Recognize this "Volley Gun"?, Posted in WWI forum, but might be older.

I posted this in the WWI forum, but recent information indicates that this might be the more appropriate place to ask, as it might predate WWI by ~60 years. So I'll just post a link here (rather than duplicate posts) and ask if anyone knows anything about this weapon in the Bucharest Military museum?

http://www.worldwar2.ro/forum/index.php?sh...t=0&#entry60823

If I remember corectly from when I studied it at the MM, the big square things on the sides, are not for protection, but carry the ammo inside, it is like a "disk" filled with bullets which fits in the main barrel - not sure if I made myself understood so I will switch a little to romanian: placile dreptunghiulare de pe laterale contin gloante (dispus in plan orizontal), placa se baga pe post de incarcator in teava principala a armei - perpendicular pe ea - astfel ca gloantele din placa sa intre fiecare pe cate o teava.




PS: I do appologize if I am totally wrong, been some time since I saw this and this is what I remember.

My guess was also that the "wings" were for ammunition "cartridges" because they appeared to open from behind.

If anyone with better access to the museum can determine if this is a Christophe-Montigny for sure (by visiting or contacting, since I don't speak the language) and posting, I'd certainly be grateful. It would be interesting to know how it came to be there and how so equipped. The Belgian military museum in Liege has a Christophe-Montigny volley gun, but it is much plainer and while what you can see in the picture below looks similar, it's difficult to tell if they are the same (the breech handles are definitely different).

http://www.academie-des-armes-anciennes.com/voyages.html

In Istoria militară a poporului român (The Military History of the Romanian People), there is a photo with the gun from the National Military Museum (seen above in the topic), with the following explanation: „mitralieră Christopher-Montigny model 1872”. I don’t konw if the final r (Christopher-Montgny) is a simple error or a documented addition, but it can also be find in the explanations from the book. According to these, two guns (37 barrels, 11,43 mm caliber, rate of fire 296 rounds/minute) were manufactured in Austria-Hungary in 1872, imported in the same year and issued to the 1st and 2nd „vânatori” regiments. For the 3rd and 4th „vânatori” regiments there followed another procurements - two „mitraliere” (Gatling type, 6 and 10 barrels, rate of fire around 1000 rounds/minute) bought in 1873 and 1875. In Romanian, the term „mitralieră” is an equivalent of the French "mitrailleuse", referring both to the modern (heavy) machine-guns and to the earlier, pre-Maxim models like Gatling or Nordenfeld. As I understand from the mentioned book, the Christophe( r)-Montigny’s were designed to fire individual shots, the barrels being fired one by one, in a rapid succesion. From what I know, at least one of the four vânatori machine-guns had seen action in 1877-78, in nowadays Bulgaria, during the Russian-Romanian-Turkish war. There is also a booklet dedicated to this episode, but I don’t remember its title.

Note: Istoria militară a poporului român was published before 1989 at Editura Militară (Military/Army Publishing House). If I’m right, some of the authors were also officials/employees of the National Military Museum, so there should be some degree of accuracy in the information regarding that gun.

This post has been edited by Agarici on August 12, 2007 12:40 pm

Somehow off-topic, but connected to the subject: from what I konw, apart from this guns, the Romanian army field troops did not use another machine-guns until the Romanian Maxim model 1910 MG's were introduced. Is that so? What about any possible use of the MG’s in the fortification system, from 1880’s onward (pre-Maxims)? From what I know, Romanian Navy used some MG on board of its Black Sea and Danube ships (Gatlings and Nordenfelds, from what I know). Any aditional information concerning the types and models which were used, and the timeframe? And a final question (for now): does anybody know for how long did the Cristopher-Montigny’s and Gatlings of the „vânatori” battalions stay in use?

This is very interesting information, Agarici, thank you for your reply. I had no indication of individual barrel discharge (or how that would be accomplished, I did not see a "cranking" mechanism). So far, the most information I'd found was here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitrailleuse

...which was how I'd found the name of Christophe-Montigny. If you can further enlighten me on any details of this piece, I'd be very grateful...you seem a wealth of information and I certainly don't have access to any of those books (and couldn't translate them if I did!)

Best regards....

This post has been edited by NDP on August 12, 2007 02:30 pm

Earlier voley-gun?
Photo from my coll., taken at Dome des Invalides, Paris,France.

According to A.D. Xenopol (Romanian historian from the second half of the XIXth century, member of the Romanian Academy), who is quoting the Polish historian Martin Bielski (first half of the XVI century), one of the earliest form of volley gun (or a kind of “machine-gun avant la lettre" as Xenopol said) was used by the army of Petru Rareş during his campaign in Pocuţia - Southern Poland, between 1529 and 1531. The gun was a small caliber, wheeled, multi-barreled cannon (3 up to 5 barrels, if I remember correctly). When one shot was fired, the barrels ignited from one another, firing a salvo of three to five shots; so probably the barrels were disposed in a linear (and horizontal) arrangement, instead of a circular one.

That was occasionally an issue with some early black powder revolvers too....of course, it wasn't intentional that they do that, and the results were not pretty.

http://www.cwbullet.net/cwbullet-org/bulle...php?f=21&t=1325

a thread discussing the same item

Interesting gun. The text mentioned (Xenopol) previously sounds like an organ gun or ribauldequin, rather than a volley cannon (which is how I would describe the piece in the picture).

The first known ribauldequin was used by the army of Edward III of England in 1339 in France during the Hundred Years War. Edward's ribauldequin's had twelve barrels which fired salvoes of twelve balls, all barrels laid parallel on a frame. Later on, Milan and several other wealthy and technologically advanced areas used a nine-barreled ribault, but wheeled. The Venetians definitely used it in the Balkans.

In the Brasov museum there are several pictures (woodcuts) in some of the religious(!) documents. But I don't read old German, and can't work out what the documents are about. My guess is the Saxon religion being better than others, or something similar. They also have a few bits that *might* be breeches for larger three-barreled organ guns. Pre-loaded breeches were quite common for lighter medieval pieces, although highly dangerous - lots of lighted matches, sparks.....

I think that some of the other Transylvania museums have other bits and pictures too. Terence Wise had a photo of a reconstructed organ gun in his book "Medieval Warfare" - I assume it was in England. Looks dangerous at either end!

During the renaissance organ guns were typically used on the flanks of the pike and shot sqaures - Charles V for example (Fotomas Index has a great woodcut of the army outside Munich dated 10 June 1530). So it seems highly likely that these were used in modern Romania (probably against the Turks), although I don't know how the Saxon/Wallachian/whatever armies in the area fought (in the Western style or different). But Xenopol's description and the period make sense.

If anyone has information on the Wallachian and Moldovan artillery trains of the period I would be very interested. Given that Stefan cel Mare used lots of artillery in several battles (by Balkan standards), I guess Iasi would be a place to start looking