From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The mitrailleuse - a 19th century volley gun

A volley gun or ribaldequin is a gun with several barrels for firing a number of shots simultaneously. Some volley guns could also fire their barrels in sequence. They differ from traditional machine guns in that they lack automatic loading and automatic fire and are limited by the number of barrels bundled together.

In practice the large ones were not particularly more useful than a cannon firing canister shot or grapeshot. Since they were still mounted on a carriage, they were still as hard to aim and move around as a cannon, and the many barrels took as long or longer to reload. They also tended to be relatively expensive since they were more complex than a cannon, due to all the barrels and ignition fuses, and each barrel had to be individually maintained and cleaned.

Two notable artillery-sized volley guns were developed in the mid-19th century, although neither was particularly successful in practice. General Origen Vandenburgh of the New York State Militia designed a weapon in 1860 that had eighty-five parallel .50 calibre rifle barrels. After failing to sell the weapon to the United Kingdom, he reportedly sold a small number to the Confederate States of America, although there is no record that they were actually used, one Vandenburgh gun was located at Fort Fisher, NC. Also developed in the 1860s, the French mitrailleuse is an example of a multi-barreled gun volley gun that could fire all of its barrels simultaneously or sequentially over a short period of time.

A few hand-held volley guns were also developed during the 18th and 19th centuries. One of the most distinctive was the "duck's-foot" volley gun, a pistol with four .45 calibre barrels arranged in a splayed pattern, so that the firer could spray a sizable area with a single shot. The British Royal Navy used gunsmith Henry Nock of London's volley gun around the time of the Napoleonic Wars. This was a seven-barreled gun capable of firing seven .50 calibre pistol balls at the same time, intended for use in repelling boarders or the clear an enemy deck in advance of friendly boarding parties. However, its immense recoil made it an extremely physically demanding weapon to use. The Nock gun was recently brought to public attention by its inclusion in Bernard Cornwell's Sharpe novels where it was wielded by Sharpe's friend and colleague Sergeant Pat Harper. It is worth noting that in addition to the recoil problems, this weapon would have required almost two minutes to reload, even in the hands of an experienced soldier. Also, it is easy to imagine an inexperienced marine in the heat of battle loading the same barrel twice.

More recently, a number of designs of electronically-fired explosive-propulsion projectile weapons and non-explosive projectile weapons have been developed which have some similarities to 18th century volley guns, particularly in that they use many barrels which can be fired all at once or in sequence. However, they are not as yet in general use. The Australian company Metal Storm is one of the leading developers of such weapons, designing a 36-barrel volley gun capable of a theoretical firing rate of more than a million rounds per minute.

Various forms of the weapon have been designed, including Aircraft Mounted Units firing downward, man portable artillery packs and defensive applications, such as ship-based anti-missile defense systems (for which Gatling guns are currently used).

The Spanish Navy also uses a volley gun system, the Meroka, which consists of 12 20mm cannon mounted in a tight cluster with an externally-powered automatic loading system. It delivers an exceptionally high rate of fire for a very short burst, and reloads in less than 0.3 seconds. This makes it suitable for close-range defense against missiles, aircraft and small boats.

• The Shagohod, a nuclear-equipped tank in the video game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, is equipped with a volley gun.
• In Lone Wolf and Cub manga Ogami Itto has an early volley gun built into the front of his baby carriage.
• In A Fistful of Dollars Rojo and his men ambush a unit of the Mexican army using a volley gun.
• In The Alamo (1960 film) Jim Bowie (played by Richard Widmark) wields a seven-barrel volley gun in the battle against Santa Anna's army
• In the Sharpe series of books, Sgt. (Patrick) Harper carries a handheld volley gun, only effective due to the size of Sgt. Harper [1]
• In the 1966 film Django (film) Franco Nero's titular character travels with a coffin containing a Mitrailleuse type volley gun.
• Warhammer Fantasy has volley guns used by The Empire.