Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
- 8,995
The Machine Gun Is
Invented - Over 300 Years Ago!
If you ask someone when the machine gun was invented, they usually answer "about the middle of the 19th century" - and names like Dr. Richard J. Gatling (Gatling Gun 1860)...
...of the Belgian Captain Fafchamps (Mitrailleuse, 1850)...
...or Hiram Maxim ("Maxim" MG, 1884)...:
All wrong!
The machine gun is more than 150 years older!
On May 15, 1718, the London barrister James Puckle ...
... received a patent for a weapon he invented, which he called "Puckle Defense Gun"...:
The weapon already had all the peculiarities that the later machine guns also had:
The single barrel, a drum that could be rotated with a hand crank, which could be changed quickly and whose chambers could be reloaded individually, the tripod and the swiveling construction!
However, the brass cartridge had not yet been invented - and the individual chambers of the weapon had to be loaded with rather large-calibre balls and powder and ignited and fired with a flintlock, which made handling very unwieldy and the rate of fire very slow.
A peloton of well-trained musket shooters did far more then!
Also, Puckle's "Defense Gun" was quite a chunk, as you can see...:
As a result, interest in the gun from Mr. Puckle's target clientele, the Royal Army and Royal Navy, was zero! Not a single Puckle MG was sold!
Still, James Puckle has every right to claim credit for inventing the first working machine gun in history!
And here it is...:
Invented - Over 300 Years Ago!
If you ask someone when the machine gun was invented, they usually answer "about the middle of the 19th century" - and names like Dr. Richard J. Gatling (Gatling Gun 1860)...
...of the Belgian Captain Fafchamps (Mitrailleuse, 1850)...
...or Hiram Maxim ("Maxim" MG, 1884)...:
All wrong!
The machine gun is more than 150 years older!
On May 15, 1718, the London barrister James Puckle ...
... received a patent for a weapon he invented, which he called "Puckle Defense Gun"...:
The weapon already had all the peculiarities that the later machine guns also had:
The single barrel, a drum that could be rotated with a hand crank, which could be changed quickly and whose chambers could be reloaded individually, the tripod and the swiveling construction!
However, the brass cartridge had not yet been invented - and the individual chambers of the weapon had to be loaded with rather large-calibre balls and powder and ignited and fired with a flintlock, which made handling very unwieldy and the rate of fire very slow.
A peloton of well-trained musket shooters did far more then!
Also, Puckle's "Defense Gun" was quite a chunk, as you can see...:
As a result, interest in the gun from Mr. Puckle's target clientele, the Royal Army and Royal Navy, was zero! Not a single Puckle MG was sold!
Still, James Puckle has every right to claim credit for inventing the first working machine gun in history!
And here it is...:
