Gatling gun (1 Viewer)

[Spanish soldier]

Was used in the American Civil War or Indian War?^&confuse

Francisco

 

[4th Hussar]

Patented in 1861 and saw limited use in Civil War. Don't know if it as used in Indian wars but was used in Spanish American War.

 

[Arnhemjim]

Was used in the American Civil War or Indian War?^&confuse

Francisco

Hello Spanish Soldier,
I think the following information will be of interest regarding the use of the Gatling Gun by the United States Army in the mid to late nineteenth century;

http://www.amazon.com/Custers-Gatling-Guns-Machine-Little/dp/1926585011
http://www.ccbpublishing.com/dfmyers.html
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/machine_gun.aspx

The following discussion is taken from a U.S. Army Command and General Staff College research paper, which you can find and download from http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA437022.

"After all, the late-nineteenth century US Army was, in essence, a constabulary force who was chiefly concerned with policing the frontier. Large, heavy, horse drawn weapons simply were not well suited to ranging over thousands of miles of prairie and the army saw no good reason to force the issue with the Gatling gun. Logistical concerns continued to plague the weapon as well. Even with the advent of the center-fire primer and the drawn brass cartridge, which greatly improved the uniformity and reliability of ammunition, the Gatling still had several bugs that detracted from its usefulness. The weapon was prone to breakdown in field conditions, there was no effective way to traverse the weapon rapidly, and the sheer weight of the multi-barrel gun and its carriage made it as relatively immobile as an artillery piece. Frontier warfare called for highly mobile light cavalry units, not slow-moving artillery caissons. The army supply system had also still not developed to the point where it could ensure that ammunition supply would keep up with expenditure. An infantryman’s basic load for ammunition during the Civil War was 40 rounds, fired at the rate of about three rounds per minute.12 Thus even when the Gatling was using the same caliber ammunition as the infantry, at 200 rounds per minute a single Gatling gun could expend ammunition at a rate equivalent to an entire company. Even when fixes for these logistical problems could be identified, such as when Major Alfred Gibbs of the Seventh Cavalry recommended a new design for a lighter, more mobile gun carriage for the Gatling, they often were not acted upon.13 One major reason for this was the absence of an official bureaucratic mechanism for soldiers in the combat arms to influence the design or redesign of their equipment. Only the technical experts at the Bureau of Ordnance could do that. In such a setup, bureaucratic considerations such as cost, durability, and the availability of funds were at least as important if not more so than the needs of the field forces.14 Considering all of these bureaucratic and logistical factors in sum, it is no wonder that the US Army generally ignored the Gatling and other similar weapons. In fact, it was not until the Spanish-American War that the army got its first real insight on what a machine gun could do in combat."
Best Wishes in the New Year,
Arnhem Jim
Arizona Territory

 

[Spanish soldier]

Interesting book, I would like to find also published in spanish
Happy New Year all:salute::