At the present time each War Department has its own special service weapon. The German Mauser magazine-pistol for officer’s use fires ten shots in ten seconds, a slight pressure of the trigger setting the full machinery in motion; the pressure of gas at each explosion does all the rest of the work—extracts and ejects the cartridge case, cocks the hammer, and presses springs which reload and close the weapon, all in a fraction of a second. The Mannlicher is of the same automatic type, but its barrel moves to the front, leaving space for a fresh cartridge to come up from the magazine below, while in the Mauser the breech moves to the rear during recoil. The range is half a mile. The cartridges are made up in sets of ten in a case, which can be inserted in one movement.
Machine-Guns.
Intermediate between hand-borne weapons and artillery, and partaking of the nature of both, come the machine-guns firing small projectiles with extraordinary rapidity.
Since the United States made trial of Dr. Gatling’s miniature battery in the Civil War (1862-1865), invention has been busy evolving more and more perfect types, till the most modern machine-gun is a marvel of ingenuity and effectiveness.
The Gatling machine-gun, which has been much improved in late years by the Accles system of “feed,” and is not yet completely out of date, consists of a circular series of ten barrels—each with its own lock—mounted on a central shaft and revolved by a suitable gear. The cartridges are successively fed by automatic actions into the barrels, and the hammers are so arranged that the entire operation of loading, closing the breech, firing and withdrawing the empty cartridge-cases (which is known as their “longitudinal reciprocating motion”) is carried on while the locks are kept in constant revolution, along with the barrels and breech, by means of a hand-crank. One man places a feed-case filled with cartridges into the hopper, another turns the crank. As the gun is rotated the cartridges drop one by one from the feed-cases into the grooves of the carrier, and its lock loads and fires each in turn. While the gun revolves further the lock, drawing back, extracts and drops the empty case; it is then ready for the next cartridge.
In action five cartridges are always going through some process of loading, while five empty shells are in different stages of ejection. The latest type, fitted with an electro-motor, will fire at the rate of one thousand rounds per minute, and eighty rounds have actually been fired within ten seconds! It is not, however, safe to work these machine-guns so fast, as the cartridges are apt to be occasionally pulled through unfired and then explode among the men’s legs. The automatic guns, on the contrary, as they only work by the explosion, are free from any risk of such accidents.
The feed-drums contain 104 cartridges, and can be replaced almost instantly. One drumful can be discharged in 5-1/4 seconds. The small-sized Gatling has a drum-feed of 400 cartridges in sixteen sections of twenty-five each passed up without interruption.
The gun is mounted for use so that it can be pointed at any angle, and through a wide lateral range, without moving the carriage.
The Gardner.—The Gatling, as originally made, was for a time superseded by the Gardner, which differed from it in having the barrels (four or fewer in number) fixed in the same horizontal plane. This was worked by a rotatory handle on the side of the gun. The cartridges slid down a feed-case in a column to the barrel, where they were fired by a spring acting on a hammer.
The Nordenfelt.—Mr. Nordenfelt’s machine-gun follows this precedent; its barrels—10, 5, 4, 2, or 1 in number—also being arranged horizontally in a strong, rigid frame. Each barrel has its own breech-plug, striker, spring, and extractor, and each fires independently of the rest, so that all are not out of action together. The gun has a swivelled mount easily elevated and trained, and the steel frames take up the force of the discharge. In rapid firing one gunner can work the firing-handle while another lays and alters the direction. The firing is operated by a lever working backwards and forwards by hand, and the gun can be discharged at the rate of 600 rounds per minute.