What stopped 18-19th century armies with guns from being able to create automatic weapons like AK-47s and Uzis?
Since they don’t use electricity I feel like they’re made with materials and technology that was already available in the 1750s, surely they could’ve put their heads together to create a machine gun and just annihilate any ops…
Thanks
In: Engineering
There were early machine guns – the Gatling Gun first saw service in the US Civil War.
Flintlock Muskets we’re designed as muzzle loaders, and as a result could not be fired more than once before reloading.
17th century firearms were poorly standardized, and required that the lead balls be made with an individualized mold. There also were no standard cartridges, each time a gun was fired, powder had to be poured, wadding stuffed in, and then the ball rammed down.
Around the time of the civil war these problems started to be solved – Manufacturing tolerances improved allowing for the mass manufacture of standard sized rifle balls with standardized paper cartridges, and soon enough metal cartridges. By the end of the civil war early “repeating rifles” – bolt and lever action weapons with magazines – were in use.
But fully automatic fire was still problematic. First, because repeatedly firing bullets down a single barrel heated the barrel so much it could fail, and because there was no mechanism to cycle the weapon without an operator providing the power.
The solutions to these two problems in early machine guns were the water jacket and the recoil operated bolt respectively. Water could be easily acquired for cooling and then disposed of when it became too hot and replaced. A recoil operated bolt would use the recoil force of the gun firing a bullet to force the bolt backwards, opening it and allowing the next round to be pulled in to the chamber, loaded and fired.
Latest Answers