Automatic Weapons – Where They Began

Automatic Weapons – Where They Began

A machine gun is a weapon that can fire many bullets very quickly, one after another. This is called automatic (or 'burst') fire. The first machine guns were invented in the middle of the 19th century, using different techniques.

The Gatling gun, invented in the USA, was quite typical of its times. It was heavy and needed two men to carry. It also needed two to fire it. They could make the gun fire about 250 bullets a minute; and, once it was working, it could kill many enemy soldiers in a short time. A few years after the Gatling gun was invented, the American Civil War began and it was used by both sides, adding to the very high number of dead and wounded.

What happened in the American Civil War should have been a warning to others, like the Europeans, of the great damage this kind of gun could do. But the Europeans were very interested in this gun. They developed the technology until, by about 1890, they had machine guns that could be carried by or fired by one man, though usually two men operated them, in case one was killed. These new machine guns fired from 500 to 1,000 bullets a minute; and, the better ones were so reliable that they could be used for at least a week non-stop.

Times were quiet in Europe itself and there were few wars between 1860 and 1914. However, the Europeans put this new technology to use in their empires, especially in Africa where just a few white soldiers with machine guns could control huge territories and kill thousands of Africans, armed only with spears, in one day. The African soldiers who fought for the Europeans (called Askaris) were allowed to carry the machine guns in their boxes but the firing was always done by white soldiers, usually an officer. The Europeans’ greatest fear was that the Africans might learn to use these terrible weapons and steal some and, then, use them to attack the white colonists and soldiers.

However, back in Europe, the public was told nothing of this. The newspapers said that the Africans were defeated by brave, white soldiers in red jackets, with rifles and bayonets, standing shoulder to shoulder. There were even colour pictures in magazines showing these kinds of imagined battles.

It was not only in Africa that this happened. The machine gun was used to control the difficult natives on the North West frontier of British India, in what is now western Pakistan. Also, in the western United States, the machine gun played its part in the killing off of the native Americans.

In 1914, the First World War began in Europe with all the major nations and many smaller ones taking part. Even from the beginning, the number of dead was very high because both sides had machine guns but neither side had worked out a way of attacking an enemy who had these weapons. They had used them but never attacked them. Millions of soldiers were killed trying to take enemy positions defended by machine guns.

The defender had the advantage because the machine gun could not be used while running forwards. It was still too heavy for that. The attackers could not take their machine guns with them but the defenders could always use theirs. For exactly this reason, the submachine gun was developed. This is a gun smaller than a rifle and very easy for one man to carry. It fires bullets in 'bursts'. As soon as it was given to the soldiers, the war ended.

This new style of 'personal' machine gun was quickly used in the USA by mine and factory owners to control striking workers. But, most famously, gangsters in American cities used it to murder other gangsters. This was usually a 'drive-by' shooting in which the killer fired ten to twelve bullets a second from the window of a fast-moving car, making death more certain and a good aim unimportant.

Naturally, the submachine gun was used a lot in the Second World War but many soldiers felt it was too small. It couldn't hit much that was more than seventy metres away; and it was never very accurate. German military scientists decided to make a mixture of the automatic rifle and the submachine gun called the 'assault rifle'. The bullet was smaller than a normal rifle bullet but much bigger than the bullets used by the submachine guns. This meant that the user could fire one careful shot to hit something 300 or 400 metres away or fire bursts at enemies close up - the best of both worlds.

Just after the Second World War, a Russian soldier, Sergeant Kalashnikov, made the ideal assault rifle (it is still named after him). It was cheap, easy to use and maintain and light to carry. Unfortunately, this made it easy for boy soldiers as young as nine to use. Just this one kind of assault rifle (also known as the AK47) has killed millions of people around the world. Its design has changed very little since it was first used in 1947 and it is the world's second most easily recognised product after Coca-Cola.