“Uncovering the Hidden Genius: The Surprising Origins of the World’s First Machine Gun!”
In the annals of warfare, few innovations have left such a potent mark on the battlefield as the machine gun. As Hillaire Belloc evocatively penned in 1898, there’s something chillingly powerful about wielding the firepower of dozens of soldiers in the hands of just one. This formidable piece of machinery, which helped empires conquer vast territories and carried the heavy burden of world wars, has a history that’s almost as complex as the weapon itself. So, why did it take so long for this iconic tool of destruction to emerge? And who were the unsung heroes behind its development? Fasten your seatbelts as we embark on a wild ride through the intriguing journey of the machine gun—where inventiveness meets bloodshed, and history reveals its raw brutality. Prepare to be surprised at how something so devastatingly effective was born from a blend of ambition, creativity, and, dare I say, a bit of madness! LEARN MORE.
“I never shall forget the way, That Blood upon this awful day, Preserved us all from death. He stood upon a little mound, Cast his lethargic eyes around, And said beneath his breath : “Whatever happens we have got, The Maxim Gun, and they have not.”
This passage, from Hillaire Belloc’s 1898 poem The Modern Traveller, infamously captures the awesome destruction wrought by one of modern warfare’s key innovations: the machine gun. Putting the firepower of dozens of soldiers into the hands of just one, this weapon allowed the western colonial powers to conquer half the known world, ground the First World War into a bloody stalemate, helped the Nazis blitzkrieg their way across Europe, and remains a vital part of every army’s arsenal to this day. Yet despite its outsized impact on combat, the modern machine gun is less than a century and a half old. Why did it take so long for this weapon to be developed, and who was responsible for the vital breakthrough? Well, lock and load as we delve into the fascinating history of the machine gun.
Automatic fire has long been a part of warfare, with volleys of arrows fired by masses of archers playing a key role in battles from antiquity to the late middle ages. Placing such firepower in the hands of a single soldier, however, was another matter entirely. In the late 15th Century, Italian renaissance man extraordinaire Leonardo da Vinci sketched a number of ingenious engines of war in his notebooks, including an arrow-firing “machine gun” comprising no fewer than sixteen crossbows mounted on a rotating wheel. One version of this device was driven by a man-powered treadmill, which automatically cocked the bowstrings as it rotated. Yet another sketch depicts a spring-powered catapult with multiple arms for throwing stones in rapid succession. In Leonardo’s day, cannons were just starting to appear on the battlefield, but they were slow and tedious to reload; so, naturally, Leonardo also designed artillery pieces featuring multiple barrels to increase their firepower. As with most of Leonardo’s inventions, however, there is no evidence that any of these weapons were ever actually built.
The weapon commonly cited as being the world’s first “true” machine gun is the Puckle Gun, patented in 1718 by London lawyer James Puckle. However, strictly speaking this is not quite accurate, since a machine gun is typically defined as a weapon which can fire multiple shots in quick succession by turning a crank or – by the modern definition – pulling the trigger. Rather, Puckle’s gun is more accurately described as a rapid-firing revolver cannon, more akin to a modern revolver. That said, it was amongst the first, if not the first gun, to ever be called a machine gun when, in a 1722 shipping manifest, it was noted that the ship had on board “2 Machine Guns of Puckles.”
Curiously modern looking in its design, the Puckle Gun boasted a 3 foot long barrel and was designed to sit atop a tripod. It could also swivel and be aimed in any direction extremely rapidly with little effort by the operator due to how well balanced it was.
Once the prototype was completed in 1717, Puckle approached the British Navy who, at the time, were having a lot of trouble with Ottoman pirates. You see, the large, broadside cannons their ships were equipped with were a poor weapon of choice to use against tiny, fast moving vessels that could quite literally run circles around the bigger craft.
Puckle felt his gun was perfect for this use-case. Ships could quite easily have several of the Puckle guns mounted all around the perimeter of the deck and fire at approaching pirates with incredible speed for the age.
Intrigued, officials from the English Board of Ordnance were sent to observe a demonstration of the gun in 1717 in Woolwich. Unfortunately for Puckle, while they were reportedly impressed with the speed at which it could launch projectiles of death, and how quickly it could be reloaded, they decided to pass.
Their objections to it were primarily that it featured an unreliable flintlock system and it was too complex to be easily manufactured, including requiring many custom made components that gunsmiths at that point didn’t have, all combined making it difficult to mass produce. On top of that, it didn’t exactly lend itself to a variety of tactical situations due to its size.
