Machinegun shotgun

[GHunter 0]

Hi all. As I mentioned when I first showed up here I'm not too computer savvy. I recently came across a photo of a .12 ga belt fed remmington machine gun. The guy who sent it to me said it is a WW1 design for air combat. He said it came too late and was not mounted on any aircraft as it was too expensive and piolets would wast ammo. I haven't been able to find any info on it.

 

I would like to share the photo with you all but as I said I'm not too computer savvy. The photo is in my e-mail now. Someone give me a step by step on how to "cut and paste" and get it from my mail to here and I would be thankful.

 

Remember, be nice and use small words while speaking slowly so that I will understand.

[Bullethead 12]

Remember, be nice and use small words while speaking slowly so that I will understand.

 

First thing is to save the picture to your hard drive somewhere. Your email program should have a paperclip icon somewhere above or beside the message. Right-click on that and select "Save Attachments". This brings up the typical window where you can decided what folder on your HD to save the picture. Once done, you have several options for making it appear in a post:

 

1. Attach the File to the Post

This is the simplest. Below the box where you type in your text, there's a blue button that says "Click to Attach Files". Click that and the typical window pops up letting you find the folder the picture is in, the select the picture from within that folder. Click the button to upload the picture. Then type in your text and his the "Add Reply" or "Submit Post" button, and voila. When done this way, the picture will appear below all your text as a thumbnail. Folks can then click on this and see the picture full-size in a pop-up.

 

This is the preferred method but it doesn't always work, like if the picture is larger than the allowed attachment size. In which case, see the next options.

 

2. Link the Picture Directly or Give Its Link

First, you have to upload the file to your webspace somewhere. Most ISPs give you some storage space for such things, but there are also places like Flickr, Image Bin, etc. Follow the proceedures of the website you're using to upload the picture. Once it's there, you should see a button to get the link for the picture at that sight, which will be http://whatever...... Copy that URL by highlighting it with your mouse and then hitting CTRL-C. While all this has been going on, you've had a 2nd browser window open in this forum at the point where you want to make the post with the picture. Make that window active.

 

At this point, you have 2 options:

 

2A: Linking the Picture Directly

Look up on the toolbar at the top of the text input area and you'll see a square green icon about 2/3 of the way to the right. Hold the cursor over that button and you'll see "Insert Picture' pop up, which will confirm you're at the correct button. When you do this, a box pops up asking for the picture's URL. Put the cursor in that and hit CTRL-V to paste the URL you copied beforehand into the box, and hit OK. This will insert the proper codes into the text of your post at the current position of the flashing input cursor, so text can be above and below it. When you submit this post, the picture will appear full-size at that point in the text, with no thumbnail. This is generally considered impolite unless the picture is narrower than the normal text space people have their browser set for. Sometimes this method doesn't work, in which case use the fallback position below.

 

2B: Providing a Link to the Picture

The difference here is that all that shows up in your post is a clickable link, no picture or thumbnail. This is best used for really large pictures. To make this happen, put the flashing cursor where you want it in the text input area, then click on the button just to the left of the "Insert Picture" button. This is the "Insert Link" button. Same thing as before--paste the picture's URL into the pop-up box and you're done.

[GHunter 0]

Here goes..........hope you don't get those pictures of the wife...........

[GHunter 0]

Lets see......1" spread per yard, 8 30 cal pellets per each .00 buck round, 350 to 400 rounds per minute, velocity 1500 ft. per second, if your 10 or 20 yards from your target you may be able to do some damage. Add in the 1 ounce rifled slugs every few rounds and in close you'd shred a WW1 plane.

[Flyby PC 23]

I've never seen it before. Not really sure what to make of it. An 'up close shredder' sounds about right to me, but doubtful practicality. Since it was made however, it must have worked on some level, but I'm guessing thats about it. Why 'shed' with a special gun when you can 'burn' with tracer and incendiaries from a standard weapon?

 

I also know Remington is a US company, and while it did manufacture good quality arms for WW1 under license, (Lee Enfields for the UK and Mosin Nagants for the Russians), they only really got going when the US joined the war in late in the day. Their bigger problem was money. In 1917 the Russian Imperial Government was in the process of collapsing, but had ordered vast quantities of arms which they hadn't the money to pay for. Things got even worse for Remington when the Russian revolution took place, the Bolsheviks wouldn't honour the contract at all (disputing faults with the weapons etc). Remington was left high and dry with no money and a massive stockpile of arms and ammunition nobody really wanted. Given Remington's manufacturing experience, I suspect this machine gun probably did work, - but nobody wanted it. You could speculate that aircraft were getting more robust too...

 

If the US Government hadn't stepped in, and the company itself diversified into sporting weapons in addition to military armaments, then Remington were on the point of going bankrupt. At the end of the most intense period of arms proliferation the world had ever seen, they only just survived, but long enough to be bought out by Du-pont (a chemical company specialising in gunpowder), in the 30's depression. (OT, but a rival of Du-pont was the British company ICI, who amongst other things were making their money developing explosives too).

 

Along came WW2, and a massive contract to make Springfield's M1903's, and the rest as they say is history... It's a funny old world.

[Icarus999 70]

The shotgun would be worthless as an air combat weapon due to its limited range, buckshot regardless of the volume of fire could never approach the effectiveness of rifle fire. But mount that on a vehicle in a street level insurgent mass attack CQB scenario and it would be an awesome weapon... if it could be made to work.

[GHunter 0]

I had similar thoughts about how effective this gun would be. First it would have used smokeless powder like all other guns of the time. Smokeless was invented about 1894. The same time Winchester produced the model 1894 in .3030 win to take advantage of the new powder. The last time the US used black powder was the Spanish American war. Some of our soldiers were still issued 1873 Trap Door Springfields. The bigger problem would likely be the paper shotgun hulls. They would be subject to swelling and breaking and moisture. Our boys had the same issue with shotgun ammo in WW2 and into Viet Nam until plastic hulls became the norm. I also agree that a belt of ammo would be heavy and bulky.

 

It is amazing how WW1 caught the progression of technology and rode the wave. The airplane is invented only years before. Smokeless powder is invented. Machine guns. Electricity. Telephones. The list goes on.

[Bullethead 12]

I do believe some further research is needed. Because in my youth, ammunition reloading was a bit of a hobby. And I only learned two things other a owning a precise scale. Scotch and Gunpowder don't mix, and if you charged a shotgun shell with rifle powder, the pressures gemerated upon ignition, would make sure you never did it again.

 

Yeah, shotgun powders is in flakes while rifle powder is in tubes. Plus, they have different formulae. However, there was still smokeless shotgun powder in WW1. In fact, the US issued shotguns to the infantry during the war--quite popular with the Marines. This was the pump-action Winchester Model 12 sporting shotgun modified with a sling, a perforated barrel jacket, and a bayonet. This shotgun had the useful property that if you held the trigger back, it fired each time you worked the pump . It was due to be replaced by the Tommygun but that was just too late for the war.

 

Anyway, I agree that a shotgun doesn't seem like a good air weapon due to the limited effective range of buckshot. The lethal range against deer is only about 50m. The stuff will travel about 400m at 45^ elevation, but accuracy is totally gone as is most of the energy. Besides this, I'd think synchronization would be rather chancy. Sure, you could fire it at the right time, but the shot spread would complicate matters. So for forward-firing guns, I'd only use slugs. This picture seems to be some sort of observer's mounting, however, so maybe it fired buckshot.

 

But think about this.... Suppose the airplane was a dedicated trench strafer, buzzing along at 50 feet or so. In that case, a belt-fed shotgun full of buckshot might be quite useful. Everybody was designing armored strafers late in the war. You'd think it would be more effective than a conventional MG. Of course, if enemy fighters showed up, you'd be out of luck.