gridlore: Doug looking off camera with a grin (US Flag)
Douglas Berry ([personal profile] gridlore) wrote2011-04-13 10:51 am
Entry tags:

[identity profile] jeffreyab.livejournal.com 2011-04-13 10:42 pm (UTC)(link)
They really blew Question 9 since their answer is wrong and the machine gun first saw action in the Civil War:

The French used ironclad ships during the Crimean War ten years earlier.

From Wikipedia:

In the 1850s, the British and French navies deployed iron-armoured floating batteries as a supplement to the wooden steam battlefleet in the Crimean War. The role of the battery was to assist unarmoured mortar and gunboats bombarding shore fortifications. The French used their batteries in 1855 against the defenses at Kinburn on the Black Sea, where they were effective against Russian shore defences. The British planned to use theirs in the Baltic Sea against Kronstadt, and were influential in causing the Russians to sue for peace. The development of such iron-armoured batteries was step towards the development of ironclad warships.

Lambert A. "Iron Hulls and Armour Plate"; Gardiner Steam, Steel and Shellfire p. 47-55

On the other hand machine guns like the Agar gun and the Gatling gun first saw limited use during the American Civil War
kengr: (Default)

[personal profile] kengr 2011-04-13 10:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Gatling guns are rapid fire weapons, but not "machine guns". A technicality, but correct nevertheless.

The first "real" machine guns were in the Franco Prussian war.

[identity profile] jeffreyab.livejournal.com 2011-04-13 11:17 pm (UTC)(link)
The Mitrailleuse? It was similar to the Gatling in which it had to be cranked.

The Maxim was the first design where you cocked it and pulled the trigger and it fired until a stoppage or it ran out of ammo or you took your finger off the rigger.