The M61 Vulcan aircraft gun is the rebirth of the Gatling system. Aircraft gun M61A1 Vulcan (USA) Video: shooting from a machine gun Vulcan

In the early 50s. The US government announced a competition for the development of a cannon for arming aircraft for the period up to 1975. General Electric won this competition, offering a six-barreled M61A1 Vulcan cannon. The first sample of the M61 gun of 20 mm caliber was released by General Electric in 1957. The M61A1 Vulcan gun had simple design, the feeding and firing mechanism was driven by an external drive with a power of 26 kW (according to other sources - 14.7 kW). Barrel length 1524 mm, total length of the gun 1875 mm. The weight of the gun itself is 120 kg, the weight of the gun with the feed system, but without cartridges is 190 kg. Rate of fire 6000 rds / mip. Some of the guns also had a reduced rate of fire - 4000 rounds / mip for firing at ground targets. The time to reach the maximum rate of fire is 0.3 s.

The gun is fed from a cylindrical magazine with a capacity of about 1000 rounds. The store is connected to the gun by means of one or two conveyor belts located in elastic guide sleeves. With one conveyor belt, the spent cartridges were reflected outward, however, in cases where the reflection of the cartridges outward was unacceptable, the installations provided a return conveyor for spent cartridges. In a cylindrical magazine, the cartridges were located between the radial partitions. The central rotor, made in the form of an Archimedean screw, gradually moved the cartridges from the magazine to the conveyor.

The external drive for supplying cartridges is a shaft connected to the hydraulic drive of the gun. Feed type - double-conveyor: spent cartridges are returned to the store. The total length of the guide sleeves is 4.6 m.

Shooting from the M61A1 gun was carried out with standard "20 x 102" cartridges, the same as the M39 gun. The cartridges are equipped with armor-piercing incendiary, sub-caliber, fragmentation-incendiary and fragmentation shells. Since the early 1990s most shells are supplied with plastic leading bands. starting speed caliber projectile 1030 m / s, sub-caliber - 1100 m / s, effective firing range up to 1000 m. Sub-caliber projectile with a steel core at a distance of 800 m normally penetrates 16 mm armor.

When firing from an aircraft gun, resonant vibrations occur, sometimes leading to a disruption in the normal operation of on-board electronic equipment. So, for example, when firing from the M61A1 Vulkan cannon mounted on an F-16 aircraft (September 1979), the normal work navigation computer. During training flights at an altitude of 4200 m, when firing from a cannon, unauthorized turns of the aircraft were observed. The exit was found in little change the rate of fire, which eliminated the appearance of resonant oscillations.

The M61A1 gun has a GAU-4A variant, the main difference of which is the absence of an external gun drive. In the GAU-4A, powder gases discharged from three barrels are used to rotate the barrel block. The initial promotion of the block of barrels is provided by an inertial starting device with an electric motor. All of the listed characteristics of the M61A1 are identical for the GAU-4A gun.

The first aircraft equipped with the M61A1 Vulcan gun was the Thunderchief F-105 fighter-bomber. The gun was built into the fuselage of the aircraft. Since 1961, the Phantom F-4C fighters, which were originally armed only with missiles, began to equip the M61A1 guns. The F-4С fighter had two cannons in suspended mounts with 1200 rounds of ammunition each. However, when managing air combat the effectiveness of suspended installations was insufficient due to the effect of vibration on the accuracy of fire. It was concluded that the optimal placement of the gun along the longitudinal axis of the aircraft or near it. Therefore, a built-in cannon was adopted for arming the F-4E, F-14A, F-15 and F-16 fighters. F-111A, F-104 fighter-bombers, A-7D and A-7E carrier-based attack aircraft were armed with M61A1 guns.

The M61A1 gun was the last gun that was used in the aft defensive installations of American bombers. Cannons "Volcano" were equipped with stern (tail) installations strategic bombers B-52 and B-58. In addition, on the basis of the Vulkan aircraft gun, ship-based 20-mm Vulkan-Phalanx mounts, as well as a number of self-propelled anti-aircraft mounts, were created.

For the 20-mm M61A1 and GAU-4 cannons, the SUU-23A and SUU-16A hanging containers were developed in the USA, designed for mounting on up to - and supersonic fighters and attack aircraft. The main purpose of the guns is to fire at ground targets at a distance of up to 700m.

To exclude the supply of electricity for the rotation of the block of barrels from the side of the aircraft carrier of the container, the automatics of the M61A1 gun is driven by an air turbine powered by an oncoming flow. The turbine is mounted on a hinged panel of the container, which, when lowered, exposes the turbine to the air flow. The use of an air turbine results in a limited rate of fire at aircraft speeds of less than 650 km / h and an increase in air resistance compared to the air resistance experienced by the SUU-23A container with the GAU-4 gun. An electric starter is used to accelerate the GAU-4 gun barrel block before each round of shots.

Guns in containers are fixed motionless. If desired, on the ground, the gun can be given an angle of "1" horizontally and vertically from the axis of the container. During firing, containers (guns) are guided using a gun sight or fire control system. Spent cartridges are thrown out. After releasing the firing button, the gun is discharged automatically, so self-ignition of cartridges is practically excluded. When the cannon is unloaded, a small amount of live ammunition is ejected.

The unit is powered from the on-board network of the aircraft: alternating current- 208 V, 400 Hz, three-phase - current consumption of the SUU-16A container - 7A; container SUU-23A - 10 A. Installation of the container SUU-23A can also operate from DC voltage of 28 V; current consumption in this case is 3 A. Dispersion of projectiles: 80% fit into a circle with a diameter of 8 milliradians.

The dimensions of the SUU-16A and SUU-23A containers are the same. Length 560 mm, diameter 560 mm. Ammunition 1200 rounds. The weight of the container SUU-16A (SUU-23A) without cartridges is 484 kg (489 kg), with cartridges 780 kg (785 kg).

Caliber, mm 20
Number of barrels 6
Rate of fire, rds / min 4000-6000
Gun weight, kg 190
Cartridge weight, g 250
Projectile weight, g 1100
Muzzle velocity, m/s 1030-1100
Length, mm 1875
Barrel length, mm 1524

Work on the creation of a multi-barreled machine gun was started in the 40s of the twentieth century. This type of gun, with the highest rate of fire and high fire density, was developed as a weapon for the US Air Force jet tactical fighters.

The prototype for the creation of the first standard of the six-barreled M61 Vulcan was the German 12-barreled Fokker-Leimberger machine gun, the design of which was based on the Gatling revolver-battery scheme. Using this scheme, a perfectly balanced design of a multi-barreled machine gun with a block of rotating barrels was created, while all the necessary operations were performed in one turn of the block.

The M61 volcano was developed in 1949 and adopted by the US Air Force in 1956. The first aircraft in the fuselage of which was mounted a six-barreled M61 Vulcan machine gun was the F-105 Thunderchief fighter-bomber.

Design features of the M61 Vulcan gun

M61 Vulcan is a six-barrel aviation machine gun(gun) having an air-cooled barrel and combat equipment cartridge 20 x 102 mm with electrocapsule ignition type.

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The system for supplying ammunition to the six-barreled Vulcan machine gun is without links, from a cylindrical magazine the capacity of which is 1000 rounds. The machine gun is connected to the magazine with a 2-way conveyor feed, in which the spent cartridges are returned back to the magazine with the help of a returnable assembly stream.

Conveyor belts are located in elastic guide sleeves with a total length of 4.6 meters.

The entire array of cartridges in the store moves along its axis, while only the central guide rotor, made in the form of a spiral, rotates, between the turns of which the ammunition is placed. When firing, two cartridges are synchronized from the magazine, and with reverse side two spent cartridges are placed in it, which are then placed in the conveyor.

The firing mechanism has an external drive circuit with a power of 14.7 kW. This type of drive does not require the installation of a gas regulator and is not afraid of misfires.

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Cartridge equipment can be: caliber, fragmentation, armor-piercing incendiary, fragmentation incendiary, sub-caliber.

Video: Vulcan machine gun shooting

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Mounted aircraft installations for the M61 gun

At the beginning of the 1960s, General Electric decided to make special mounted containers (mounted gun mounts) to accommodate the six-barreled 20-mm M61 Vulcan. It was supposed to use them for firing at ground targets with a range of not more than 700 m, and to equip them with subsonic and supersonic attack aircraft and fighters. In 1963-1964, the US Air Force received two variants of PPU - SUU-16 / A and SUU-23 / A.

The design of mounted gun mounts of both models has similar dimensions hull (length - 5.05 m, diameter - 0.56 m) and unified 762-mm attachments, allowing you to install such a machine gun in PPU on a variety of models of combat aircraft. The corresponding difference in the SUU-23 / A installation is the presence of a visor over the receiver unit.

As a mechanical drive for the SUU-16 / A PPU, for spinning and dispersing the barrel block of the Vulkan machine gun, an aircraft turbine is used, powered by an oncoming air flow. The full ammunition load consists of 1200 shells, the equipped weight is 785 kg, the weight without equipment is 484 kg.

The SUU-23/A unit is driven by an electronic starter for dispersing the barrels, the ammunition load consists of 1200 shells, the equipped weight is 780 kg, the weight without equipment is 489 kg.

The machine gun in the hinged container is fixed and fixed motionlessly. An on-board fire adjustment system or a visual shooting sight is used as a sight when firing. The extraction of spent cartridges during firing occurs outside, overboard the installation.

The main tactical and technical properties of the Volcano M61

The total length of the gun is 1875 mm.
Barrel length - 1524 mm.
The mass of the M61 Vulcan gun is 120 kg, with a supply system kit (without cartridges) - 190 kg.
Rate of fire - 6000 rds / min. Copies were issued with rates of fire - 4000 rds / min.
The initial speed of caliber / sub-caliber shells is 1030 / 1100 m / s.
Muzzle power - 5.3 MW.
The exit time to the highest rate of fire is 0.2 - 0.3 seconds.
Vitality - about 50 thousand shots.

Vulkan M61 rapid-fire submachine gun, currently installed on fighters - Eagle (F-15), Corsair (F-104, A-7D, F-105D), Tomcat (F-14A, A- 7E), "Phantom" (F-4F).

Automatic device-watch Nerf Vulcan

German student Michelson, using the popular Vulcan Nerf toy blaster cannon, constructed a rather funny but very useful automatic device, great for protecting the area.

With the help of several additional drives, conventional electronics and computer programs, the guard weapon Nerf is able to automatically recognize, track the target, and then hit it. With all this, the owner of the gun can be in cover.

The trigger mechanism of the mechanized device Nerf Volcano is connected to a laptop and a hardware and software tool (integrated circuit) Arduino Uno with processors. Its triggering occurs when the webcam tracking and scanning the area around the webcam captures the movement of an unnecessary object. With all this, the webcam is installed on the front panel of the laptop, and the computer program is configured for movement.

Work on the creation of a multi-barreled machine gun was started in the 40s of the twentieth century. This type of weapon, with a high rate of fire and a high density of fire, was developed as a weapon for the US Air Force jet tactical fighters.

The prototype for the creation of the first sample of the six-barreled M61 Vulcan was the German twelve-barrel Fokker-Leimberger machine gun, the design of which was based on the Gatling revolver-battery scheme. Using this scheme, a well-balanced design of a multi-barreled machine gun with a block of rotating barrels was created, and all the necessary operations were performed in one turn of the block.

Design features of the M61 Vulcan gun

The M61 Vulcan is a six-barreled aircraft machine gun (cannon) with an air-cooled barrel and combat equipment with a 20 x 102 mm cartridge with an electro-primed ignition type.

The system for supplying ammunition to the six-barreled Vulcan machine gun is without links, from a cylindrical magazine the capacity of which is 1000 rounds. The machine gun is connected to the magazine by two conveyor feeds, in which the spent cartridges are returned back to the magazine using a return conveyor.

Conveyor belts are placed in elastic guide sleeves with a total length of 4.6 meters.

The entire array of cartridges in the store moves along its axis, while only the central guide rotor, made in the form of a spiral, rotates, between the turns of which the ammunition is located. When firing, two cartridges are synchronized removed from the magazine, and two spent cartridges are placed in it from the opposite side, which are then placed in the conveyor.

The firing mechanism has an external drive circuit with a power of 14.7 kW. This type of drive does not require the installation of a gas regulator and is not afraid of misfires.

Cartridge equipment can be: caliber, fragmentation, armor-piercing incendiary, fragmentation incendiary, sub-caliber.

Video: Vulcan machine gun shooting

Suspended aircraft installations for the M61 gun

In the early 1960s, General Electric decided to create special hanging containers (suspended gun mounts) to accommodate the six-barreled 20-mm M61 Vulcan. It was supposed to use them for firing at ground targets with a range of not more than 700 m, and to equip them with subsonic and supersonic attack aircraft and fighters. In 1963-1964, the US Air Force received two variations of PPU - SUU-16 / A and SUU-23 / A.

The design of the suspended cannon mounts of both models has the same overall body dimensions (length - 5.05 m, diameter - 0.56 m) and unified 762-mm suspension units, which allow installing such a machine gun in PPU on a variety of models of combat aircraft. A characteristic difference installation SUU-23 / A is the presence of a visor over the receiver unit.

As a mechanical drive for the SUU-16 / A PPU, for spinning and dispersing the barrel block of the Vulkan machine gun, an aircraft turbine is used, powered by an oncoming air flow. Full ammunition consists of 1200 shells, curb weight is 785 kg, unloaded weight is 484 kg.

The SUU-23/A unit is driven by an electric starter for dispersing the barrels, the ammunition load consists of 1200 shells, the curb weight is 780 kg, and the unloaded weight is 489 kg.

The machine gun in the hanging container is fixed and fixed motionless. An on-board fire adjustment system or a visual shooting sight is used as a sight when firing. The extraction of spent cartridges during firing occurs outside, overboard the installation.

The main performance characteristics of the Volcano M61

The total length of the gun is 1875 mm.
Barrel length - 1524 mm.
The mass of the M61 Vulcan gun is 120 kg, with a supply system kit (without cartridges) - 190 kg.
Rate of fire - 6000 rds / min. Copies were issued with rates of fire - 4000 rds / min.
The initial speed of caliber / sub-caliber shells is 1030 / 1100 m / s.
Muzzle power - 5.3 MW.
The exit time to the maximum rate of fire is 0.2 - 0.3 seconds.
Vitality - about 50 thousand shots.

Vulkan M61 rapid-fire submachine gun, currently installed on fighters - Eagle (F-15), Corsair (F-104, A-7D, F-105D), Tomcat (F-14A, A- 7E), "Phantom" (F-4F).

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In gun mode With the advent and constant modernization of aviation weapons, including missiles, some of the nomenclature of which today already belongs to a full-fledged class of high-precision weapons, the need for traditional small arms and cannon weapons of aircraft has not disappeared. Moreover, this weapon has its own advantages. Among them are the ability to use from the air against all types of targets, constant readiness to fire, immunity to electronic countermeasures. Modern types of aircraft guns are actually machine guns in terms of rate of fire and at the same time artillery pieces in caliber. The principle of automatic firing also makes the air gun related to the machine gun. At the same time, the rate of fire for some samples of domestic aviation weapons is a record even for machine guns. For example, developed in TsKB-14 (the predecessor of the Tula Design bureau instrument making) aircraft gun GSh-6-23M is still considered the fastest-firing weapon in military aviation. This six-barreled gun has a rate of fire of 10,000 rounds per minute! They say that during comparative tests of the GSh-6-23 and the American M-61 Vulkan, the domestic gun, without requiring a powerful external source energy, showed almost twice the rate of fire, while having half its own mass. By the way, in the six-barreled gun GSh-6-23, an autonomous gas-operated automatic drive was also used for the first time, which made it possible to use this weapon not only on an airplane, but also, for example, on ground firing installations. The upgraded version of the GSh-23-6 with To this day, Su-24 front-line bombers are equipped with an ammunition load of 500 rounds: this weapon is installed here in a suspended movable cannon container. In addition, the MiG-31 supersonic all-weather long-range fighter-interceptor is armed with the GSh-23-6M cannon. The six-barrel version of the GSh cannon was also used for the cannon armament of the MiG-27 fighter-bomber. True, a 30-mm cannon has already been installed here, and for a weapon of this caliber it is also considered the fastest in the world - six thousand rounds per minute. A barrage of fire from the sky It would not be an exaggeration to say that aviation weapons with the GSh brand became, in fact, the basis of this type of weapon for domestic military aviation. In single-barreled and multi-barreled versions with the use of innovative technologies for ammunition of various calibers and purposes - in any case, Gryazev-Shipunov guns have earned their recognition from pilots of many generations. 30 mm caliber guns have become the development of aviation small arms and guns in our country. So, the famous GSh-30 (in a double-barreled version) is equipped with no less famous Su-25 attack aircraft. These are machines that have proven their effectiveness in all wars and local conflicts, starting from the 70-80s of the last century. One of the most acute drawbacks of such weapons - the problem with the "survivability" of the barrels - is solved here by distributing the burst length between the two barrels and reducing the rate of fire per barrel. At the same time, all the main operations for preparing fire - feeding the tape, sending a cartridge, preparing a shot - occur evenly, which ensures a high rate of fire for the gun: the rate of fire of the Su-25 reaches 3500 rounds per minute. Another project of the Tula aviation gunsmiths is the GSh-30- one. It is recognized as the lightest 30mm cannon in the world. The mass of the weapon is 50 kilograms (for comparison, a six-barrel of the same caliber weighs more than three times more). Unique Feature this gun is in stock autonomous system water evaporation cooling of the barrel. In the casing there is water, which in the process of firing when the barrel is heated turns into steam. Passing through the screw groove on the barrel, it cools it, and then goes out. There is information that this caliber will also be the main one for small arms and cannon weapons of the fifth generation fighter T-50 (PAK FA). In particular, as the press service of the KBP recently reported, flight tests of the modernized 9A1-4071 rapid-fire aircraft gun (this name was given to this gun) with the testing of the entire ammunition load in various modes were carried out on the Su-27SM aircraft. After testing is completed, development work is planned to test this gun already on the T-50. "Flying" BMP The Tula Design Bureau (TsKB-14) became the "Motherland" of aviation weapons for domestic rotary-wing combat vehicles. It was here that the GSh-30 gun variant appeared in a double-barreled version for Mi-24 helicopters. main feature of this weapon is the presence of elongated barrels, due to which the initial velocity of the projectile is increased, which is 940 meters per second here. But on the new Russian combat helicopters - the Mi-28 and Ka-52 - a different cannon armament scheme was used. The basis was the well-proven 2A42 gun of 30 mm caliber, mounted on combat vehicles infantry. On the Mi-28, this gun is mounted in a fixed mobile gun mount NPPU-28, which significantly increases maneuverability when firing. Shells are fired from two sides and in two versions - armor-piercing and high-explosive fragmentation. Lightly armored targets on the ground can be hit from the air at a distance of 1500 meters, air targets (helicopters) - two and a half kilometers, and manpower - four kilometers. The NPPU-28 installation is located on the Mi-28 under the fuselage in the nose of the helicopter and works synchronously with the sight (including helmet-mounted) of the pilot-operator. The ammunition is located in two boxes on the rotary part of the turret. The 30-mm BMP-2 gun, also placed in a mobile gun mount, was also adopted by the Ka-52. But on the Mi-35M and Mi-35P machines, which, in fact, became a continuation of the legendary series of Mi-24 helicopters, they again returned to the GSh gun and to the 23rd caliber. On the Mi-35P, the number of firing points can reach three. This happens if the main guns are placed in two universal cannon containers (placed on pylons on the sides of the vehicle), and one more gun is installed in a fixed bow mobile gun mount. The total ammunition load of aviation cannon armament of helicopters of the 35th series in this version reaches 950 shells. Shooting... with a lunch break Do not refuse cannon weapons and when creating combat vehicles in the West. Including ultra-modern aircraft of the fifth generation. So, on the F-22 fighter, the above-mentioned 20-mm M61A2 Vulcan with 480 rounds of ammunition is installed. This fast-firing six-barrel cannon with a rotating block of barrels differs from the Russian cannon in a more primitive cooling system - air rather than water, as well as pneumatic or hydraulic drives. Despite all the shortcomings, among which, first of all, a small caliber, as well as an archaic system shells and limited ammunition at a very high rate of fire (four to six thousand rounds per minute), the Vulcan has been the standard armament of US combat aircraft since the 50s. True, in the American military press there was information that at present it was possible to cope with delays in the ammunition supply system: for the M61A1 cannon, a linkless ammunition supply system was apparently developed. The AH-64 "Apache" - the main attack helicopter US army. Some analysts call it the most common rotorcraft of its class in the world, without, however, citing any statistics. The Apache carries a 30mm M230 automatic cannon with a rate of fire of 650 rounds per minute. A significant drawback of this weapon is the need to cool its barrel after every 300 shots, and the time for such a break can be 10 minutes or more. For this weapon, a helicopter can take 1200 rounds on board, but only if an additional fuel tank is not installed on the machine. If it is available, the volume of ammunition will not exceed the very 300 rounds that Apache can fire without the need for a “break” for mandatory barrel cooling. The only advantage of this gun can be considered only the presence of shells with armor-piercing-cumulative element in its ammunition load. It is stated that with such ammunition, Apache can hit ground targets equipped with 300 mm of homogeneous armor. Author: Dmitry Sergeev Photo: Russian Ministry of Defense / Russian Helicopters /
Design Bureau of Instrument Engineering. Academician A. G. Shipunov

Since the advent of firearms, the military has been concerned with increasing its rate of fire. Starting from the 15th century, gunsmiths tried to achieve this in the only way available at that time - by increasing the number of barrels.

Such multi-barreled guns were called organs or ribodekens. However, the name “quick-firing” did not suit such systems much: although it was possible to simultaneously fire a volley from a large number trunks, further reloading required a lot of time. And with the advent of buckshot, multi-barreled guns completely lost their meaning. But in the 19th century they revived again - thanks to a man who, out of the best of intentions, wanted to reduce combat losses.

In the second half of the 19th century, the military was extremely puzzled by the declining effectiveness of artillery against infantry. For the usual buckshot shot, it was necessary to let the enemy in at 500-700 m, and new long-range rifles, which entered service with the infantry, simply did not allow this to be done. However, the invention of a unitary cartridge marked a new direction in the development of firearms: an increase in the rate of fire. As a result, several solutions to the problem appeared almost simultaneously. The French gunsmith de Reffy designed a mitrailleuse, consisting of 25 fixed barrels of 13 mm caliber, capable of releasing up to 5-6 volleys per minute. In 1869, the Belgian inventor Montigny improved this system, bringing the number of barrels to 37. But mitrailleuses were very bulky and were not widely used. A fundamentally different solution was required.

kind doctor

Richard Gatling was born on September 12, 1818 in Hartford County, Connecticut to a farmer's family. Since childhood, he was fond of inventing, helping his father to repair agricultural machinery. Richard received his first patent (for a seeder) at the age of 19. But, despite his passion, he decided to become a doctor and in 1850 graduated Medical College in Cincinnati. However, the passion for invention won. In the 1850s, Gatling invented several mechanical seed drills and the propeller. new system, but the most famous invention was made later. On November 4, 1862, he received patent number 36,836 for a design that forever inscribed his name in the history of weapons - the Revolving Battery Gun. Nevertheless, the author of the deadly invention, as befits a doctor, had the best feelings for humanity. Gatling himself wrote about it this way: “If I could create a mechanical firing system that, due to its rate of fire, would allow one person to replace a hundred shooters on the battlefield, the need for large armies would disappear, which would lead to a significant reduction in human losses.” (After Gatling's death, Scientific American published an obituary that read: "This man was unparalleled in kindness and cordiality. It seemed to him that if the war became even more terrible, then the nations would finally lose the desire to resort to arms.")

Despite the development of technologies and materials, the principle of operation of the Gatling gun has not changed. All the same block of trunks is spun by an external drive. By the way, precisely because, unlike their ancestors, modern Gatlings are powered by an electric motor (or other engine), their use as infantry weapons is very impractical ... The Terminator, apparently, always had a portable diesel power station.

The merit of Gatling was not at all that he was the first to make multi-barreled weapons - as already noted, multi-barreled systems were no longer a novelty by that time. And not in the fact that he arranged the trunks "in a revolving" manner (this scheme was widely used in handguns). Gatling designed an original mechanism for feeding cartridges and ejecting cartridges. A block of several barrels rotated around its axis, under the influence of gravity, the cartridge from the tray entered the barrel at the upper point, then a shot was fired with the help of a striker, with further rotation from the barrel at the lower point, again, under the influence of gravity, the sleeve was extracted. The drive of this mechanism was manual, with the help of a special handle the shooter rotated the block of barrels and fired. Of course, such a scheme was not yet fully automatic, but it had a number of advantages. Mechanical reloading was at first more reliable than automatic: weapons of early designs constantly jammed. But even this simple mechanics provided a fairly high rate of fire for those times. The barrels overheated and became fouled with soot (which was a significant problem, since black powder was widely used at that time) much slower than single-barreled weapons.

machine guns

The Gatling system usually consisted of 4 to 10 barrels of 12-40 mm caliber and made it possible to fire at a distance of up to 1 km with a rate of fire of about 200 rounds per minute. In terms of firing range and rate of fire, it surpassed conventional artillery pieces. In addition, the Gatling system was rather cumbersome and was usually mounted on carriages from light guns, so it was considered artillery weapons, and it was often not quite correctly called the "shotgun" (in fact, this weapon is correctly called a machine gun). Before the adoption of the St. Petersburg Convention of 1868, which banned the use of explosive projectiles weighing less than 1 pound, there were Gatlings and large caliber guns that fired explosive projectiles and shrapnel.

In America went Civil War, and Gatling offered his weapons to the northerners. However, the Ordnance Department was inundated with proposals for the use of new types of weapons from various inventors, so, despite a successful demonstration, Gatling failed to get an order. True, individual copies of the Gatling machine gun still fought a little at the end of the war, having proven themselves very well. After the war, in 1866, the American government nevertheless placed an order for 100 Gatling guns, which were produced by Colt under the Model 1866 marking. Such guns were put on ships, they were also adopted by the armies of other countries. British troops used Gatlings in 1883 to put down a mutiny in Egyptian Port Said, where the weapon earned a fearsome reputation. Russia also became interested in it: the Gatling gun here was adapted by Gorlov and Baranovsky under the "Berdanov" cartridge and put into service. Later, the Gatling system was repeatedly improved and modified - the Swede Nordenfeld, the American Gardner, the British Fitzgerald. Moreover, it was not only about machine guns, but also about small-caliber cannons - a typical example is the 37-mm five-barreled Hotchkiss cannon, adopted by the Russian fleet in 1881 (a 47-mm version was also produced).

But the monopoly on the rate of fire did not last long - soon the name "machine gun" was assigned to automatic weapons, who worked on the principles of using powder gases and recoil for reloading. The first such weapon was the Hiram Maxim machine gun, which used smokeless powder. This invention relegated the Gatlings to the background, and then completely ousted them from the armies. The new single-barreled machine guns had a much higher rate of fire, were easier to manufacture and less bulky.

Gatlings in the air The pilot can change the rate of fire of the GAU-8 cannon depending on the task. In the "low" rate of fire mode, this is 2000 rds / min, when switching to the "high" mode - 4200. The optimal conditions for using the GAU-8 are 10 two-second bursts with minute breaks to cool the barrels.

Eruption"

Ironically, the revenge of the Gatlings over single-barreled automatic guns took place more than half a century later, after the Korean War, which became a real testing ground for jet aircraft. Despite their fierceness, the battles between the F-86 and MiG-15 showed low efficiency. artillery weapons new jet fighters, migrated from piston ancestors. Aircraft of that time were armed with whole batteries of several barrels with a caliber from 12.7 to 37 mm. All this was done for the sake of increasing the second salvo: after all, a continuously maneuvering enemy aircraft was kept in sight for only a fraction of a second and for its destruction it was necessary to create for a short time great density of fire. At the same time, single-barreled guns practically approached the "design" rate of fire limit - the barrel overheated too quickly. An unexpected solution was found by itself: in the late 1940s, the American corporation General Electric began experiments with ... old Gatling guns taken from museums. The block of barrels was spun by an electric motor, and the 70-year-old gun immediately gave out a rate of fire of more than 2000 rounds per minute (it is interesting that there is data on the installation of an electric drive on Gatling guns back in late XIX century; this made it possible to achieve a rate of fire of several thousand rounds per minute - but at that time such an indicator was not in demand). The development of the idea was the creation of a gun that opened up a whole era in weapons business - M61A1 Vulcan.

When reloading, the GAU-8 module is completely dismantled from the aircraft. This greatly improves the ease of maintenance of the gun. The rotation of the block of barrels is carried out by two hydraulic motors operating from the common hydraulic system of the aircraft.

The Vulcan is a six-barreled gun weighing 190 kg (without ammunition), 1800 mm long, 20 mm in caliber and with a rate of fire of 6000 rounds per minute. Automation "Volcano" works at the expense of an external electric drive with a power of 26 kW. Ammunition supply is linkless, carried out from a drum magazine with a capacity of 1000 shells through a special sleeve. Spent cartridges are returned to the store. This decision was made after the incident with the F-104 Starfighter aircraft, when the cartridges ejected by the cannon were thrown back. air flow back and severely damaged the fuselage of the aircraft. The huge rate of fire of the cannon also led to unforeseen consequences: the oscillations that occurred during firing forced a change in the rate of fire in order to eliminate the resonance of the entire structure. The recoil of the cannon also brought a surprise: in one of the test flights of the ill-fated F-104, while firing, the Vulcan fell off the carriage and, continuing to fire, turned the entire nose of the aircraft with shells, while the pilot miraculously managed to eject. However, after correcting these shortcomings, the US military received light and reliable weapons that have served faithfully for decades. M61 guns are used on many aircraft and in anti-aircraft complex Mk.15 Phalanx, designed to destroy low-flying aircraft and cruise missiles. Based on the M61A1, a six-barreled rapid-fire machine gun M134 Minigun with a caliber of 7.62 mm was developed, thanks to computer games and filming in numerous films, which became the most famous among all the Gatlings. The machine gun is designed for installation on helicopters and ships.

The most powerful cannon with a rotating block of barrels was the American GAU-8 Avenger, designed for installation on the A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft. The 30-mm seven-barrel gun is designed to fire primarily at ground targets. It uses two types of ammunition: high-explosive shells PGU-13 / B and those with increased initial speed armor-piercing PGU-14 / B with a core of depleted uranium. Since the gun and the aircraft were originally designed specifically for each other, firing from the GAU-8 does not lead to a severe violation of the controllability of the A-10. When designing the aircraft, it was also taken into account that the powder gases from the gun should not enter the engines aircraft(this can lead to their stop), - special reflectors are installed for this. But during the operation of the A-10, it was noticed that unburned powder particles settle on the blades of engine turbochargers and reduce thrust, and also lead to increased corrosion. To prevent this effect, electric afterburners are built into the aircraft engines. Igniters turn on automatically when fire is opened. At the same time, according to the instructions, after each shot ammunition, the A-10 engines must be washed from soot. Although during combat use the gun did not show high efficiency, the psychological effect of the use turned out to be on top - when a stream of fire literally pours from the sky, it is very, very scary ...

Tower automatic gun AK-630 is uninhabited. Guidance of the gun is carried out remotely, with the help of electrohydraulic drives. The AK-630 is a versatile and effective "means of self-defense" for our warships, which allows us to defend ourselves against a variety of misfortunes, be it anti-ship missile, Somali pirates or surfaced (as in the movie "Features national fishing») naval mine…

In the USSR, work on rapid-fire guns began with the development of ship-based short-range air defense systems. The result was the creation of a family of anti-aircraft guns designed in the Tula Precision Instrument Design Bureau. The AK-630 30 mm guns still form the basis of the air defense of our ships, and modernized machine is part of the naval anti-aircraft missile and gun complex "Kortik".

In our country, they realized late the need to have an analogue of the Vulkan in service, so almost ten years passed between the tests of the GSh-6-23 gun and the decision to put it into service. The rate of fire of the GSh-6-23, which is installed on the Su-24 and MiG-31 aircraft, is 9000 rounds per minute, and the initial spin-up of the barrels is carried out by standard PPL squibs (and not by electric or hydraulic drives, as in American counterparts), which made it possible to significantly increase the reliability of the system and simplify its design. After the squib is triggered and the first projectile is fed, the barrel block is spun by using the energy of the powder gases discharged from the barrel channels. The supply of the gun with shells can be both linkless and link.

The 30-millimeter gun GSh-6-30 was designed on the basis of the ship's anti-aircraft gun AK-630. With a rate of fire of 4600 rounds per minute, it is capable of sending a 16-kilogram volley at the target in 0.25 seconds. According to eyewitnesses, a 150-shell burst from the GSh-6-30 looked more like a thunderclap than a burst, while the aircraft was shrouded in a bright fiery glow. This gun, which had excellent accuracy, was installed on the MiG-27 fighter-bombers instead of the regular "double-barreled" GSh-23. The use of the GSh-6-30 on ground targets forced the pilots to exit the dive sideways in order to protect themselves from fragments of their own shells rising to a height of 200 m. 27 was not originally designed for such powerful artillery. Therefore, due to vibrations and shocks, equipment failed, aircraft components were deformed, and in one of the flights, after a long line in the cockpit, the instrument panel fell off - the pilot had to return to the airfield, holding it in his arms.

Firearms Gatling schemes are practically the limit of the rate of fire of mechanical weapons systems. Despite the fact that modern rapid-fire single-barrel guns use liquid cooling of the barrel, which significantly reduces its overheating, systems with a rotating block of barrels are still more suitable for long-term firing. The effectiveness of the Gatling scheme allows you to successfully complete the tasks assigned to the weapon, and this weapon rightfully takes its place in the arsenals of all the armies of the world. In addition, it is one of the most spectacular and cinematic types of weapons. Shooting from a Gatling is an excellent special effect in itself, and the menacing appearance of the barrels spun before firing made these guns the most memorable weapons of Hollywood action films and computer games.