This product is sold as an unpainted kit.

Additional Image.

1. Instruction Sheet. A hard copy sheet is supplied with the kit.

THE GATLING GUN

‘The machine gun designed by Richard Jordan Gatling (1818-1903) was tested by the British Army at Shoeburyness in August-September 1870; three calibres (.42, .65 and 1in) were compared against the French Montigny mitrailleuse, artillery, and companies of riflemen. Having proved its worth, the Gatling was recommended for adoption by British forces. It consisted of a group of breech-loading, rifled barrels, rotated by a hand-operated crank-handle, each barrel firing in rotation; cartridges dropped by gravity from a magazine into the breeches of the barrels.

The Model 1871 Gatling usually had ten barrels but could be supplied with five or six; the first used by the British Army were the six-barrelled 1871 Model, of .45in calibre, mounted on a wheeled carriage like that of a field gun. Rate of fire depended upon the speed at which the handle was cranked, but in an American test of 1878, 4,000 rounds were fired in 10 minutes 48 seconds, and between 64,000 and 65,000 rounds without the gun being cleaned. In the 1870 Shoeburyness test, the Gatling scored over 10 per cent of hits at 1,400 yards.’

Source: The Colonial Wars Source Book, PJ Haythornthwaite, Caxton Editions, London, 2000. A fascinating and highly readable text with a significant amount of useful detail for the wargamer.

Jacklex Miniatures Colonial Nineteenth Century 20mm metal wargame figures.