Rapid Fire: Automatic Weapons from the Gatling Gun to the M249

Richard Gatling patented his hand-cranked cluster of rotating barrels in 1862, hoping its firepower would reduce the number of soldiers a battlefield needed. It saw only limited use in the American Civil War, but it set the starting point for everything that follows.

Adopted by the British Army in 1912, the water-cooled, belt-fed Vickers was derived from Hiram Maxim's design and needed a dedicated crew. Its reputation for extreme reliability made it the sustained barrage gun of First World War trench warfare.

The Lewis gun answered the weight of the Vickers with air cooling and a top-mounted pan magazine. Lighter and more portable, it let infantry squads and aircraft observers carry genuine automatic firepower, and Britain and other Allies adopted it in large numbers after the United States Army had rejected it.

John T. Thompson conceived his gun to break the trench stalemate of the First World War, but the prototypes came too late. The Model 1921 became the first weapon marketed as a submachine gun, famous in Prohibition America before the United States military adopted it in 1938.

John Browning's heavy machine gun, nicknamed Ma Deuce, fires the .50 caliber cartridge and has more range and penetration than rifle-caliber guns. Adopted in 1933, it has been mounted on tanks, aircraft, ships and tripods and is still in front-line service in the twenty-first century.

The Bren takes its name from Brno, where its Czechoslovak design originated, and Enfield, where the British adapted it. With its curved top-mounted magazine and quick-change barrel, it gave British and Commonwealth infantry sections their own sustained automatic fire throughout the Second World War.

Georgy Shpagin's stamped-steel submachine gun was built for rapid mass production and fed from a 71-round drum. Made in the millions, it armed entire Soviet infantry units, a close-range doctrine well suited to urban fighting such as Stalingrad.

The StG 44 fired the intermediate 7.92x33mm Kurz cartridge from a curved 30-round magazine and is generally regarded as the weapon that established the assault rifle as a category. It came too late to change the war, but its concept shaped postwar designs including the Soviet AK-47.

Heckler & Koch's MP5 used a roller-delayed blowback action derived from the G3 battle rifle, which gave better accuracy and control in automatic fire. It became linked with elite close-quarters units after the British Special Air Service used it in the 1980 Iranian Embassy siege.

The United States adopted the Belgian FN Minimi as the M249 in 1982, issuing it to the Army from 1984, to fix the lack of sustained automatic fire at squad level. Gas operated and air cooled, it can take a linked belt or the same magazines as the M16 and M4.