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The first successful self-loader was the Gatling gun, a hand-cranked revolver. It was invented by Richard Jordan Gatling and fielded by the Union forces during the American Civil War. Self-loaders use energy to reload. The world's first machine gun was the Maxim gun, developed by British inventor Sir Hiram Maxim in 1884.
According to Joseph Needham, fire lances or proto-guns were known to Muslims by the late 13th century and early 14th century. [26] However the term midfa, dated to textual sources from 1342 to 1352, cannot be proven to be true hand-guns or bombards, and contemporary accounts of a metal-barrel cannon in the Islamic world do not occur until 1365 ...
The first of the western ... (in office 1331–1364) ... One of the earliest rifled cannons was the breech-loading Armstrong Gun—also invented by William ...
The first true gun evolved in China from the fire lance (a bamboo tube that fired porcelain shrapnel) with the invention of the metal hand cannon sometime around 1288, which the Yuan dynasty used to win a decisive victory against Mongolian rebels. The artillery cannon appeared in 1326 and the European hand cannon in 1364. Early projectiles were ...
These "hook guns" were in their earliest forms defensive weapons mounted on German city walls in the early 15th century. [2] The addition of a shoulder stock, priming pan, [3] and matchlock mechanism in the late 15th century turned the arquebus into a handheld firearm and also the first firearm equipped with a trigger.
One of the earliest rifled cannons was the Armstrong gun—also invented by William George Armstrong—which boasted significantly improved range, accuracy, and power than earlier weapons. The projectile fired from the Armstrong gun could reportedly pierce through a ship's side, and explode inside the enemy vessel, causing increased damage, and ...
Old Japanese weapons and other military paraphernalia, c. 1892–95 A Gilbertese shark-toothed weapon (late 19th century). Major innovations in the history of weapons have included the adoption of different materials – from stone and wood to different metals, and modern synthetic materials such as plastics – and the developments of different weapon styles either to fit the terrain or to ...
In 1884, Hiram Maxim invented the Maxim gun, the first single-barreled machine gun. [88] The world's first submachine gun (a fully automatic firearm which fires pistol cartridges) able to be maneuvered by a single soldier is the MP 18.1, invented by Theodor Bergmann.