented a breech-loading cannon worked by 4 people and fed by paper cartridges capable of firing 24 times in a minute and demonstrated it to the King of Denmark along with some other high-ranking officials in the same year. In 1764, Frenchman Ange Goudar wrote in his work The Chinese Spy that he had assisted in Paris in

1827-415: A multi-shot weapon by a Palmer during this period appear to be referring to a somewhat more common Kalthoff repeater or Lorenzoni-system gun . Despite this, there is a reference in 1663 to at least the concept of a genuine automatic gun that was presented to Prince Rupert , though its type and method of operation are unknown. In 1708, it was reported from Constantinople that a French officer had invented

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1914-668: A number of rapid-firing weapons appeared which offered multi-shot fire, mostly volley guns. Volley guns (such as the Mitrailleuse ) and double-barreled pistols relied on duplicating all parts of the gun, though the Nock gun used the otherwise-undesirable "chain fire" phenomenon (where multiple chambers are ignited at once) to propagate a spark from a single flintlock mechanism to multiple barrels. Pepperbox pistols also did away with needing multiple hammers but used multiple manually operated barrels. Revolvers further reduced this to only needing

2001-430: A pre-prepared cylinder and linked advancing the cylinder to cocking the hammer. However, these were still manually operated. In 1805, a British inventor from Northampton designed a cannon that would prime, load and fire itself 10 times a minute. In 1806, a Viennese copper engraver and mechanic known as Mr Putz invented a machine cannon that could load, fire and clean itself once every second or potentially up to 60 times

2088-420: A quickly-traversing turret with a high rate of elevation, for tracking fast-moving aircraft. They are often in dual or quadruple mounts, allowing a high rate of fire. In addition, most anti-aircraft guns can be used in a direct-fire role against surface targets to great effect. Today, surface-to-air missiles (generally mounted on similar turrets) have largely supplanted anti-aircraft guns, but they may return as

2175-400: A range of 175 miles (282 km). The vehicle was powered by a six-cylinder White 160AX, 128 horsepower (95 kW), 386 cubic inches (6,325 cc) gasoline engine , with a compression ratio of 6.3:1. It had a power-to-weight ratio of 15.8 horsepower per short ton (17.7 hp/LT; 17.4 hp/t) and weighed nine short tons (8.0 long tons; 8.2 t). The armor across most of the vehicle

2262-402: A reasonable rate of fire and reliability. In contrast to the rotary format, such weapons have a single barrel and a recoil-operated carriage holding a revolving chamber with typically five chambers. As each round is fired, electrically, the carriage moves back rotating the chamber which also ejects the spent case, indexes the next live round to be fired with the barrel and loads the next round into

2349-466: A reduced rate of fire. Some designs – such as the many variants of the MG42 – are capable of rates of fire in excess of 1,200 rounds per minute. Motorized Gatling guns can achieve the fastest firing rates of all, partly because this format involves extra energy being injected into the system from outside, instead of depending on energy derived from the propellant contained within the cartridges, partly because

2436-598: A sector of land with grazing fire . They are commonly mounted on fast attack vehicles such as technicals to provide heavy mobile firepower, armored vehicles such as tanks for engaging targets too small to justify the use of the primary weaponry or too fast to effectively engage with it, and on aircraft as defensive armament or for strafing ground targets, though on fighter aircraft true machine guns have mostly been supplanted by large-caliber rotary guns. Some machine guns have in practice sustained fire almost continuously for hours; other automatic weapons overheat after less than

2523-414: A time when close. It was also claimed to be able to shoot 5 or 6 times before infantry came within musket range or cavalry within pistol range and with no more space between each shot than the time needed to prime a pistol, cock it and release the hammer as well as being nearly as manoeuvrable as cavalry. An alternative and heavier version was said to be able to throw grenades and it was also proposed to equip

2610-497: A tripod. The heavy machine gun is a term originating in World War I to describe heavyweight medium machine guns and persisted into World War II with Japanese Hotchkiss M1914 clones; today, however, it is used to refer to automatic weapons with a caliber of at least 12.7 mm (0.5 in), but less than 20 mm (0.8 in). A general-purpose machine gun is usually a lightweight medium machine gun that can either be used with

2697-451: A vehicle in response to a long-standing requirement for an anti-aircraft vehicle to protect the U.S. Army's mechanized troop convoys from aerial attack. The first vehicle produced in the development of a half-track with an anti-aircraft armament was the T1, which had two M2 machine guns on a Bendix machine gun mount—as used on jeeps—on a 4×4 truck. The T1E1 had a power-operated Bendix mount, and

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2784-436: A very light cannon that could fire from a single barrel 30 shots in 2 and a half minutes for a total rate of fire of 12 shots a minute. In 1711, a French lawyer called Barbuot presented to the parliament of Dijon a crank-operated 'war machine' made up of 10 carbine barrels and loaded via a 'drum' capable of firing in vollies. It was said to be accurate at 400 to 500 paces and to strike with enough force to pierce 2 or 3 men at

2871-623: Is a fully automatic and rifled firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges . Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles ) are typically designed more for firing short bursts rather than continuous firepower and are not considered true machine guns. Submachine guns fire handgun cartridges rather than rifle cartridges, therefore they are not considered machine guns, while automatic firearms of 20 mm (0.79 in) caliber or more are classified as autocannons rather than machine guns. As

2958-569: Is a revolving arquebus , produced by Hans Stopler of Nuremberg in 1597. True repeating long arms were difficult to manufacture prior to the development of the unitary firearm cartridge; nevertheless, lever-action repeating rifles such as the Kalthoff repeater and Cookson repeater were made in small quantities in the 17th century. Perhaps the earliest examples of predecessors to the modern machine gun are to be found in East Asia. According to

3045-900: Is locked into the chamber. Almost all machine guns have a "safety" sear, which simply keeps the trigger from engaging. The first successful machine-gun designs were developed in the mid-19th century. The key characteristic of modern machine guns, their relatively high rate of fire and more importantly mechanical loading, first appeared in the Model 1862 Gatling gun , which was adopted by the United States Navy . These weapons were still powered by hand; however, this changed with Hiram Maxim 's idea of harnessing recoil energy to power reloading in his Maxim machine gun . Dr. Gatling also experimented with electric-motor-powered models; as discussed above, this externally powered machine reloading has seen use in modern weapons as well. While technical use of

3132-1265: Is more limited. The U.S. Army did use the M163 VADS and developed the prototype design of the M247 Sergeant York . Modern SPAAGs usually have short-range missiles for longer range engagement. The Pantsir system from Russia is primarily a missile battery, although it does have twin cannons as secondary armament. Some examples of modern SPAAG: 2 × FN-6A — 4 × QW-2 IR missiles 4 × FN-6 IR missiles PGL-XX (Code name 625) 4 to 8 × FN-16 (for PGZ 625E ) Thales A3B-T programmed telescoped ammunition (Israeli Aircraft Industries) 4 × FIM-92 Stinger — (Consortium Iveco OTO Melara ) "OTO Main Anti-aircraft Tank for Intercept and Combat" "Maneuver Short Range Air Defense" 1 M240 (7.62mm) 4 × FIM-92 Stinger 2 × AGM-114L Hellfire 7.62 × 51 mm — — (Mitsubishi Heavy Industries) HEI ammunition MADIS RWS "Marine Air Defense Integrated System US Marine Corps Ground Based Air Defense" Machine gun A machine gun ( MG )

3219-634: Is required. Early machine guns were often water-cooled and while this technology was very effective, (and was indeed one of the sources of the notorious efficiency of machine guns during the First World War ), the water jackets also added considerable weight to an already bulky design; they were also vulnerable to the enemies' bullets themselves. Armour could be provided, and in WW I the Germans in particular often did this; but this added yet more weight to

3306-549: Is the recoil actuated type, which uses the gun's recoil energy for the same purpose. Machine guns, such as the M2 Browning and MG42 , are of this second kind. A cam, lever or actuator absorbs part of the energy of the recoil to operate the gun mechanism. An externally actuated weapon uses an external power source, such as an electric motor or hand crank, to move its mechanism through the firing sequence. Modern weapons of this type are often referred to as Gatling guns , after

3393-462: The Nordenfelt gun . The first known ancestors of multi-shot weapons were medieval organ guns . An early example of an attempt at the mechanisation of one of these would be an 'engine of war' produced in the mid-1570s in England capable of firing from 160 to 320 shots 4, 8, 12 or 24 bullets at a time at a rate of fire up to roughly 3 times the rate of fire of the typical arquebusier of the day. It

3480-628: The Royal Siamese Army , a SPAAG based on the chassis of the Dragon, Medium, Mark IV artillery tractor ( Vickers Mk.E 6-ton light tank derivative), mounting a revolving Vickers 40 mm QF 2 pounder pom-pom autocannon in an open fighting compartment. About 26 were sold to Siam in 1932 and saw action as infantry support guns and AA guns during the Franco-Thai war (1940–1941) along with 30 Vickers Mk.E Type B 6-ton tanks. Despite being

3567-721: The landing at Anzio with the VI Corps of the Fifth United States Army in January 1944. It was used as an anti-aircraft weapon during the initial landing and then later as a ground support weapon to repel heavy German panzer attacks on the beachhead. It was replaced three months later by the M16 multiple gun motor carriage in April 1944. Only 139 examples were deployed overseas by the U.S. Army. Ten were transferred to

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3654-784: The "Carrier, SP, 4x4, 40 mm AA"), a Bofors 40 mm AA gun mounted on a chassis derived from the Morris "Quad" Field Artillery Tractor truck. Similar types, based on 3-ton lorries, were produced in Britain, Canada and Australia, and together formed the most numerous self-propelled AA guns in British service. The U.S. Army brought truck-towed Bofors 40 mm AA guns along with truck-mounted units fitted with mechanized turrets when they sailed, first for Great Britain and then onto France. The turrets carried four .50 inch (12.7 mm) machine guns, which were designed to be adjusted to converge at

3741-726: The A7V Flakpanzer. Between the two World Wars, the United Kingdom developed the Birch gun , a general-purpose artillery piece on an armoured tracked chassis capable of maintaining formation with their current tanks over terrain. The gun could be elevated for anti-aircraft use. The first tracked SPAAG-design to be manufactured in series was most likely the British/Siamese Vickers Armstrong "Type 76" (per Buddhist year 2476 = 1933 CE), as named by

3828-529: The M3 half-track, since it could store more ammunition. This vehicle, originally designated as the T1E4, was accepted into production as the M13 multiple gun motor carriage on 27 July 1942. A total of 1,103 examples of this variant were produced from 27 July 1942 to 15 May 1943. Half of them (583) were converted into M16s by the White Motor Company before reaching the army. Deliveries began in late 1943. The M13 served at

3915-1012: The Soviet/Russian Tunguska-M1 , which supplanted the ZSU-23 in service, the newer versions of the Gepard, the Chinese Type 95 SPAAA , and the British Marksman turret , which can be used on a wide variety of platforms. Some forces, like the US Army and USMC have mostly forgone self-propelled guns in favor of systems with short-range infrared-guided surface-to-air missiles in the AN/TWQ-1 Avenger and M6 Linebacker , which do not require radar to be accurate and are generally more reliable and cost-effective to field, though their ability to provide ground support

4002-761: The T1E2 a Maxson mount. The T1E3 had an electro-dynamic Glenn L. Martin Company aircraft-type turret. Evaluation of these test vehicles led to the T1E2 design being preferred. The T1E2 became the M16 half-track by replacing the M33 with the M45 mount and the M2 half-track chassis with the M3 half-track chassis. The next stage of development was to use the T1E2 configuration on the longer chassis of

4089-588: The United Kingdom under Lend-Lease . Self-propelled anti-aircraft weapon Specific weapon systems used include machine guns , autocannons , larger guns, or surface-to-air missiles , and some mount both guns and longer-ranged missiles (e.g. the Pantsir-S1 ). Platforms used include both trucks and heavier combat vehicles such as armoured personnel carriers and tanks , which add protection from aircraft, artillery, and small arms fire for front line deployment. Anti-aircraft guns are usually mounted in

4176-680: The Wu-Pei-Chih, a booklet examining Chinese military equipment produced during the first quarter of the 17th century, the Chinese army had in its arsenal the 'Po-Tzu Lien-Chu-P'ao' or 'string-of-100-bullets cannon'. This was a repeating cannon fed by a hopper containing balls which fired its charges sequentially. The way it worked was similar to the Perkins steam gun of 1824 or the Beningfield electrolysis gun of 1845 only slow-burning gunpowder

4263-496: The aircraft will have moved hundreds of meters during the flight time of the shells, greatly complicating the aiming problem to the point where close passes were essentially impossible to aim using manual gunsights. This speed also allowed the aircraft to rapidly fly out of range of the guns; even if the aircraft passes directly over the SPAAG, it would be within its firing radius for under 30 seconds. SPAAG development continued through

4350-461: The basis of size; those using shotgun cartridges are almost always referred to as automatic shotguns . The term personal defense weapon (PDW) is sometimes applied to weapons firing dedicated armor-piercing rounds which would otherwise be regarded as machine pistols or SMGs, but it is not particularly strongly defined and has historically been used to describe a range of weapons from ordinary SMGs to compact assault rifles. Selective-fire rifles firing

4437-406: The chamber. The action is very similar to that of the revolver pistols common in the 19th and 20th centuries, giving this type of weapon its name. A Chain gun is a specific, patented type of Revolver cannon, the name, in this case, deriving from its driving mechanism. As noted above, firing a machine gun for prolonged periods produces large amounts of heat. In a worst-case scenario, this may cause

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4524-547: The county of Westmoreland. In 1777, Philadelphia gunsmith Joseph Belton offered the Continental Congress a "new improved gun" , which was capable of firing up to twenty shots in five seconds; unlike older repeaters using complex lever-action mechanisms, it used a simpler system of superposed loads , and was loaded with a single large paper cartridge . Congress requested that Belton modify 100 flintlock muskets to fire eight shots in this manner, but rescinded

4611-403: The early 1950s with ever-larger guns, improving the range and allowing the engagement to take place at longer distances where the crossing angle was smaller and aiming was easier. Examples including the 40 mm U.S. M42 Duster and the 57 mm Soviet ZSU-57-2 . However, both were essentially obsolete before they entered service, and found employment solely in the ground-support role. The M42

4698-531: The fire into the target, and direct the fire of other soldiers . Many heavy machine guns , such as the Browning M2 .50 BMG machine gun, are accurate enough to engage targets at great distances. During the Vietnam War , Carlos Hathcock set the record for a long-distance shot at 7,382 ft (2,250 m) with a .50 caliber heavy machine gun he had equipped with a telescopic sight . This led to

4785-683: The first tracked SPAAG en masse, the open-top design of the Vickers Type 76 made it outdated even by the early 1930s. The first modern SPAAG to be produced was most likely the Swedish Landsverk L-62 Anti in 1936, featuring a tracked armoured body with a revolving turret, a so-called anti-aircraft tank . It was based on a widened chassis of the Landsverk L-60 light tank and was armed with a Bofors 40 mm Automatic Gun L/60 in an open-top revolving turret. The design

4872-573: The guns. Air-cooled machine guns often feature quick-change barrels (often carried by a crew member), passive cooling fins, or in some designs forced-air cooling, such as that employed by the Lewis Gun . Advances in metallurgy and the use of special composites in barrel liners have allowed for greater heat absorption and dissipation during firing. The higher the rate of fire, the more often barrels must be changed and allowed to cool. To minimize this, most air-cooled guns are fired only in short bursts or at

4959-512: The helicopters would often be within range of the guns for a rapid counterattack. Notable among these later systems is the German Gepard , the first western SPAAG to offer performance equal to or better than the ZSU. This system was widely copied in various NATO forces. SPAAG development continues, with many modern examples often combining both guns and short-range missiles. Examples include

5046-513: The introduction of .50 caliber anti-materiel sniper rifles , such as the Barrett M82 . Other automatic weapons are subdivided into several categories based on the size of the bullet used, whether the cartridge is fired from a closed bolt or an open bolt , and whether the action used is locked or is some form of blowback . Fully automatic firearms using pistol-caliber ammunition are called machine pistols or submachine guns largely on

5133-606: The inventions mentioned in the book, it is uncertain if it was ever built. It is sometimes claimed (i.e. in George Morgan Chinn's the Machine Gun ) that in 1663 the first mention of the automatic principle of machine guns was in a paper presented to the Royal Society of England by Palmer, an Englishman who described a volley gun capable of being operated by either recoil or gas. However, no one has been able to find this paper in recent times and all references to

5220-530: The latter presents. Many machine guns are of the locked breech type, and follow this cycle: The operation is basically the same for all locked breech automatic firearms, regardless of the means of activating these mechanisms. There are also multi-chambered formats, such as revolver cannon , and some types, such as the Schwarzlose machine gun etc., that do not lock the breech but instead use some type of delayed blowback . Most modern machine guns are of

5307-514: The locking type, and of these, most utilize the principle of gas-operated reloading , which taps off some of the propellant gas from the fired cartridge, using its mechanical pressure to unlock the bolt and cycle the action. The first of these was invented by the French brothers Claire, who patented a gas operated rifle, which included a gas cylinder, in 1892. The Russian PK machine gun is a more modern example. Another efficient and widely used format

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5394-438: The machine with a bellows for clearing smoke that built up during firing. Another early revolving gun was created by James Puckle , a London lawyer, who patented what he called "The Puckle Gun " on May 15, 1718. It was a design for a manually operated 1.25 in. (32 mm) caliber, flintlock cannon with a revolver cylinder able to fire 6–11 rounds before reloading by swapping out the cylinder, intended for use on ships . It

5481-430: The next round can be inserted simultaneously with or before the ejection of the previous cartridge case, and partly because this design intrinsically deals with the unwanted heat very efficiently – effectively quick-changing the barrel and chamber after every shot. The multiple guns that comprise a Gatling being a much larger bulk of metal than other, single-barreled guns, they are thus much slower to rise in temperature for

5568-413: The order when Belton's price proved too high. In 1779, a machine made up of 21 musket barrels worked by 3 men was produced by a British inventor called William Wilson Wright which he claimed could be fired 3 times quicker than a single man could load and fire a musket 3 times. In 1788, a Swiss soldier invented a machine worked by 10 men capable of discharging 300 balls in 3 minutes. Also in 1788, it

5655-413: The original inventor (not only of the well-known hand-cranked 19th century proto-machine gun, but also of the first electrically powered version). They have several barrels each with an associated chamber and action on a rotating carousel and a system of cams that load, cock, and fire each mechanism progressively as it rotates through the sequence; essentially each barrel is a separate bolt-action rifle using

5742-461: The presence of SAMs forced aircraft to fly low to avoid their radars, placing them within range of the ZSUs. The success of the ZSU-23 led to a resurgence of SPAAG development. This was also prompted by the introduction of attack helicopters in the 1970s, which could hide behind terrain and then "pop up" for an attack lasting only a few tens of seconds; missiles were ineffective at low altitudes, while

5829-403: The production lines. The M13 half-track was 21 feet 4 inches (6.50 m) long, 7 feet 1 inch (2.16 m) wide, and 7 feet 8 inches (2.34 m) high with a wheelbase of 135.5 inches (3.44 m). It had bogie suspension for the wheels and vertical volute springs for the tracks. It had a 60 US gal (50 imp gal; 230 L) fuel capacity and

5916-408: The proofing of a 'great gun' capable of firing 60 times in a minute. In 1773, another cannon capable of firing 23 or 24 times in a minute and cleaning itself after every shot was invented by Thomas Desaguliers . In 1775, it was mentioned that in England two large cannons invented by an unidentified matross at Woolwich had achieved a rate of fire of 59 shots in 59 and a half seconds. Also in 1775,

6003-532: The rifle-calibre Minigun is an exception to this. Whereas such weapons are highly reliable and formidably effective, one drawback is that the weight and size of the power source and driving mechanism makes them usually impractical for use outside of a vehicle or aircraft mount. Revolver cannons , such as the Mauser MK 213 , were developed in World War II by the Germans to provide high-caliber cannons with

6090-406: The same time, mechanical timing is essential for operator safety, to prevent the round from firing before it is seated properly. Machine guns are controlled by one or more mechanical sears. When a sear is in place, it effectively stops the bolt at some point in its range of motion. Some sears stop the bolt when it is locked to the rear. Other sears stop the firing pin from going forward after the round

6177-553: The single point where enemy aircraft were expected to appear at low altitude in conduction of strafing runs directed at large infantry and field artillery units. Interest in mobile AA turned to heavier vehicles with the mass and stability needed to easily train weapons of all sizes. Probably the desire, particularly in German service, for anti-aircraft vehicles to be armoured for their own protection also assisted this trend. The concept of using armored SPAAG (anti-aircraft tanks) en masse

6264-459: The subsequent rough doubling of aircraft speeds greatly reduced the effectiveness of the SPAAG against attack aircraft. A typical SPAAG round might have a muzzle velocity on the order of 1,000 metres per second (3,300 ft/s) and might take as long as two to three seconds to reach a target at its maximum range. An aircraft flying at 1,000 kilometres per hour (620 mph) is moving at a rate of about 280 metres per second (920 ft/s). This means

6351-550: The term "machine gun" has varied, the modern definition used by the Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute of America is "a fully automatic firearm that loads, fires and ejects continuously when the trigger is held to the rear until the ammunition is exhausted or pressure on the trigger is released." This definition excludes most early manually operated repeating arms the Gatling gun and such as volley guns like

6438-469: The time of the war, they fielded the Sd.Kfz. 10/4 and Sd.Kfz. 6/2 , cargo half-tracks mounting single 20 mm or 37 mm AA guns (respectively). Later in the war similar German half-tracks mounted quadruple 20 mm weapons . Larger guns followed on larger trucks, but these mountings generally required off-truck setup in order to unlimber the stabilizing legs these guns needed. One exception to this rule

6525-504: Was 0.25 inches (6.35 mm) thick with a 0.5 inches (12.7 mm) thick windscreen visor. The vehicle was armed with two 0.5 inch M2 Browning heavy machine guns placed on an M33 Maxson mount . The two machine guns were fired remotely and powered by a small electrical motor near the back of the turret. The guns were aimed with a Mark 9 reflector sight . Each vehicle had a crew of five (commander, driver, gunner, and two ammunition loaders). In October 1940, development began to produce

6612-680: Was also claimed that the gun could be reloaded 'as often as you like' and fired no matter the weather though the English government never adopted the weapon despite testing being carried out at the Tower of London . The first firearms to have the ability to fire multiple shots from a single barrel without a full manual reload were revolvers made in Europe in the late 1500s. One is a shoulder-gun-length weapon made in Nuremberg, Germany, circa 1580. Another

6699-578: Was bought by Hungary just prior to the war and Finland ordered a refined model in 1941, known as the Anti II . By the late 1930s, the British had developed a version of the Mk.VI Light Tank armed with four machine guns that were known as Light Tank AA Mk.I, and also a twin 15 mm version based on the Light Tank Mk.V was built. Among early pre-war pioneers of self-propelled AA guns were the Germans. By

6786-608: Was ever used in combat was when the Americans landed at Anzio in January 1944. It was replaced by the more heavily armed M16 multiple gun motor carriage in April 1944. The M13 evolved from a series of several unsuccessful prototypes that were trialed from 1940 to 1942. Of these, the T1E4 was selected and given the official name of the M13 MGMC, before being placed into production. Half of the M13s produced were converted into M16s on

6873-503: Was generally held by many forces, and the anti-aircraft role turned almost exclusively to missile systems. The Soviet Union remained an outlier, beginning the development of a new SPAAG in 1957, which emerged as the ZSU-23-4 in 1965. This system included search-and-track radars, fire control, and automatic gun-laying, greatly increasing its effectiveness against modern targets. The ZSU-23 proved very effective when used in concert with SAMs;

6960-562: Was introduced to the Vietnam War to counter an expected North Vietnamese air offensive, but when this failed to materialize it was used as an effective direct-fire weapon. The ZSU-57 found similar use in the Yugoslav Wars , where its high-angle fire was useful in the mountainous terrain. By the late 1950s, the US Army had given up on the SPAAG concept, considering all gun-based weapons to be useless against modern aircraft. This belief

7047-579: Was mounted on trucks for use on the Western Front . The British also had a first dedicated anti aircraft weapon, the QF 1-pounder pom-pom . Mounted on an armoured truck titled the Pierce-Arrow armoured AA lorry , which was produced in limited numbers and only seeing service throughout 1915. Towards the end of the war Germany produced three prototype SPAAGs with AA guns mounted on A7V chassis known as

7134-459: Was one of the earliest weapons to be referred to as a machine gun, being called such in 1722, though its operation does not match the modern usage of the term. According to Puckle, it was able to fire round bullets at Christians and square bullets at Turks . However, it was a commercial failure and was not adopted or produced in any meaningful quantity. In 1729, a report was written in France on

7221-591: Was pioneered by Hungary during World War II with the production of the 40M Nimrod , a license-produced version of the previously mentioned late 1930s Landsverk L-62 Anti I SPAAG. Germany followed later with their " Flakpanzer " series. German World War II SPAAGs include the Möbelwagen , Wirbelwind , Ostwind and Kugelblitz . Other forces followed with designs of their own, notably the American M16 created by mounting quadruple M2HB Browning machine guns on

7308-413: Was reported that a Prussian officer had invented a gun capable of firing 400 balls one after the other. In 1790, a former officer in the French military known as Joseph-François-Louis Grobert invented a 'ballistic machine' or 'pyroballistic machine' with multiple barrels operated by 4 men and a continuous rotational movement capable of firing 360 rifle shots a minute in a variety of calibers. In 1792,

7395-490: Was the Italian Cannone da 90/53 which was highly effective when mounted on trucks, a fit known as the " autocannoni da 90/53 ". The 90/53 was a feared weapon, notably in the anti-tank role, but only a few hundred had been produced by the time of the armistice in 1943. Other nations tended to work on truck chassis. Starting in 1941, the British developed the "en portee " method of mounting an anti-tank gun (initially

7482-562: Was used as the propelling force in place of steam or the gases produced by electrolysis. Another repeating gun was produced by a Chinese commoner, Dai Zi, in the late 17th century. This weapon was also hopper-fed and never went into mass production. In 1655, a way of loading, aiming and shooting up to 6 wall muskets 60 times in a minute for a total rate of fire of 360 shots per minute was mentioned in The Century of Inventions by Edward Somerset, 2nd Marquess of Worcester , though, like all

7569-420: Was worked by a "wheel" fed by paper cartridges from a store attached to the cannon and ignited using a match from a match-holder somewhere else on the cannon. In 1825 an Italian book attempting to catalogue all topographic features of all known countries on Earth mentioned that in France there were 'mechanical rifles' used to defend warehouses that were capable of firing 120 shots without reloading. In 1828,

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