Poem about Maxim. A retrospective. Part 6. From Montigny to Hotchkiss

Friends went to the "Abode of mirth"; they are the deacon bought a potion on a blood patch. And boiled alive speech: metralleta, on the canister, about the horrors sedensky sich waistlevel deacon. ("The soldier's gold", * leonid trefolev, 1871) the series "Poem of "Maxim" readers are largely liked. But many of them have expressed the wish to see on the pages of the story and the predecessors of maxima - metralleta or artecnica. And yes, indeed, the time when hiram maxim designed his famous machine gun, can rightly be called the era of miralles, which was used in the war field, and in the navy. However, in effect they were operated by hand! that is, it is obvious that many of the truly epochal inventions usually had his predecessors, and that's just mitraleza and was in some sense the ancestor of the machine gun, and perhaps the closest! after a quick shoot at the enemy people wanted to learn for a very long time, and now, not knowing the gun, they came up with it, and for some time they completely replaced it.

And that's about micralite the precursor to all modern machine guns today and will be our story. Mitraleza gatling, model 1876. Fort laramie, wyoming, usa. "Cropio", "Forty" and "The gun pachla" and it came to pass that at the dawn of the use of firearms have been among his supporters clever people will notice that it is very long and troublesome to plug it in! well, really, does it matter to pour into the barrel of powder, then insert the wad, then the bullet, then again to fill the gunpowder into the ignition hole, to inflate a burning fuse, and then attach to the fuse. And all this time you, in fact, completely exposed, and you can easily kill, and repeatedly! therefore, already during the hussite wars and of the reign in england of king henry viii in the armies of many countries, a so-called "Shooting mace", which was a short barrel, shackled between the metal hoops in the amount of 5-6 pieces, fixed on a wooden handle. It pinched under my arm, and, turning with one hand trunks at a time, the other brought him to the wick, which allowed to shoot at the enemy a real "Turn. " well, then, not to recharge them, with that "Weapon" was in melee, good to spoil it from bumps, it was just nothing. Henry viii such a device was even in his personal use and were called "Kapila", with whom he used to stroll through london in the dark! but there was a famous conqueror of siberia yermak timofeyevich were armed with "Forty -" – two-wheeled carriage with fixed on her from the family trunks, also shooting at a time.

Soon fantasy weapons masters really roam and went in the course of 20, 40 and even 60-barrel so-called "Organ" guns, which was a small-caliber guns on the frames, the priming holes which have a common chute for the powder mixture. Gunpowder it ignited, the fire ran through the chute, consistently ignites the fuses, and trunks, which he was connected, fired one after the other, and very quickly. That's just the start of the shooting it was impossible to stop, but was charged "Bodies" for a very long time, and to aim them was very difficult. In the army museum in paris there is even a cannon with nine channels, drilled in a single barrel. And the channel that was in the middle, had a larger calibre than eight a side.

Used this "Wonder-gun", apparently so: first shot out of it exactly the same as from conventional weapons, but when the enemy was very close, he started to shoot all these guns. At the same time the "Authorities" took arms and so-called "Espinal". This weapons barrel was only one, but the charges in it when charging was located one after another, and set fire to them with the muzzle of the barrel with a firing cord. After that, the shots came one after another without stopping. However, here is a "Rogue weapon" turned out to be quite dangerous, as it was enough propellant gases from one charge to break through to others, as its trunk is immediately terminated.

Required to insulate charges from each other, and so there was a system in which the charges and the bullets were in a special drum, and ignited either by a fuse or common flint lock. One of the inventions in this area was done by british lawyer from london, james palom, patented in 1718 "The gun pakla". It was set on a tripod barrel with 11-round drum-cylinder in the breech. Each new shot was fired when the rotation of the drum, as in the revolver. After the ammunition was expended, used cylinder was replaced, which allowed to produce up to nine rounds per minute.

Crew consisted of several people, and his "The gun" pack supposed to use the ships to bombard the enemy boarding teams. The gun pakla. The reels are shown for both round and square bullets. Illustration from a patent of 1718. Interestingly, he developed two versions of his weapons: from the usual for those years the spherical lead bullets and bullets of the cubic form, which, as was believed, was to cause more mayhem, and applied only against the enemies of the muslims (including turks). However, the creation pakla on his contemporaries the impression somehow not made. Mitraleza - the french word meanwhile, in the early 19th century in Europe began a technical revolution, there were machines with steam driven, and the accuracy of manufactured parts on them has increased dramatically.

Moreover was created a unitary cartridges, combining gunpowder, primer and bullet into a single munition, and all this together led to the emergence of the micralite or kartechnitsy. The name comes from the french word, denotes buckshot, although it should be noted that the kartechnitsy shot, not buckshot and bullets, but it has been the custom from the beginning, because the first metralleta in 1851 invented belgian manufacturer joseph montigny, France took it on the arms of his army. Mitraleza montigny. Fig. A.

Sheps. Admirable ingenuity. I must say that montigny showed great ingenuity as they created the weapon was a very good fighting qualities and original device. So guns caliber 13 mm, it was exactly 37 and they all charged simultaneously with a special plate holder with holes for rounds in which they were held for lip. The plate together with cartridges need to be inserted into the grooves behind the barrel, then pushing the lever all at the same time they were stalkivalis in the trunks, and the shutter was locked at the same time firmly. To start shooting, it was necessary to rotate the handle installed on the right side, and here she is through a worm gear and dropped down a plate that covered the strikers, in front of the caps of the cartridges.

Spring-loaded rods when they beat the strikers, and those respectively – on caps, which the shots followed one another as the plate fell. Was it because the top edge had a stepped profile, and the rods popped out of their sockets and beat the strikers in a specific order. Thus, the faster the handle rotates, the faster fell the plate and, well, the faster was the shooting. Experienced calculation could replace the plates with new ones within five seconds, which allowed to achieve a rate of fire of 300 rounds per minute.

But even a more modest value of 150 shots in those days was a great indicator. Mitraleza montigny. (army museum, paris) in another embodiment, the micralite design de vercheres. Raffi, the number of stems was reduced to 25, but its rate has not changed. Mitraleza, raffi. Fig. A.

Sheps, breech of micralite, raffi. (army museum, paris) mitraleza, raffi (army museum, paris) in microlise, raffi store of ammunition and four guide pins are pressed to the stem screw, which rotates the arm located in the breech. Between the primers of the cartridges there is a plate with the notched holes, which by rotation of the other arm shifted to the right horizontally. The strikers fell into the hole and beat on the caps.

This happened the shots, and after the store was spent, by turning the handle, he was released and replaced with a new one. Diagram of the micralite, raffi and cartridge (right). Micralite was used by the french during the war with pRussia in 1871, but without much success, as the weapon was new and they simply did not know how to apply it correctly. Cartridge and it micralite, raffi. Micralite and begin to lose and then it came to pass that in 1861 america's civil war began between the North and South and military inventions and with that, and on the other hand fell, as if from a cornucopia. Everyone knows that during the civil war in the United States in terms of industrial development, the Northerners ahead of the Southerners. However, the Southerners almost simultaneously with the Northmen have developed a quick-firing gun of williams. And the Northerners in response created the "Grinder of ager".

So here they were almost.