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.
Hotchkiss M1914 machine gun
At the beginning of the World War I, the Manufacture d'armes de Saint-Étienne proved to be unable to produce enough St. Etienne machine guns. The French military forces chose to adopt the Hotchkiss M1900 with some minor modifications, as the Mitrailleuse Automatique modèle 1914. The Hotchkiss gun is initially supplied to second-line troops but in 1916 front-line units began to use the M1914. That year, a parliamentary committee of inquiry concluded that the Hotchkiss was more reliable than the St. Etienne and the production of the later is stopped.