mitrailleuse
Sign in to saveA mitrailleuse (; from French mitraille, "grapeshot") is a type of volley gun with barrels of rifle calibre that can fire either all rounds at once or in rapid succession. The earliest true mitrailleuse was theorized and proposed in 1851 by Belgian Army captain Fafschamps, ten years before the advent of the Gatling gun. It was followed by the Belgian Montigny mitrailleuse in 1863. Then the French 25 barrel "Canon à Balles", better known as the Reffye mitrailleuse, was adopted in great secrecy in 1866. It became the first rapid-firing weapon deployed as standard equipment by any army in a major
Key facts
- Weapon.is_artillery
- yes
- Weapon.image
- Mitrailleuse front.jpg
- Weapon.image_size
- 300
- Weapon.caption
- Reffye mitrailleuse Le Général Hanicque ("Canon à balles modèle 1866"), manufactured in 1867, on display in Les Invalides
- Weapon.name
- Mitrailleuse de Reffye a.k.a. "Canon a Balles" (1866)
- Weapon.type
- Volley gun
- Weapon.origin
- France
- Weapon.service
- 1866–1908
- Weapon.designer
- J. B. Verchere de Reffye
- Weapon.design_date
- 1865
- Weapon.manufacturer
- Meudon and Nantes government facilities
- Weapon.production_date
- 1866–71
- Weapon.number
- About 400
- Weapon.length
- 1.75 m
- Weapon.cartridge
- Elongated shotgun shell configuration, center fire, 50-gram (770 grain) patched bullet
- Weapon.caliber
- 13 mm (.512 caliber)
- Weapon.rate
- 125 rounds/minute
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- machine gun
- Country of origin
- Second French Empire
- Conflict
- Franco-Prussian War
- Image
- Mitrailleuse front.jpg
Show 6 more facts
- Commons category
- Mitrailleuses
- service entry
- 1866-01-01
- service retirement
- 1908-01-01
- total produced
- 400
- Commons gallery
- Mitrailleuse
- different from
- machine gun
Sources (1)
via Wikidata · CC0
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Encyclopedic overview
17 sectionsContents
- Origin
- Technical characteristics
- Design
- Ammunition and firing rates
- Development
- Operational doctrine
- Use in war
- Franco-Prussian War (1870–71)
- After the war
- Other campaigns
- Impact on military development
- Modern uses of the term ''mitrailleuse''
- Preserved mitrailleuses
- See also
- Notes
- References
- External links
A mitrailleuse (; from French mitraille, "grapeshot") is a type of volley gun with barrels of rifle calibre that can fire either all rounds at once or in rapid succession. The earliest true mitrailleuse was theorized and proposed in 1851 by Belgian Army captain Fafschamps, ten years before the advent of the Gatling gun. It was followed by the Belgian Montigny mitrailleuse in 1863. Then the French 25 barrel "Canon à Balles", better known as the Reffye mitrailleuse, was adopted in great secrecy in 1866. It became the first rapid-firing weapon deployed as standard equipment by any army in a major conflict when it was used during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71.
A steel block containing twenty-five 13 mm (.51 calibre) centre-fire cartridges was locked against the breech before firing. With the rotation of a crank, the 25 rounds were discharged in rapid succession. The sustainable firing rate of the Reffye mitrailleuse was 100 rounds per minute and its maximum range was about 2000 yards (1800 m), a distance that placed their batteries beyond the reach of Prussian Dreyse needle rifle fire. Reffye mitrailleuses were deployed in six-gun batteries and were manned by gunners as a form of special artillery.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “mitrailleuse” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
Gallery (22)
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