Chain gun

A chain gun is a type of machine gun or autocannon that uses an external source of power, rather than recoil, to cycle the weapon. "Chain gun" is a registered trademark of McDonnell Douglas.

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The primary advantage of chain-driven weapons over their recoil-actuated counterparts is their reliability. Rather than being dependent upon recoil to actuate the system, a chain gun instead depends on an external motor. The motor drives the chain, which slides the bolt assembly back and forth to load, fire, extract and eject cartridges. Since the speed of the motor controls how fast the weapon fires, another advantage of the chain gun is its ability to accurately control the rate of fire.

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In the case of a round not firing properly, the chain gun continues on, ejecting it along with the spent casings. In a recoil-actuated weapon, a misfire can cause serious problems, especially in the case of fully automatic weapons.

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Machine gun: A machine gun is a fully automatic firearm that is capable of firing bullets in rapid succession. Such automatic weapons with a caliber of 20 mm or larger are generally referred to as autocannons....

Autocannon: An autocannon is a projectile weapon with a larger bore size than a machine gun, and a faster rate of fire than regular cannon used by artillery units. The term cannon was used during WWII to describe guns used in aircraft, where the distinction was that the shells were explosive. After the war simi...

Recoil: The recoil when firing a gun is the backward momentum of a gun, which is equal to the forward momentum of the bullet or shell, due to conservation of momentum. It has to be absorbed by for example the wrist, the shoulder or the carriage....

Chain gun related Images and Photos (experimental)

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