Thursday 3 September 2015

When is a Gatling not a Gatling? Trivia

...The answer is, when the 'Gatling' is actually a Hotchkiss.

I have found the history of the Gatling gun - especially in relation to the AiP model of the gun I am modifying at the moment - quite convoluted as things are, so imagine my frustration when I realised the gun had a doppelgänger! The Hotchkiss company also made it's own multibarreled hand-cranked machine gun, and so close were the designs (externally) that it's easy to mistake one for the other. Which is exactly what I did with this picture...



I mistook this illustration for a picture of a 1865 1 inch Gatling of the type that were demonstrated to the British Army. In fact it is a Hotchkiss - the give away (now I have learned about the two weapons) is the small loading 'slide' on the top of the breech.

Luckily I was introduced to the Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon (as it is correctly termed) by this wonderful short video by 'Forgotten Weapons'. It's worth a look, especially as the presenter opens up the breech and shows the internal mechanism in action...

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