The Gatling Gun

Forerunner to the machine gun, the Gatling gun was invented by Dr. Gatling in 1862, but the factory burned down before it could be produced for the war. He hoped that the creation of a gun that could fire 350 rounds per minute would be reduction of armies and less loss of life. Instead, this efficient killing machine, or rather its upgrades, was responsible for millions of deaths in World War I, as soldiers were sent over the top, into “no man’s land” and into the face of heavy machine gun fire, decimating nearly every offensive assault and leading to the stagnant entrenchment warfare that dominated the early stages of the war, before the invention of the tank. (It was called this so that spies would think they were creating a new type of “fuel tank”! The name stuck…)