The Dark Reason Gatling Gun Is Still in Service

The Dark Reason Gatling Gun Is Still in Service

From hand cranked Gatling guns in the Civil War to electrically driven rotary cannons on Cold War jets, this video tracks the one idea that keeps coming back whenever armies hit a firepower wall: multiple barrels, rotating fast enough to pour metal into the air faster than any single barrel weapon can survive.

It starts with Richard Jordan Gatling and the brutal mid-1800s problem of slow muzzle loaders, then breaks down why the original Gatling system worked mechanically, how it evolved through higher rates of fire, and why it still got pushed aside once Maxim’s fully automatic guns and smokeless powder changed the game. But the “obsolete” concept never really died. Once jet fighters arrived, the engagement window shrank to seconds, and single barrel guns hit a hard ceiling. That is where Project Vulcan comes in, rev letting the Gatling principle back to life with external power, modern materials, and feed systems designed for extreme rates of fire.

From there the story moves into the M61 Vulcan and the logic of six barrels throwing out 20 millimeter shells at thousands of rounds per minute, then downscales into the 7.62 by 51 Minigun and why it became a centerpiece of Vietnam helicopter warfare and gunships like the AC-47. Finally, it closes with the GAU-8 Avenger and the A-10, the rare case where the aircraft was built around the gun: seven barrels, massive recoil management, linkless feed, mixed armor-piercing and high explosive effects, and the real world tradeoffs between accuracy, standoff, and pilot risk that shaped its combat reputation from 1991 onward.

If you want a clear, grounded explanation of how rotary guns actually work, why they exist, what their rates of fire really mean in combat, and why some platforms thrive with them while others fail, this is that story.


Chapters:

0:00 – Why the Gatling gun was invented
4:20 – How Maxim made it obsolete
4:32 – Why jet aircraft changed everything
6:19 – Project Vulcan and rotary guns return
9:07 – From Minigun to the A-10 cannon