WEBVTT - The Story of the Gatling Gun 0:00:00.320 --> 0:00:02.960 Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:08.959 It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with 0:00:09.080 --> 0:00:17.760 tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone, 0:00:17.840 --> 0:00:20.119 Welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Bolette and 0:00:20.120 --> 0:00:22.640 I am an editor at how stuff works dot Com. 0:00:22.640 --> 0:00:25.200 Sitting across from me, as he always does, senior writer 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:30.240 Jonathan Strickland. Do you see this? This is my boom stick? 0:00:32.040 --> 0:00:35.240 All right. That leads us to a little listener mail. 0:00:40.320 --> 0:00:42.800 This listener mail comes from Damon, and Damon says, could 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.280 you please do a podcast on how the Gatling gun works? 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:47.160 Because I saw it on MythBusters and I was wondering 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:50.000 how it works. Well, Damon, we're gonna talk a bit 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:53.840 about the Gatling gun today. It's an interesting piece of technology. 0:00:53.880 --> 0:00:57.440 But to really understand how the Gatling gun works, we 0:00:57.520 --> 0:01:00.440 need to go back further and talk about just the 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:04.160 principles of firearms and how they work in general. Here 0:01:04.240 --> 0:01:09.000 we actually have already touched on a very very early firearm, uh, 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.319 the arc Bus. Yeah. We talked in our our tech 0:01:12.440 --> 0:01:14.840 of fifteen hundred. We we kind of went into this. 0:01:16.000 --> 0:01:20.600 It was technically, you're right, the tech of fifteen ten 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:25.360 and uh So going back to around the mid of 0:01:25.400 --> 0:01:29.000 the fourteenth century, that's when we first started seeing uh 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:31.679 not we personally, I wasn't around back then, don't know 0:01:31.680 --> 0:01:35.919 about you. Put but the that's when cannons first started 0:01:36.080 --> 0:01:40.319 to hit the scene in medieval Europe. Yes, but they 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:42.720 were they were very inaccurated, so they missed the scene 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:45.160 part of the time. I couldn't have the broadside of 0:01:45.160 --> 0:01:48.320 a barn. But yeah, the the cannon was the probably 0:01:48.360 --> 0:01:52.200 the earliest form of gun. Um. I would imagine it 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:55.720 probably was simply because they wanted something that would created, uh, 0:01:56.600 --> 0:01:59.720 something that would fire a big projectile and a gun 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:01.400 that that actually is a good point and a gun 0:02:01.440 --> 0:02:06.160 in this definition is basically a tube sealed off at 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:10.080 one end um that that can fire or some sort 0:02:10.120 --> 0:02:13.880 of projectile. Yeah, and it has at least the early cannon. 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:16.040 The way they worked as they had a whole drilled 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.959 toward the sealed end where you could place a lit 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.160 fuse to light the gunpowder. So you would the way 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:25.080 you would load a cannon as you would pack the 0:02:25.080 --> 0:02:28.200 gunpowder into the end of the cannon. Then you would 0:02:28.320 --> 0:02:32.320 load the shot into the cannon, sometimes with a either 0:02:32.680 --> 0:02:35.360 uh either with some sort of cloth wrapped around the shot, 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:39.240 or you'd actually stuff watting down there to to seal it. 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:42.560 Really well, you put the shot in, you put a 0:02:42.639 --> 0:02:45.960 lit fuse into the hole that lights the gunpowder. The 0:02:45.960 --> 0:02:49.840 gunpowder ignites, and essentially it explodes. It burns so quickly 0:02:50.080 --> 0:02:52.360 that that it we have to call it an explosion. 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:57.679 The the gases that are given off when the gunpowder 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:00.800 explodes propel the shot out of the cannon. That's where 0:03:00.800 --> 0:03:05.240 you get the the force you need to blow something up. 0:03:06.680 --> 0:03:10.800 And the the arquebus uh and other similar weapons like that, 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:13.639 other cannon like that. Um, those were known as as 0:03:13.880 --> 0:03:16.000 the at least the ones that Jonathan is describing here 0:03:16.000 --> 0:03:19.639 are known as matchlock. The lock is the mechanism that 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:24.160 is used to ignite the powder in this case. So, um, 0:03:24.200 --> 0:03:26.720 it's basically a very tiny hole and people would stick 0:03:26.760 --> 0:03:30.800 a um uh, some kind of fuse. It's really often 0:03:30.840 --> 0:03:33.680 a piece of string would burn down into I mean, 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:35.320 you could also stick a match down in there, but 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:37.640 you know, it's very very difficulty that there were a 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:39.960 lot of problems with it because it's not something you 0:03:40.000 --> 0:03:42.400 can do in the in the rain. Yeah, yeah, there 0:03:42.400 --> 0:03:44.520 are actually a lot of problems. So so let's talk 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:46.600 about some of the early guns. The early guns were 0:03:46.680 --> 0:03:51.600 essentially like handguns. The earliest guns were really nothing more 0:03:51.640 --> 0:03:54.920 than that tube that you would hold, and it usually 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:57.040 took two people to fire one of these. One person 0:03:57.120 --> 0:04:00.000 would hold and aim the gun, the other person would 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.760 stick the lit match or lit fuse into the hole 0:04:03.880 --> 0:04:06.840 to light the gunpowder, and then you would fire it off. 0:04:07.360 --> 0:04:10.560 Eventually you got to the point of having handguns. And 0:04:10.600 --> 0:04:13.000 again it was still really hard to both aim and 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:14.880 fire this thing at the same time because you know, 0:04:14.960 --> 0:04:18.720 holding a lit match and then getting your target in 0:04:18.880 --> 0:04:21.200 view and then putting the lit match to the whole 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.640 that's pretty tough. So the matchlock was a huge benefit, right, 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:28.560 There was a big leap forward. Yeah, yeah, and then 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:32.160 I mean the bigger leap forward being the flintlock. Right. 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:34.240 So the matchlock, what it would do is you would 0:04:34.240 --> 0:04:37.320 have usually a little a little pan that would hold 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:40.440 some gunpowder and you would pull a trigger the the 0:04:40.480 --> 0:04:42.120 lit fuse would be on the end of a lever. 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:44.520 Pulling the trigger would lower the lever to the pan. 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.320 It would light that gunpowder, which would go into the 0:04:48.320 --> 0:04:53.479 breach of the of the gun, lighting the main charge. Right, okay, 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.240 But as Poulette was saying, if it's raining well and 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:59.200 you've got powder exposed in that little pan, you may 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:02.120 not have your on fire at all. And also you 0:05:02.160 --> 0:05:04.720 had to continuously make sure that your your match was 0:05:05.120 --> 0:05:08.360 stayed lit. And at night you would have problems because 0:05:08.360 --> 0:05:10.160 you would be visible because you had this little bit match. 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.920 The flintlock was a big advantage over the matchlock. Yes, yes, 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:16.159 I can imagine now people going, huh, it's an awful 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.760 lot of fireflies out there tonight, right, might might want 0:05:19.760 --> 0:05:22.359 to aim at those big guys. Ye. So, so the 0:05:22.400 --> 0:05:28.040 flintlock had a hammer which was the the the section 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:30.000 of the gun that would hold the flint. You'd have 0:05:30.000 --> 0:05:32.200 a piece of flint that would be wedged in on 0:05:32.360 --> 0:05:35.760 the hammer um and the hammer was activated by a 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.320 tumbler that was connected to a spring. When you cocked 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:43.080 the hammer back, uh you could. They had three three 0:05:43.120 --> 0:05:46.160 different positions uncocked, half cocked, and fully cocked. So when 0:05:46.160 --> 0:05:49.000 you say go off half cocked, that's that's where this 0:05:49.080 --> 0:05:51.320 comes from, which is kind of ironic because you would 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:53.560 want it half cocked to load it, and that was 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:58.000 the one place well between half and fully when it's 0:05:58.000 --> 0:06:00.680 half cocked, it can't actually fire. It's right. You would 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.440 pull the trigger and there's a little lever that would 0:06:03.440 --> 0:06:06.679 that was up against the tumbler. Right, So the tumbler 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:09.320 has notches in it, and the half cocked notch. This 0:06:09.400 --> 0:06:12.360 notch is so large that when you pull the trigger, 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:15.200 it wouldn't clear the tumbler, so it would not it 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:17.760 would not make the hammer. Uh, they would not release 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.920 the hammer, So there was no way you could accidentally. Theoretically, 0:06:21.160 --> 0:06:22.640 if the gun was in good shape, there's no way 0:06:22.640 --> 0:06:26.560 you could accidentally fire it prematurely. Now, when it was 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:30.039 fully cocked, then it would be in a slightly shallower notch. 0:06:30.200 --> 0:06:33.440 You pull the trigger, it releases the tumbler, which is 0:06:33.520 --> 0:06:37.440 under tension from a spring. The hammer flies forward and 0:06:37.480 --> 0:06:42.240 the flint strikes a steel plate and that creates sparks 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:45.960 which then light the gunpowder inside again a little gunpowder 0:06:46.040 --> 0:06:48.440 pan which usually had a cover over it, So you 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:51.279 could theoretically fire a flintlock in the rain and still 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:53.880 have a good chance of it going off, and again 0:06:54.160 --> 0:06:57.880 gunpowder lit in the pan would go into the breach 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:00.320 of the gun, firing off the main charge. Yeah, the 0:07:00.600 --> 0:07:03.520 little piece of metal is known as the frizzen. Yes, um, 0:07:03.560 --> 0:07:06.240 and the frizen spring is what makes the flint lock 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:10.440 weather proof because um, it's what's got the cover that's 0:07:10.440 --> 0:07:12.400 attached to the frozen over the pan. So it's it's 0:07:12.440 --> 0:07:16.560 basically due to the design. It's covering the pan where 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:19.960 the powder is right exactly. That helps. That helps right there. 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:22.440 So what happens is when the flint hits the frizzen. 0:07:23.000 --> 0:07:25.800 This sounds really weird, right, when the flint hits the frizzen, 0:07:26.000 --> 0:07:29.320 it actually lifts the pan, the lid of the pan up. 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:31.320 The force of the blow lifts the lid of the 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:34.400 pan up, the sparks hit the gunpowder and the gun fires. 0:07:34.800 --> 0:07:37.440 And then as soon as the gun has is uncocked 0:07:37.760 --> 0:07:42.160 the pan after after the initial impact, because the spring 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:44.960 of the that's attached to the frizen is under tension, 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:47.720 it will pull the lid back down. So again you 0:07:47.720 --> 0:07:50.880 would have to half cock the flint lock in order 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:53.120 to load it again. You would actually load it by 0:07:53.120 --> 0:07:56.320 putting gunpowder directly into the breach of the gun, but 0:07:56.320 --> 0:07:58.160 you would have to put a little bit of gunpowder 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.480 in the the frizzen pan for it to work. Otherwise 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:03.440 you just you know, the sparks would not make it 0:08:03.480 --> 0:08:07.240 to the main charge. So this sets the stage for 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:11.280 the next huge leap forward in firearm technology, which was 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:17.440 the percussion cap. Yes, the percussion cap was a tiny 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:22.200 little device that was actually it was essentially a chemical compound, 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:27.920 uh And it was mercury fulminate combination mercury, nitric acid, 0:08:27.920 --> 0:08:33.760 and alcohol. And it is very shock sensitive, which means 0:08:33.760 --> 0:08:36.800 if you hit it, it blows up there. So you 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:41.880 what the earliest percussive cap, percussion cap guns had a 0:08:41.920 --> 0:08:44.400 little uh, well they called it a nipple. It's a 0:08:44.440 --> 0:08:47.680 little protrusion that you would put the cap on and 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.480 you would cock the gun back, just like a flint lock. 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:53.800 And the it had a hammer that when you pull 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:55.920 the trigger, the hammer would come down hit the percussion cap, 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.280 which would cause the initial explosion that again lit the 0:08:59.400 --> 0:09:06.760 charge inside the gun. Right, what really really brought warfare 0:09:06.760 --> 0:09:09.120 to a new level was when we figured out how 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.880 to put the percussion cap, the charge, and the bullet 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:17.040 all together in a single cartridge. Yes, and initially I 0:09:17.120 --> 0:09:22.559 believe people were experimenting with paper cartridges, but they weren't 0:09:22.600 --> 0:09:26.920 as as refined as when they developed the metal cartridge, 0:09:26.920 --> 0:09:29.839 which is what we are still using now. You see that, uh, 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:32.160 you know, if you look at what most people think 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:35.199 of as a bullet, I would say the majority of 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.000 what most people see is the brass cartridge, which is 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:40.720 the bottom part of the bullet. It's the part where 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:45.120 the uh, the firing pin strikes and uh launches the 0:09:45.160 --> 0:09:49.520 projectile from the gun. Yeah. Yeah, that's the Whenever I 0:09:49.559 --> 0:09:51.880 think of bullet, I'm thinking of the full cartridge. I'm 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:55.200 not thinking of the tip. Now, hunters and soldiers, of 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:58.040 course they're going to they have a much better knowledge 0:09:58.040 --> 0:09:59.600 of the source of stuff. But I think for the layman, 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:01.800 when we say bullet, you're thinking of the thing you 0:10:01.800 --> 0:10:05.320 put in the gun, which technically is a cartridge. Um, 0:10:05.360 --> 0:10:08.720 and yeah, it has three sections. There's the primer, which 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:13.480 is the percussion cap. There's the propellant, which is the 0:10:13.520 --> 0:10:16.760 gunpowder or other propellant. And then you have the bullet, 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:19.560 which is the tip that that actually fires out of 0:10:19.559 --> 0:10:23.040 the gun and hits your target or whatever whatever the 0:10:23.080 --> 0:10:26.400 gun happens. We pointed at. Actually, so in this case, 0:10:26.760 --> 0:10:30.760 the big change here was that guns now had a 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:35.400 firing pen that would strike the percussion cap, so that 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:38.360 that's what would ignite the propellant and push the bullet 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:40.000 out of the gun, which meant that you had a 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:46.040 spent cartridge in your gun afterward. So, um, I'm sorry, 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:47.480 it looks like you're just about to say something, so 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:50.000 I'm gonna have shut up. Well, there there's something that 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:52.480 we also need to address to, which is the barrel, 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:55.760 yes of the gun. Now, I mean, up until this 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:59.360 point to roughly, I'm not being exact here, we've been 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:02.280 sort of talking about, for the most part, muzzle loading 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.360 weapons where you actually put the bullet. Uh and in 0:11:05.360 --> 0:11:08.360 this case, in the earlier weapons, we were speaking of 0:11:08.800 --> 0:11:11.719 a lead ball in your bullet, so or you know, 0:11:11.760 --> 0:11:13.800 a shot in a cannon or a different you know, 0:11:13.840 --> 0:11:15.599 grape shot or whatever it is that you're firing out it. 0:11:15.720 --> 0:11:18.240 So let's say projectile. So you're pushing the projectile down 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:21.960 the tube and you know, loading it yourself by hand 0:11:22.040 --> 0:11:26.199 up until we got to the cartridge point. But um, 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.120 the thing is in order to make that, well, not 0:11:29.160 --> 0:11:30.840 in order to make that For the most part, when 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:33.080 they started out, there were smooth what they call smooth bore, 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.360 which means it was you know, the insides of it 0:11:35.400 --> 0:11:38.240 were smooth, they were polished, and it was easy to 0:11:38.280 --> 0:11:42.000 push a bullet down there. Well, they also figured out, uh, 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:45.720 you know, probably around um I believe that the fifteenth 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.199 century or so, that that's not really the most accurate 0:11:49.240 --> 0:11:52.720 way to get a projectile to its target. By rifling 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:57.600 the tube the barrel of the gun, you could do 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:01.000 a lot more. You can actually uh add some uh 0:12:01.440 --> 0:12:04.400 some distance, and you can improve accuracy as well. And 0:12:04.679 --> 0:12:09.240 initially those those weapons were had barrels that were straight, 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.920 had straight grooves in them, but eventually discovered that a 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:17.840 spiral groove would give would improve accuracy and range, makes 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.559 it makes the shot spin right. But it's very difficult 0:12:20.559 --> 0:12:23.280 to muzzle load when you have a spiral groove, right, 0:12:23.280 --> 0:12:25.880 because it's like little ridges, right, Yes, So it's it's 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:29.560 it's like pushing something past a series of ridges. It's 0:12:29.600 --> 0:12:32.080 not it's not going to load as quickly or smoothly 0:12:32.120 --> 0:12:35.719 as a smooth bore rifle or smooth bore barrel. So 0:12:35.920 --> 0:12:39.920 breech loading sort of takes the uh, that problem out 0:12:39.920 --> 0:12:41.920 of the way because at that point, when you have 0:12:42.000 --> 0:12:44.880 a breech loading weapon, then you are you don't have 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:47.840 to push the projectile all the way down the muzzle 0:12:47.920 --> 0:12:51.960 and get what's what's in the barrel out right. With 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:56.120 breech loading, you're putting the shot in toward towards your end, 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:59.200 the end that doesn't have the deadly part pointed at you. 0:13:01.480 --> 0:13:04.000 Uh see, I'm not worried about I'm not worried about 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:06.720 looking like an idiot, because I am one. Yeah. No, 0:13:07.000 --> 0:13:08.320 I know many of the parts of the gun, but 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:10.360 I really honestly don't know what you would call I 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:13.880 mean talking about the stock and the and the um. 0:13:13.920 --> 0:13:17.760 But yes, if you've ever fired a breech loading rifle before, 0:13:17.800 --> 0:13:21.320 you know that there's a handle down there that you 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:24.160 used to lift the breech bolt out, you know, and 0:13:24.160 --> 0:13:25.720 and pull the cartridge out. You could put a new 0:13:25.720 --> 0:13:28.120 cartridge in, lock it into place, and then fire the 0:13:28.120 --> 0:13:31.319 weapon right it loads the bullet or the cartridge we 0:13:31.360 --> 0:13:33.760 should say, exactly where it needs to be. That's a 0:13:33.800 --> 0:13:35.559 big that's a good point because that that was one 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:39.120 of the things that that gunmakers had to to figure 0:13:39.120 --> 0:13:43.200 out in order to make to make cartridge firing weapons useful. 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:46.160 I mean, you had to have the percussive percussion cap 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:49.120 positioned at the right spot so that the firing pin 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:52.199 would hit it at the right point to to make 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:56.520 anything happen. Right, So we're at this point, we're right 0:13:56.520 --> 0:14:00.320 around the eighteen seventies. Okay, So so the flint was 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.400 that was way back in the fifteen hundreds, and percussion 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:06.520 caps started coming out in the early eighteen hundreds, and 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:08.920 then by the seventies that's when we're starting to move 0:14:08.960 --> 0:14:11.640 to cartridges. There were some cartridge firing weapons during the 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:14.520 Civil War, but eighteen seventies was when they were really 0:14:14.520 --> 0:14:17.280 starting to get perfected. Yeah, we're to the point where 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.600 we have very efficient weapons, but they fire basically one 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:22.680 shot at a time. You have to load the load 0:14:22.720 --> 0:14:25.640 the gun, fire the gun, pulled the spent cartridge out, 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:27.840 and then put a new cartridge and and fire the 0:14:27.840 --> 0:14:29.920 gun again. There were a couple of exceptions that were 0:14:29.960 --> 0:14:34.400 revolvers which could fire between well, depending on the revolver. 0:14:34.840 --> 0:14:37.000 The one we're mostly familiar with is the six shot 0:14:37.040 --> 0:14:41.600 revolver six six Yeah, the Old West, So it's these 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.720 were the ones that had these six cylinders that would 0:14:44.800 --> 0:14:47.880 rotate as you were firing the gun, so that would 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:52.240 put a new cartridge in firing position every time you 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:55.120 pulled the trigger. The way that worked, and it's important 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:57.120 to understand this because it kind of plays in with 0:14:57.160 --> 0:14:59.360 the gatling gun that we're gonna get to in just 0:14:59.560 --> 0:15:02.640 a second. The way that worked is that when you 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:08.480 pulled the trigger, the trigger actually had a pall attached 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:10.960 to a p a w L. It's a component of 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:14.360 a ratchet. And what that did was it pushed against 0:15:14.560 --> 0:15:18.160 the revolvers cylinders so that it would turn it one 0:15:18.320 --> 0:15:21.760 sixth of a turn or however many to move the 0:15:21.800 --> 0:15:25.120 cylinder in the right position. It would also, at the 0:15:25.160 --> 0:15:29.280 same time cock the trigger back. And if you when 0:15:29.320 --> 0:15:30.920 you pulled it all the way to the end, if 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:34.200 it's a if it's an automatic revolver, then the trigger 0:15:34.560 --> 0:15:39.040 the the the hammer comes forward, hits the firing pen, 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.120 moves into position, hits the percussion cap, and the bullet 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.400 fires out of the gun. You still have a spent 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:47.640 cartridge inside the cylinder, but a new cylinder will move 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:49.640 into place as soon as you start pulling the trigger again. 0:15:50.720 --> 0:15:52.520 Some of the early revolvers you actually had to pull 0:15:52.560 --> 0:15:55.680 the hammer back yourself. You couldn't just pull the trigger 0:15:55.720 --> 0:15:57.160 and have the hammer come back. You'd have to cock 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:01.120 it yourself. And that's what would ratchet the cylinder into position. 0:16:01.600 --> 0:16:04.320 But it wasn't long before they figured out ways to 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:09.120 to make that more closer to an automatic process. Um. 0:16:09.280 --> 0:16:12.800 So if you have a you would have to remove 0:16:12.840 --> 0:16:15.760 the spent cartridges out once you've finished firing, put new 0:16:15.880 --> 0:16:18.880 new cartridges in. So there was no way to make 0:16:18.920 --> 0:16:23.680 that a continuous firing method. So it still was it 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.400 was an improvement over the old fire once, reload once method, 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:32.000 but it was still not the weapon of destruction that 0:16:32.040 --> 0:16:36.360 the Gatlink gun turned into. Yeah. Yeah, Now, before we 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.640 get to the gat Link gun, which was you know, 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:43.880 basically essentially an early machine gun of sorts. Um, there 0:16:43.880 --> 0:16:47.880 were other attempts over the years, for many many years. 0:16:47.880 --> 0:16:49.720 In fact, I know you wanted to speak of one 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:52.640 very famous inventor who tried to come up with a 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:57.200 way to fire multiple projectiles at once. Yeah. So, I mean, 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:01.200 this is not the idea of having multiple projectiles or 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:05.200 you know, rapid fire projectiles coming from cannon or or 0:17:05.280 --> 0:17:09.040 from uh smaller guns. You know, this isn't this isn't 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:13.000 new to Mr Gatling. No. No, actually, if you want 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:16.399 to really look at some some cool designs, a certain 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:21.400 Mr Leonardo da Vinci came up with a pretty clever one. Uh, 0:17:21.560 --> 0:17:24.240 as far as I know, he never made one of 0:17:24.240 --> 0:17:27.320 these things, But was a design he created which was 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:34.080 a triangular mount that held eleven cannon to a side. Okay, 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:36.600 so each side of the triangle had eleven cannon mounted 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:39.080 to it, and the idea was that you would load 0:17:39.200 --> 0:17:42.720 all thirty three cannon and have them ready to go, 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:45.560 and then you would aim it at your enemy. Fire 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:50.400 the top eleven. So so the inverted pyramid right, Yes, 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:53.040 the point of the triangle is facing downwards. You fire 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.720 the the eleven on top, rotate, do a third of 0:17:56.720 --> 0:17:59.159 a rotation, and then fire the next eleven, and then 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.240 to a third of the rotate. Shouldn't fire the final eleven. Uh. 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:05.679 You could not, of course load the cannon as you 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:09.040 were firing them, because you would very rapidly run out 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:12.719 of men to load the cannon as they were burnt 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:16.119 and blown up. But but the idea was that it 0:18:16.119 --> 0:18:19.280 would be such a terrible weapon that no enemy would 0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:21.960 dare attack you. So it was that whole concept of 0:18:22.240 --> 0:18:24.680 I've got to stick big enough that no one's going 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:27.920 to bother me. It wasn't really necessarily meant as a 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:31.560 as an actual weapon of war. But you have. One 0:18:31.600 --> 0:18:34.040 of the biggest problems of any kind of weapon that 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:37.640 would fire several times in a short in a short 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:42.160 period is that the barrel gets really hot. And so 0:18:42.680 --> 0:18:47.560 the early experiments with machine gun type of weapons meant 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:52.760 resulting in a lot of barrels overheating, breaking, sometimes exploding 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:55.720 because the metal was too weak to contain the explosion 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:58.760 of the gunpowder inside it. And so they had to 0:18:58.800 --> 0:19:00.560 find a way. Someone had to find the way of 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:03.640 creating a gun that would be able to fire rapidly 0:19:04.200 --> 0:19:08.440 without overheating the barrel. And a couple of different people 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:13.400 came up with different ideas of guns with multiple barrels. Yes, yes, 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:16.600 actually I was going to mention a different person short, 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:20.080 Uh it was a little different if and I had 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:22.919 never heard of this person before. His name was James Puckle. 0:19:23.240 --> 0:19:25.719 Did you run across this I didn't. This fellow, he 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:27.840 was a British fellow. And uh came up with a 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:32.199 flintlock weapon in around seventeen eighteen that does resemble the 0:19:32.280 --> 0:19:35.520 Gatling gun sort of, but it actually looks more alike 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:40.560 a a revolver rifle and had you know, and and 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:42.720 it was an attempt to do that, but unfortunately, being 0:19:42.760 --> 0:19:45.000 a flintlock weapon, it was it just really was not 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:49.760 very practical. Um, But there was an attempt to do that, 0:19:50.280 --> 0:19:53.200 you know once once the percussion caps. And I realized 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:56.640 too that we left out another invention that was necessity 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:01.800 for making this happen. What's smokeless powder. We talk about that, 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:05.520 that's true, but it was an important development in making 0:20:05.520 --> 0:20:10.520 cartridges because with the earlier versions of gunpowder, uh, it 0:20:11.240 --> 0:20:15.240 burned irregularly from what I understand, and one smokeless powder 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.400 was invented, the combustion of the gunpowder was a lot 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:22.040 more even and when made cartridge weapons a lot more practical. 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:24.600 Not to mention the fact that if you had any 0:20:24.640 --> 0:20:26.879 sort of weapon that could fire multiple times in in 0:20:27.280 --> 0:20:30.680 you know, in a few minutes, uh, you had the 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:34.720 very real problem of if you don't have smokeless gunpowder, 0:20:35.200 --> 0:20:37.760 you can't see what you're shooting at. There's that, yeah, 0:20:37.960 --> 0:20:40.120 because if you ever see a re enactment where people 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:43.159 are using muzzle loaded weapons, you'll notice there's an awful 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:45.200 lot of smoke that comes out of this. Yes, yes, 0:20:45.520 --> 0:20:49.240 well they they do that, I think, especially for the 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:51.320 re enactment value of that so that you can get 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:53.000 an idea of what it was like at the time. 0:20:54.160 --> 0:20:57.240 But however, it is awfully cloudy. Are we now ready 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:02.320 to speak of Mr Getling? Sure? So, Richard Jordan's Gatling 0:21:02.640 --> 0:21:05.640 He comes up with this invention in eighteen sixty two, 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.239 so this is during the Civil War. He actually, uh 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:13.520 he pitched this idea to President Lincoln saying that it 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:18.760 was again a weapon that would help crush the rebellion. Um. 0:21:18.840 --> 0:21:22.560 So with this weapon, never mind, I was gonna make 0:21:22.560 --> 0:21:24.879 a Star Wars reference. We're just gonna move on. So anyway, 0:21:24.920 --> 0:21:27.600 that the Gatling gun, the original Gatlan gun had six barrels, 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:31.720 but Gatling guns came in varieties of six to ten barrels, 0:21:31.760 --> 0:21:36.440 depending upon when, when, which model you're talking about. Right, yeah, 0:21:36.480 --> 0:21:41.159 Britannica told me, uh what, it didn't tell me anything, right, Um. 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:44.479 From the article in Britannica, it suggested that there were 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:48.399 ten initially and used paper cartridges initially and in the 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:50.680 early experiments that he was doing with it. Right yeah. 0:21:51.160 --> 0:21:54.040 We should also point out that that thes these guns 0:21:54.080 --> 0:21:56.600 weren't really used in the Civil War very much other 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:00.720 than in a couple of demonstrations. Uh. They they weren't 0:22:00.760 --> 0:22:03.920 widely distributed, so the gattling gun really had its first 0:22:04.080 --> 0:22:08.240 major use worldwide anyway, in World War One. But the 0:22:08.240 --> 0:22:13.119 the you also occasionally see him in Great Westerns. But 0:22:13.200 --> 0:22:15.680 the the idea here is that you have six to 0:22:15.760 --> 0:22:19.520 ten barrels on this on this rotating shaft, all right, 0:22:19.960 --> 0:22:24.560 so each barrel has its own spring loaded firing pin, 0:22:25.400 --> 0:22:28.679 so there's not one firing pin at the at the 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:32.199