- A hand-driven machine gun, the Gatling gun was the first firearm to solve the problems of loading, reliability, and the firing of sustained bursts.

-But Gatling soon improved on the original six-barrel, .58 caliber version of the gun, which fired 350 rounds a minute, by designing a ten-barrel, .30 caliber model, which fired 400 rounds a minute.

-A modern, helicopter-mounted version of the Gatling gun, the Vulcan minigun, was widely used by the U.S. Army in the Indochina war.

Purpose(s) of a Gatling Gun