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
You need the ability to mass produce fixed cartridge ammunition to feed a machine gun- that technology wasn’t invented until the late 19th century. Machine guns are a natural byproduct of fixed cartridges.
A key feature of machine guns is they use energy from the previous round to chamber the next one and ready the weapon for firing. This requires both high quality materials and precision machining to work reliably, as well as highly consistent ammunition. The first machine gun was the maxim machine gun which iirc was invented in the 1880s, which basically was as soon as possible once the prerequisites technologies were in wide use.
the first automatic weapon known as the “puckle gun” was patented in 1718. However as stated by others the gun making process during that time was more manual and time consuming. Thus the process of making all the parts to make a successful automatic rifle would make the weapon to costly to REALLY make on a scale to make them effective.
Now that we have the ability to machine these parts it makes these guns far more available.
Machine guns were made possible by a whole series of inventions, and weren’t really possible before that.
One of the most essential inventions was the cartridge. Propellant, a primer, a projectile, all the components contained in a single case. This was a key to having any sort of repeating fire, but wasn’t patented until 1847 and wasn’t widely available for years after that.
While gunmakers quickly figured out how to manually feed cartridges with a bolt/pump/lever, using the power from a round was tricky, because the black powder in use at the time was very dirty. It left behind thick and hard fouling in the gun, enough to gunk up the works after a few rounds and stop them from working.
This is the point machine guns became possible and were invented, but, they weren’t really reliable. The only real way around the fouling issue was to overcome it with sheer force, leading to weapons that were large and heavy like the 1884 Maxim gun.
Smokeless powder was invented in 1884, wasn’t really commercially available until about 1897, but basically solved the fouling issue. This made machine guns viable, and it’s why tons started being invented in the early 20th century.
>Since they don’t use electricity I feel like they’re made with materials and technology that was already available in the 1750s
You need at least a steam engine to power the necessary mills and lathes.
It’s only when those machines were developed that mass production of precision parts became possible.
You need a pretty versatile industrial complex to be able to produce automatic firearms.
Modern machine guns require predictable ammunition, the escaping gases are the thing that pushes the bolt back to allow another cartridge to feed. Early gatling guns, which were fielded in the mid 19th century, required a man to crank the thing. Once the ammunition became much more standardized and well manufactured, automatic reloading weapons weren’t far behind. Like, the 45 ACP (automatic) was made to work with the M1911 which uses a short recoil action was also used in the Thompson machine gun which is blowback operated.
So, the TLDR is; the ammunition.
Rapid firing weapons have been a possibility for half a millennia but extremely hard to make happen until the last 150 years.
Only the relatively recent improvements in metal creation and modification have allowed for such weapons to exist in any major capacity and work reliably.
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.
Powder fouling and interchangeable parts.
Black powder doesn’t burn away completely when it is fired, and this makes it counterintuitive for high volumes of repeat fire.
Modern firearms use smokeless powder, which doesn’t leave as much residue behind. This allows for more firing before the gun needs to be cleaned.
The other thing is replaceable parts. It’s one thing to build a weapon, it’s another thing to build 100 examples of that weapon which all have similar parts tolerances. Exotic weapons for the rich have existed for centuries- there are plenty of unique firearms in European museums that use uniquely made cartridges, sights, or other useful features that don’t become commonplace on weapons for at least another century or two.
Without replaceable parts, any advanced weapon is unique and only functional as long as someone with enough skill and knowledge to maintain it is present. It’s also worth mentioning that a lot of the tools used to make these sorts of weapons are also one-off items, usually the result of a master craftsman making their own tools. A master craftsman with their workshop full of irreplaceable tools isn’t something that dragged along with your average army supply train or packed into the hold of a warship.
By the end of the 19th century, standards of measurement and gradually increasing access to machine tools was making replaceable parts more and more common.
Black powder machine gun concepts did exist in the latter half of the 19th century, but they were usually multi barrel weapons that were crew served- the sort of weapon that would be used by naval ships in the late 19th century for close combat.
Although you mention AK-47s and Uzis, it should be noted that the Gatling gun was first used during the American Civil War which was the late 19th century.
Although different in functionality, it was a “rapid fire” fairly “automatic” weapon.
Just my view.
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