Mitrailleuse
A mitrailleuse (; from French "mitraille", "grapeshot") is a type of volley gun with multiple barrels of rifle calibre that can fire either multiple rounds at once or several rounds in rapid succession. The earliest true mitrailleuse was invented in 1851 by Belgian Army captain Fafschamps, 10 years before the advent of the Gatling gun. It was followed by the Belgian Montigny mitrailleuse in 1863. Then the French 25 barrel ""Canon à Balles"", better known as the Reffye "mitrailleuse", was adopted in great secrecy in 1866. It became the first rapid-firing weapon deployed as standard equipment by any army in a major conflict when it was used during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. A steel block containing twenty-five 13 mm (.51 calibre) centre-fire cartridges was locked against the breech before firing. With the rotation of a crank, the 25 rounds were discharged in rapid succession. The sustainable firing rate of the Reffye mitrailleuse was 100 rounds per minute. The maximum effective range of the Reffye "mitrailleuse" was about 2000 yards; a distance which placed their batteries beyond the reach of Prussian Dreyse needle rifle fire. Reffye mitrailleuses were deployed in six gun batteries and were manned by artillery personnel. They were not infantry support weapons, but rather a form of special artillery.
John Bruce Medaris
John Bruce Medaris (May 12, 1902 – July 11, 1990) retired a Major General in the United States Army. During World War II he became a highly decorated colonel in the ordnance corps of the First Army, serving in every campaign from North Africa to Sicily, Normandy, the Battle of the Bulge, and invasion of Germany. In 1955 he assumed command of the Army Ballistic Missile Agency at the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama. Under his supervision Wernher von Braun and the German Rocket Team developed the Jupiter missile which launched the first U.S. earth satellite into orbit in 1958. Medaris went on to play a role in the post-Sputnik debates over how the U.S. government ought to respond to the Soviet challenge. When the Eisenhower administration decided to create a civilian space agency, assigned long-range ballistic missiles to the Air Force and Navy, then transferred the Huntsville Rocket Team to the NASA, Medaris retired from the army and wrote a critical memoir. Several years later he found an entirely different calling as an Anglican priest.