Mitrailleuse

The mitrailleuse was a French volley gun with a cluster of rifle caliber barrels that fired in rapid succession when a crank turned a steel breech block loaded with 25 cartridges at once, letting a trained crew fire around 100 rounds a minute. The French Army adopted it in 1866, and by the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 roughly 190 to 210 were in service, the Reffye version firing a 13mm cartridge to an effective range of about 1,800 meters. Despite its rate of fire, French commanders kept the weapon a closely guarded secret and deployed it like artillery at long range instead of using it for close infantry support, so it performed well below its potential against Prussian forces in that war.