Ever since the gun was invented there have been people trying to increase its fire power. In the 15th century a cart was fitted with several cannon barrels, known as the ribauldequin which could be fired in quick succession. In the 18th century Captain Fafschamps, a Belgian, invented a gun having several barrels housed in a cylindrical case. Resembling a cannon, a modified version of this was employed by the French army and known as a grape shooter.
During the American Civil War came the first machine gun of sorts. Similar to the ribauldequin, it consisted of 25 barrels fixed to a cart. However, these were muzzle loaded and after firing a volley of all 25 barrels, there was a long delay whilst they were re-loaded. Soon after this came probably the most well known of all machine guns, the Gatling gun. This consisted of 6 revolving barrels firing one after the other. The big advantage of this system was that after a barrel was discharged, it could cool down whilst the other five were fired. Although invented during the American Civil War, it was not adopted until after the war was over. It was then sold to many countries, including Russia, France and Britain as well as being used by the Americans.
Many other types came and went but none so successful as the Gatling. In the 1940's an electric motor driven version of the Gatling was fitted to fighter aircraft. At the same time an all purpose machine gun was invented by the Germans. It could be carried or fixed to a tripod and was air cooled. Many experiments were carried out with air and water cooling, but portability meant that air cooling was generally used. The German all-purpose gun became the standard for most modern armies. Known as the GPMG, or general purpose machine gun, they are usually driven by gas which is stored in the cartridge, and the bullets are fed in on a belt and can fire up to 1000 rounds per minute.
