A 7.62 mm GAU-17/A gatling gun of the U.S. Navy. It is an externally powered automatic machine gun. The electric motor that powers its loading, priming, and firing mechanics is on top. Also, note the spade grips and pintle mount.

Conventional machine-gun development has been slowed by the fact that existing machine-gun designs are adequate for most purposes, although significant developments are taking place with regard to antiarmor and antimissile weapons.

Electronically controlled machine guns with ultrahigh rates of fire, like Metal Storm's weapons may see use in some applications, although current small-caliber weapons of this type have found little use: they are too light for anti-vehicle use, but too heavy (especially with the need to carry a tactically useful amount of ammunition) for individual soldiers. The trend towards higher reliability and lower mass for a given power will likely continue. Another example is the six barreled, 4000 round per minute, XM214 minigun "six pack" developed by General Electric. It has a complex power train and weighs 85 pounds, factors which may, in some circumstances, mitigate against its deployment.

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Human interface

The most common interface on machine guns is a pistol grip and trigger. On earlier manual machine guns, the most common type was a hand crank. On externally powered machine guns, such as miniguns, an electronic button or trigger on a joystick is commonly used. Light machine guns often have a butt stock attached, while vehicle and tripod mounted machine guns usually have spade grips. In the late 20th century, scopes and other complex optics became more common as opposed to the more basic iron sights.

Loading systems in early manual machine guns were often from a hopper of loose (un-linked) cartridges. Manual-operated volley guns usually had to be reloaded manually all at once (each barrel reloaded by hand). With hoppers, the rounds could often be added while the weapon was firing. This gradually changed to belt-fed types. Belts were either held in the open by the person, or in a bag or box. Some modern vehicle machine guns used linkless feed systems however.

Closeup of M2 - This machine gun is part complex armament subsystem; it is aimed and fired from the aircraft rather than directly

Modern machine guns are usually mounted in one of four ways. The first is a bipod - often these are integrated with the weapon. This is common on light machine guns and also medium machine guns. Another major way is with a larger tripod, where the person holding it does not form a 'leg' of support. Medium and heavy machine guns usually use tripods. On ships and aircraft machine guns are usually mounted on a pintle mount - basically a steel post that is connected to the frame. Tripod and pintle mounts are usually used with spade grips. The last major mounting type is one that is disconnected from humans, as part of an armament system, such as a tank coaxial or part of aircraft's armament. These are usually electrically-fired and have complex sighting systems. (For examples see US Helicopter Armament Subsystems).

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Notes

1. ^ In United States law, a Machine Gun is defined (in part) by The National Firearms Act of 1934, 26 U.S.C. § 5845(b) as “... any weapon which shoots ... automatically more than one shot, without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.”
2. ^ Famous Historical Gun Manufacturers
3. ^ Henderson, Charles. Marine Sniper Berkley Caliber. (2005) ISBN 0-425-10355-2.
4. ^ CHU-KO-NU - The Chinese Repeating Crossbow
5. ^ A. K. Bag (2005), "Fathullah Shirazi: Cannon, Multi-barrel Gun and Yarghu", Indian Journal of History of Science 40 (3), pp. 431-436.

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See also

• Category:Machine guns
• Light machine gun
• Medium machine gun
• Heavy machine gun
• Firearm action
• Metal Storm
• Squad automatic weapon
• Breda (machine gun)
• Weapon
• General-purpose machine gun
• List of firearms
• Mitrailleuse - The French word for machine gun, but also a type of manual volley gun.
• Submachine gun

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External links

• Articles about Guns and Weapons in War
• subguns.com - US site with discussion on the topic and controlling US laws, and many machine guns for sale under US regulations
• MachineGun.com - Machineguns available for law enforcement, military and civilian sales.
• How Stuff Works - Very well written article with animated diagrams
• Gun history
• U.S. Patent 15,315  -- A patent for an early automatic cannon
• Vickers Machine gun site
• The REME Museum of Technology - machine guns