Hand-cranked multi barrel rotary gun. It was invented by Richard J. Gatling (1818–1903) during the American Civil War.
Making use of the newly invented brass cartridge, he assembled a cluster of 10 barrels, each of which was fired and reloaded during rotation by a crank. The barrels were loaded by gravity and the action of the cartridge container, and the spent cartridge cases were ejected. Without equal in the era of single-shot guns, it could fire as many as 3,000 rounds per minute. It became obsolete in the 1880s when the invention of smokeless powder led to development of a truly automatic machine gun.
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