Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 August 1870 — The Freneh “Mitrailleuse.” [ARTICLE]

The Freneh “Mitrailleuse.”

To destroy your enemy In the (Softest time, In the easiest manner, and at tlu least possible expense, is the first maxim of war. The stone that whistled from David’s sling, the bullet of the " xundnadelgewehr, and the volley of the “ machine gun ” bad all the same object Since the days of Roger Bacon the aim of all Improvements in fire-arms has been to carry the greatest possible distance. Grape, canister or case, and shrapnel all contain bullets, and are all means for multiplying deaths. The field gun mows down its hundreds by showers of case at close quarters, or at longer distances rains bullets from the bursting shrapnel. The mitrailleuse, or machine gun, on the contrary, sends a large number of small projectiles independently, and with precision, to a considerable distanoe. we may divide arms on the latter principle into two classes, first, those which discharge their bullets from a single barrel, fed % a many-chambered breech; and secondly, those in which each cartridge has its corresponding barrel, the charging and discharging of which is direct ana more or less simple. It is obvious that for rough usage and continuous firing it is better that a large number of rounds should be fired from a considerable number .of harrels so placed as to support each other, and add strength to the whole machine. The French mitrailleuse's well as the Belgian Montigny, belongs to the second class, and the following brief description is equally applicable to both arms: The machine gun consists of a cluster of barrels either bound together or bored out of the solid, and mounted on the same principle as an ordinary field gun. At a few hundred y ards, indeed.lt would be difficult to distinguish between these two weapons,so for as outward appearanco goes. To the barrel is attached a massive breech action capable of being opened and closed by a lever. In the Montigny arm the cartridges are carried in steel plates perforated with holes corresponding in number and position to the holes in the barrel. This steel plate, in fact, forms the “ vent piece” of the system. The central fire cartridges being dropped into the holes in the steel plate, stand out at right angles from it, and the plates, thus ready charged, are so carried in limber and axletree boxes specially fitted for their reception. When the gun comes into action the breech is drawn back, a steel plate full of cartridges is dropped into its corresponding slot, and the breech block thrust forward and secured. The gun is now on full cock, and contains from thirty to forty cartridges, which are fired by a “ barrel organ ” handle, either ono by one as the handle works round click-click, or in a volley by a rapid turn of the wrist. When the gun is empty the breach block is again withdrawn, the steel plate carrying the empty cartridge cases lifted out, and a fresh plate dropped in if necessary. The advantage possessed by the machine gnn over infantry fire is that it is never in a funk. Bullets may rain around, bursting shells may fill the air, still the thirty-seven barrels of the mitrailleuse shoot like one man, and at 800 or 1,000 yards will pour volley after volley of deadly concentrated fire into a circle of from ten feet to twelve feet in diameter. No boring or fixing of fuses is required, and the whole operation is performed so rapidly that two steady cool men could maintain a fire of ten discharges per minute. On the other hand, the mitrailleuse could not well compete with the field gun, and it is with this weapon it will assuredly be met Its bullets would have comparatively slight effect at the ranges at which field artillery projectiles are perhaps most effective, while its size would offer a very fair mark to the gunner. —Teondon Qlcbe.