A Multiple Barreled Polish Organ Gun, ca. 1700

Jim McDougall · 4th October 2010, 01:36 PM

Fascinating illustrations Michael!
The DaVinci works have always been amazing and its hard to imagine how far ahead of his times he was. These multiple barrel weapons remond me a lot of the rocket launching units used in WWII.

Am I correct in assuming these multiple barrels were typically discharged simultaneously? It seems as if that would be a pretty much single op situation, as it must have horrendous to try to get these reloaded.
I would imagine truly psychologically devastating at initial blast though.
Sort of the scatter gun effect.

It seems that in terms of firing, single barrel discharge would have been a real challenge. Case in point, in the early 19th century, as percussion caps were invented, the revolving cylinder 'pepperbox' pistols had the right concept ideally, but there were problems with simultaneous discharge, which had of course less than desirable effect for the user. These were also notorious for misfires.
For these larger heavy ordnance type weapons, the ancestor of the 'machine gun' was the Gatling gun for multiple fire in my understanding.

It seems there are a number of guns I have seen, and I cant place them offhand, which were flintlock personal weapons with a number of barrels, I think four, arranged in this fanned fashion. I cant recall how these functioned in firing.

All the best,
Jim

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4th October 2010, 01:36 PM	#10
Jim McDougall Arms Historian Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: Route 66 Posts: 10,296	Fascinating illustrations Michael! The DaVinci works have always been amazing and its hard to imagine how far ahead of his times he was. These multiple barrel weapons remond me a lot of the rocket launching units used in WWII. Am I correct in assuming these multiple barrels were typically discharged simultaneously? It seems as if that would be a pretty much single op situation, as it must have horrendous to try to get these reloaded. I would imagine truly psychologically devastating at initial blast though. Sort of the scatter gun effect. It seems that in terms of firing, single barrel discharge would have been a real challenge. Case in point, in the early 19th century, as percussion caps were invented, the revolving cylinder 'pepperbox' pistols had the right concept ideally, but there were problems with simultaneous discharge, which had of course less than desirable effect for the user. These were also notorious for misfires. For these larger heavy ordnance type weapons, the ancestor of the 'machine gun' was the Gatling gun for multiple fire in my understanding. It seems there are a number of guns I have seen, and I cant place them offhand, which were flintlock personal weapons with a number of barrels, I think four, arranged in this fanned fashion. I cant recall how these functioned in firing. All the best, Jim