Minigun

A Minigun is a multibarreled machine gun with a high rate of fire (several thousand rounds per minute), employing Gatling-style rotating barrels. More technically it is a externally powered gatling gun of a smaller caliber, though it is somtimes used more generally to refer to ones of similar rates of fire and configuration regardless of power source. In popular culture, its any sort of machine-gun like rapidly firing gatling multi-barrel gun, and often found in movies and video/computer games (e.g Predator (1987)).

Related Topics:
Machine gun - Rounds per minute - Gatling - Predator - 1987

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The term orginates in the 1960s when a larger caliber weapon was scaled down to a 7.62 mm rifle caliber and dubbed the minigun. It started to be used by the U.S. military starting then, especially as helicopter door-gun, but was also adopted for many other roles and in other Services. It has been used in most major U.S. military operations since then, as well as being adopted by other countries. There are three main small variations of the orignal firearm in U.S. service as of 2005, the Army ( M134 ), the Air Force ( GAU-2 ), and the Navy and Marines ( GAU-17 ). The two most common forms are either mounted on aircraft and fired as part of an armarment system, or on a pintle mount and fired by a operator directly. There are smaller differences as well, the Navy for example actually fields the GAUSE-17 type on ships, and the GAU-17 on aircraft.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The first minigun, or at least ancestor to the modern minigun, was made when Gatling was experimenting with a electrically powered versions of his gatling gun in the late 1800s, combining one of the gatlings of rifle caliber with the relatively new electric motors.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~