There is a thought perpetuated by certain members of the human population who are capable of sustaining life within their bodies, that all the other gender thinks about is sex and food. They couldn't be more wrong. We think about automatic weapons too! Thanks to Richard Gatling, those thoughts were turned into practicality. Richard invented a lot of other things too, but they weren't near as cool as the Gatling Gun, which is technically the first successful machine-gun!Harken back to the days of the Civil War, warfare hadn't changed much since the revolutionary war with the slow rate of fire of rifles. They had gotten more accurate, but the average rounds per minute were still in the two to four a minute range. Well, Richard Gatling was about to change all of that with the invention of the Gatling Gun. It was modeled after a seed planter that Gatling had designed.Despite only 13 being fielded during the Civil War, Gatling's design was definitely a game changer and the design was sold to Colt. Colt kept on improving the gun's design over the years and the Gatling gun became a quintessential

Throughout the years the original design has been upgraded using electronic firing mechanisms as well as a host of other improvements. However, if we look at the M61 Vulcan, we can see the similarities from a time when automatic gunfire was a myth and "machine gunners" at heart were sad that they could not achieve accuracy via sheer volume.

Remember kids, the best medicine in a firefight is fire superiority, and nothing gives you fire superiority like a wall of lead at the cyclic rate. Thank you, Richard Gatling, for giving us the piece of equipment that ensures the sentiments of Animal Mother when asked about the war in Vietnam, "I think we should win."Read more stories of American Grit here:

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