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
All guns are one malfunction away from being an improvised explosive device. Automatic weapons are at a higher risk because they tend to get very hot very quickly.
You need consistent quality in the material and construction of both the gun and the ammunition to minimize catastrophic malfunction.
Just about anyone could go down to the hardware store and jury rig a gatling gun with time and tools. The chances of it blowing up in their face (literally) is significant.
Even modern firearms malfunction and blow up. With modern designs and materials it’s rare, but it happens. I’ve seen a few interesting malfunctions over the past few decades first hand.
The most ‘common’ ones were from people that reloaded their own ammo. After that it was using old/improperly stored ammo. Weapon malfunction covered the rest.
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