The triple tier machine gun was designed to provide continuous artillery fire, each tier fitted with eleven barrels. As the gun is rolled forward, one tier is fired, another is cooling from having been fired and the next is being loaded ready to fire again.
Da Vinci’s design from around 1500, has precedents from as early as 1405 in Germany.
The true forerunner of the modern machine gun was the Gatling gun, invented by Dr Richard J Gatling in 1861 with the ironic intention of increasing the firepower, and therefore reducing the manpower of armies and as a result, the casualties of war.
The Gatling gun was used in the American Civil War and during World War I, and the basic principle of the design is applied to modern military aircraft canon.
Twenty five year old Private Evelyn Owen from Wollongong, Australia, invented a lightweight submachine gun in 1940. Nicknamed the ‘diggers darling’ because of its reliability in tropical conditions, the gun was used by Australian military forces into the 1970s.
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World War II Browning machine gun
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Late 19th century machine gun
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