Volley gun
Two notable artillery-sized volley guns were developed in the mid-19th century, although neither was particularly successful in practice. Developed in the 1860s and based on an 1850s design by a captain Fafschamps, the French mitrailleuse is an example of a multi-barreled volley gun that could fire all of its barrels simultaneously or sequentially over a short period of time. Also developed in the 1860s, General Origen Vandenburgh of the New York State Militia designed a weapon that had eighty five parallel .50 caliber 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, North Carolina, and another reportedly at Salisbury, NC.
History of the firearm
The world's first successful self-loading rifle is the Mondragón rifle, designed by Mexican general Manuel Mondragón and was the first self-loading firearm able to be operated by a single rifleman, since its debut in 1908 it received few modifications (bipod, 30-round drum magazine) and has been used during the Mexican Revolution (Mexican Army) and World War I (Imperial German Flying Corps).