Gast gun

The Gast gun was a German twin-barrelled machine gun devised by Karl Gast of the Vorwerk company of Barmen during the First World War. Its two barrels were joined in one mechanism so that the recoil of firing one barrel loaded and charged the other, which gave a very high rate of fire of about 1,600 rounds per minute. Ammunition came from two vertically mounted drums holding 180 rounds of 7.92 mm rifle ammunition between them, and the gun weighed about 27 kg without ammunition, light enough that it was considered for use in aircraft. Gast patented the design in 1916 and 1917, and a large production order was placed in 1917, but the weapon saw little service and its existence stayed largely secret until Allied inspectors found a cache of 25 guns near Konigsberg in 1921. The United States Army later tested one and judged it reliable but not worth the cost of production. Its operating principle was later adopted for Soviet GSh-23 and GSh-30-2 aircraft autocannon.