On September 1 (13), Vladimir Stepanovich Baranovsky (1846-1879) was born - a talented Russian inventor, designer of the first rapid-fire artillery systems. The main invention of his life was Baranovsky's rapid-fire 2.5-inch (63.5 mm) cannon, designed and tested in combat conditions in the 1870s. and officially in service until 1908. There were the following modifications of this gun: horse, mountain, landing.

In the guns of his system, Baranovsky introduced a number of innovations, thanks to which his gun became the world's first rapid-fire weapon of the classical scheme. These innovations were as follows:

Recoilless carriage with hydraulic (oil) recoil brake and spring knurler;
- piston valve with self-cocking axial spring striker;
- fuse to prevent a shot in the event of a loose shutter closing;
- rotary and lifting mechanism (with helical and gear drives for moving the barrel in vertical and horizontal directions);
- unitary loading with extraction of spent cartridges;
- optical sight Kaminsky arr. 1872 2 diopters, replacing the classic front sight and rear sight.





Baranovsky's cannons were used during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878 (2 guns), during the suppression of the Ikhetuan uprising in China in 1900-1901. and in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. (amphibious version of the gun).

Unfortunately, the life of a talented engineer ended very early: Vladimir Stepanovich Baranovsky died on March 7 (19), 1879 at Volkovo Pole in St. Petersburg while testing new unitary cartridges for a rapid-fire gun returned from the war, misfiring.

Baranovsky's invention was ahead of its time. In the 1880s. the principles of the device of Baranovsky's cannons were borrowed by all countries. And in the Russian Empire, the design of the famous "three-inch" (3-inch field rapid-fire gun model 1902) was entirely based on the principles developed by V.S. Baranovsky.

The performance characteristics of the 2.5-inch gun:

Caliber - 2.5 inches (63.5 mm)
Barrel length - 1260 / 19.8 mm / clb
Barrel bore length - 1070 / 16.8 mm / clb
Threaded length - 778 mm
Number of grooves - 20
The steepness of the grooves - 30 calibers
Depth of grooves - 0.635 mm
The initial velocity of the projectile - 427 m / s
Tabular firing range - 1830 m
Maximum firing range - 2800 m
Lock weight - 8.4 kg
Barrel weight with lock - 106 kg
The mass of the gun in the firing position is 272 kg,
Rate of fire - 5 rds / min.

Baranovsky, Vladimir Stepanovich

Baranovsky, Vladimir Stepanovich (1846-1879), the forerunner of modern rapid-fire artillery, who developed back in 1875 the first not only in Russia, but also abroad, a sample of a rapid-fire small-caliber field and mountain cannon.

Baranovsky in 1867 served at L. Nobel's plant in St. Petersburg, where he developed improvements in Gatling's canister, adopted in 1873 in Russia in the form of rapid-fire guns; at the same time he developed his 2? dm. a rapid-fire cannon, approved in 1817 by both the naval and land artillery departments, who gave him an order for a certain number of these guns with all the materiel and ammunition for them.

Baranovsky's guns in the form of a 6-gun horse battery, with unitary cartridges in a combat kit, were sent in 1878 to the theater of military operations in Turkey. On the way, some of the cartridges received significant bruises on the way, which gave rise to representatives of the artillery department to express doubts about the suitability of this innovation for field artillery and the test in the land department of this system stopped altogether, when in 1879, when testing those who had returned from the war, dented cartridges, a premature shot took place, with which Baranovsky was killed.

The main distinguishing features of Baranovsky's systems: the gun, consisting of a steel pipe fastened with a casing, is equipped with a piston (screw) bolt with a spring-loaded striker self-cocking when the bolt is opened (a repeating mechanism), a safety guard against a shot when the bolt is not completely locked and an extractor that automatically ejects the bolt when opening spent cartridge case. The sight is rack-mountable, providing accuracy and speed of installation; in addition, Baranovsky also proposed an optical sighting device (for a horse cannon) in the form of a telescope with two diopters (a finder for coarse aiming), instead of a front sight and an ordinary sight.

The carriage of the Baranovsky cannon with rotation along the axis using a screw mechanism, for accurate and fast lateral guidance. Wooden wheels with a generally accepted (at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries) now a metal (bronze) hub with tightly closed axle ends. The hydraulic compressor designed by Baranovskiy for pillar dinghy machines was located vertically at the bottom of the pedestal; above was a cylinder with knurled coil springs on the outside. The tool was located with pins on a slide (upper carriage "sliding along the bollard guides when rolling back; the movement of the slide was transmitted to the compressor piston using a pair of chains that compressed the knurling springs. flywheel, - allowed giving angles from -10 ° to + 20 °.

Ammunition consisted of: a double-walled ring cast iron grenade and an iron diaphragm shrapnel with a screw-in cast iron bottom, with 88 bullets and a 10-second remote tube. The charge in the cap was placed in a rolled tin case with an iron tray attached to the walls of the case by a pallet screw with a central channel for inserting the capsule.

From the description of Baranovsky's systems it is clear that they had already outlined and implemented the main elements and principles of modern rapid-fire art., Which for that time were so new and bold that they caused; apparently, doubt about their applicability and the possibility of satisfactory implementation in practice. Thus, the premature death of the inventor, the unsatisfactory state of technology, which did not allow to quickly cope with some design flaws (the fabrication of solid-drawn casings for guns has not yet been installed, smokeless

Baranovsky's cannon- several samples of 2.5-inch (63.5-mm) rapid-fire guns for horse and mountain artillery and for arming landing squadrons of ships, designed in the 1870s by Russian engineer Vladimir Stepanovich Baranovsky. The first rapid-fire field and mountain cannon in the world.

63.5-mm cannon of the Baranovsky model of 1877
63.5-mm cannon of the Baranovsky model of 1877 (Artillery Museum)
Country	Russian empire
Production history
Production years	1878-1901
Total issued	148 airborne, 40 mountain and 6 horse
Specifications
Weight, kg	272
Barrel length, mm	19.8 (1260 mm)
Caliber, mm	63,5
Elevation angle	from -10 ° to 15 °
Rate of fire, shots / min	5 rounds per minute
Sighting range, m	2,8
63.5-mm cannon of the Baranovsky model of 1877 at Wikimedia Commons

Baranovsky's cannon rear-right

History of creation

• 1872 - Two 1.5-inch rapid-fire cannons are manufactured at the Nobel factory.
• 1873 - Baranovsky, at his own expense, manufactured and tested a 2-inch rapid-firing cannon with a lifting mechanism and a sliding bolt, firing a unitary cartridge
• 1874 - A copper 2.5-inch Baranovsky cannon, fastened with a steel casing, is cast in the St. Petersburg arsenal.
• January 11, 1875 - Comparative tests of Baranovsky's steel and copper cannons showed the superiority of the steel cannon.
• 1875 - Baranovsky orders several 2.5-inch steel cannons from Karlsruhe.
• Autumn 1875 - parallel tests of the 2.5-inch horse-drawn cannon of the Baranovsky plant and the 3-inch cannon of the Obukhov plant.
• April 25, 1878 - the first order of the Naval Department for 10 Baranovsky guns.
• 1882 - Baranovsky's cannon was officially adopted.
• 1908 - the fleet and then the Main Artillery Directorate abandoned the Baranovsky cannon.

Cannon design

In the rapid-fire guns of his system, V.S.Baranovsky introduced a number of innovations, thanks to which his gun became the first rapid-fire weapon of the classical scheme in the world:

Sometimes Baranovsky's mountain cannon confused with a mountain cannon, model 1883 made by Krupp with heavier shells, which has a wedge breechblock, cartridge loading and there were no recoil devices along the axis of the bore, her shells : 1. Pig-iron double-walled grenade weighing 4.15 kg, 3.6 clb long, explosive weight 66 g. Impact tube, sample 1884 2. Diaphragm shrapnel with steel body and attachment brass head weight 4.15 kg, 3.9 long clb, explosive mass 30 g. Shrapnel contained 100 steel bullets with a diameter of 12.7 mm and a mass of 10.7 g. A 10-second tube, sample 1885 3. A canister in a tin casing weighing 3.35 kg, length 3.9 clb, contained 96 bullets with a diameter of 19 mm and weighing 25.6 grams each.

For the landing gun, the ammunition included:

1. A cast iron grenade weighing 2.55 kg, 2.6 clb long, explosive weight - 90 g of gunpowder. Shock tube.
2. Shrapnel weighing 2.4 kg, length 2.9 klb (according to other data, there was also shrapnel weighing up to 3 kg and had 56 bullets). The tube is 10 seconds long.
3. Buckshot in a tin shell weighing 3.35 kg and a length of 3.9 clb, contained 96 bullets with a diameter of 19 mm and a mass of 25.6 g each.
4. A dummy cartridge with a solid wooden projectile simulator.

The tabular firing range of the landing cannon was 1830 m, while the grenade had Vo = 372 m / s and an angle of + 10 °, and the shrapnel, respectively, 329 m / s and an angle of + 6.1 °.

The shells had two copper (or brass) belts: leading and centering. The cartridge case is composite: a tin case is attached to a steel pallet, which is fixed at the flange with a steel outer ring. The walls of the sleeve body consist of 2 pieces of aged tin, which are rolled up into a tube. The casings are the same for all variants of 2.5-inch Baranovsky cannons. The attachment of shells in the muzzle of the cartridge case was carried out on the leading belt. The shell box had 9 nests, which contained 4 grenades and 4 shrapnel, in the 9th nest there was a small accessory.

Cannon modifications

Horse cannon

In September 1877, the first horse battery of two 2.5-inch Baranovsky cannons was sent to the Russian-Turkish front. In the same year, it was decided to form one experimental horse battery of 6-gun composition. The material for this battery was made by the spring of 1878, but mass production was not started.

Mountain cannon

On the basis of a horse cannon, Baranovsky designed a mountain cannon of the same design and made it at his own expense at the Berger plant. On January 20, 1878, he delivered the gun from Germany and offered it to the Main Artillery Directorate for 1200 rubles. After comparative tests, together with the 7.5-cm mountain gun of Krupp, it was found that the Baranovsky gun was significantly superior in firing accuracy to the Krupp gun, the guns were equal in the effectiveness of the grenade, and the Krupp gun was somewhat better in the effectiveness of the shrapnel. The commission gave preference to Baranovsky's cannon.

On May 9, 1878, an order was placed in Germany for 40 Baranovsky mountain guns to form four batteries. By February 1879, all 40 guns had been manufactured.

After carrying out comparative tests of the Baranovsky mountain cannon division with mountain guns of other systems in the Caucasus in 1879, the guns were adopted by the military department in mid-1879 as a replacement for the 1867 3-pounder rifled mountain cannon (which had a bronze barrel).

Attempts to make a suitable carriage for the gun dragged on. Baranovsky presented his carriage (non-collapsible steel) at the beginning of 1878. But when tested, the beds turned out to be too long and disturbed the pack horse. The shortened carriage overturned when firing. In November 1878 Baranovsky made a folding carriage from Bessemer sheet steel - the first folding carriage in Europe. But this option was not entirely successful either. Then the Duchenne and Engelhardt mountain carriages were designed.

At the end of 1879, Baranovsky's cousin manufactured a new folding carriage of the PV Baranovsky system, which successfully passed the tests, but was not accepted by the Artillery Committee due to the high cost of production. The cheaper iron machine was designed by engineer Krel. At the beginning of 1880, the Artillery Committee suddenly changed the tactical and technical assignment for a mountain carriage and demanded an increase in the vertical guidance angles. Krel promptly produced three new models of folding iron carriages. The first sample failed the tests, and the second and third successfully overcame them.

After the gun carriage was accepted for production, Baranovsky's 2.5-inch mountain guns on Krel’s carriages entered service:

• 5th battery of the 38th artillery brigade (8 guns);

• 7th battery of the Turkestan artillery brigade (8 guns);

• 3rd battery of the East Siberian artillery brigade (8 guns);

• 1st battery of the East Siberian artillery brigade (4 guns);

• 2nd battery of the East Siberian artillery brigade (4 guns).

Airborne cannon

On December 28, 1876, Admiral-General Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich examined Baranovsky's horse cannon, ordered to purchase one copy and make an experimental naval machine for it.

The machine on the ship was installed on a special pedestal attached with three bolts to the deck (in the form of an equilateral triangle), the height of the axle of the trunnions from the deck is 1068 mm. To move the swinging part of the cannon from the naval pedestal to the wheeled landing carriage, it was required to unscrew only one bolt. The height of the axle of the pins on the wheel carriage is 864 mm. On boats, the cannon was mounted on a wheeled carriage, while the wheels were removed, and the ends of the carriage axis were placed in iron pods in the boat's gunwale and covered with iron slabs. The rear end of the carriage trunk was attached to the bank with a rope. Thus, the gun could fire from a boat in a small bow sector.

The crew for the Baranovsky cannon on the ship - four people, on the shore - nineteen - one non-commissioned officer, two gunners and 16 servants. For transportation on the shore, 8 people were harnessed to a gun carriage and a cart with cartridges (four in the drawbar and the same in the straps). Each landing company was supposed to have two cannons and one cart with cartridges.

The first order for 10 guns of Baranovsky was made by the Naval Department on April 25, 1878, although it was officially adopted only in 1882. By 1889, the Maritime Department was armed with 60 guns, and by 1901 - 125. These guns were manufactured at the Experimental Shipyard (by May 1, 1901, the plant had handed over 148 guns to the Maritime Department), and the machines were manufactured at the Baranovsky brothers' plant and at Metallichesky plant in St. Petersburg.

Landing guns entered service with the ships of the Russian fleet from gunboats to battleships. On a ship of the 1st rank (battleships and cruisers of the 1st rank), two landing guns were relied on, and the 2nd rank (cruisers of the 2nd rank, seaworthy gunboats) - one each.

The fate of the cannon

Horse and mountain cannon

In the 1880s, the Main Artillery Directorate was conservative and was suspicious of recoil devices and guns with a rollback along the channel axis, unitary and even separate-case loading. Since 1885, batteries armed with Baranovsky's cannons began to re-equip with 2.5-inch mountain guns of the 1883 model, and Baranovsky's cannons were sent to a warehouse. In 1891, the armament of the Baranovsky river steamers on the Amu Darya and Amur was considered, but this proposal was not implemented.

On November 28, 1897, in the warehouses of Baranovsky's cannons: 6 horse (in the St. Petersburg warehouse) and 40 mountain. There were 72 gun carriages for mountain guns. The journal of the Artillery Committee No. 591 for November 1897 decided to exclude the 2.5 "mountain guns of Baranovsky that were in the warehouses and consider them unusable, expressing the desire to keep one horse and mountain cannon of Baranovsky for the Artillery Museum.

According to A. Shirokorad, several guns were used in the air defense of the Peter the Great Naval Fortress. A certain number of guns remained in warehouses after the Civil War. On August 31, 1923, they were assigned to the 3rd category as "having lost all combat significance."

Airborne cannon

Before the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, landing guns fought little. In 1900, in the battle for Dagu forts, 3 Russian gunboats - "Gilyak", "Koreets" and "Beaver" from the united international squadron of shallow-draft ships, fired 310 shells from 3 2.5-inch cannons, Yingkou had a crew with 2.5 -inch landing gun of the gunboat "Otvazhny" defended the Russian village, and in Beijing a company of sailors with their help defended the Russian embassy from

It is difficult to overestimate the role of machine guns in the development of military affairs - having cut off millions of lives, they forever changed the face of war. But even experts did not immediately appreciate them at their true worth, at first considering them as special weapons with a very narrow range of combat missions - for example, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, machine guns were considered just one of the types of fortress artillery. However, already during the Russo-Japanese War, automatic fire proved its highest efficiency, and during the First World War machine guns became one of the most important means of engaging the enemy in close combat, installed on tanks, combat aircraft and ships. Automatic weapons made a real revolution in military affairs: heavy machine-gun fire literally swept away the advancing troops, becoming one of the main causes of the "positional crisis", radically changing not only tactical methods of fighting, but also the entire military strategy.

This book is the most complete and detailed encyclopedia of machine gun armament of the Russian, Soviet and Russian armies from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century, both domestic models and foreign ones - purchased and captured. The author, a leading specialist in the history of small arms, not only gives detailed descriptions of the design and operation of easel, light, single, large-caliber, tank and aircraft machine guns, but also talks about their combat use in all the wars that our country waged during the turbulent 20th century. ...

In the Gatling system, the central shaft acted as the leading link of the system, which was driven into rotation by the muscular energy of the shooter through the handle and the bevel gear. A block of barrels was put on the shaft, behind it, inside a fixed cast-iron casing, a receiver and a "lock cylinder", in the longitudinal grooves of which the bolts slid. The barrels had a wall thickness slightly larger than rifle ones, since they were designed for more "frequent" shooting. A pallet with an inclined elliptical tracing groove was placed between the casing and the bolts, with the help of which the rotation of the barrel block was converted into a reciprocating movement of the bolt. The movement of the bolt back and forth relative to the barrel was ensured by the interaction of its cam with a copier groove. The larger section of the copier groove corresponded to the operations of removing and ejecting the cartridge case, chambering the cartridge, which, thus, stretched out over several shots. The section of the groove corresponding to the front position of the bolt served as a locking surface, providing a tight fit of the bolt to the barrel when fired. A drummer with a trigger and a mainspring and an ejector were mounted in the bolt. The drummer was cocked, sliding his head along a special curved plate riveted to the casing from the inside and located in the transverse plane of the weapon. When the barrel with the bolt came to the position for the shot and the bolt locked the barrel, the striker head came out from behind the plate, the striker broke the cartridge primer. The number of shots per revolution corresponded to the number of barrels in the block, and the rate of fire was determined by the speed of rotation. The advantages of such a scheme include the complete combination of the operation in time, the continuity of work, the uniform (without jerks and stops) operation of the power system, the fear of misfires (in the event of a misfire, the next cartridge in the next barrel will work), the ability to develop a high rate of fire in a short time without overheating the barrels. The main danger is a protracted shot (in the process of rotation it will happen when the shutter is open). The main difficulty in operation is the extreme tediousness of working with the handle. The high sensitivity of the mechanism to lubrication and dust also created problems.

The "body" of the grape-shot ("rapid-fire cannon") Gatling - Gorlov in the exposition of the Tula State Museum of Weapons

The “body” of the Gatling-Gorlov grape-shot gun (“rapid-fire cannon arr. 1871”) was placed on an iron frame with trunnions, on which a copper funnel for a magazine was also attached, or, more precisely, for a sector box-pack for 24 rounds. The cartridges were fed by their own weight and the pressure of a weight pressed from above by the loader. Then, modeled on the 1874 Gatling model, a carousel device with four sectors was adopted - each containing 4 compartments of 25 rounds. In 1885 the Eklst drum magazine was adopted.

The "body" of the grape-shot ("rapid-fire cannon") Gatling-Baranovsky in the exposition of the Tula State Museum of Weapons

In the Gatling-Baranovsky grape-shot ("rapid-fire cannon, model 1873"), the length of the barrels, the length and weight of the "body" of the grape-shot itself have been reduced. The rotating block of barrels is lightweight, the barrels are covered with a copper casing, the rotation handle is put directly on the central shaft, working with it has become easier. The rate of fire has increased. The installation also changed - the canister leaned on a round table on the axis of the gun carriage and turned on it along the horizon. An "automatic" bullet dispersion device has appeared - subsequently, automatically operating dispersion mechanisms along the front or in depth will appear on a number of machine guns. The card holder could be easily disassembled into 4 parts (canister, gun carriage, wheels).

The lightweight carriage weighed 276.5 kg, had a wheel diameter of 1.09 m, gave an elevation angle of 60 ° and a declination of 50 °, and a horizontal turn of 60 °. With him, 6720 were transported (672 - in boxes on a gun carriage), with a cannon-type carriage - 6048 cartridges.

On the whole, card-casters have found rather limited use. During the Khiva campaign in 1873, there were two grape-shooters (platoon) in the detachment of Major General Golovachev, made up of infantry and Cossacks. During this campaign, grape-shot usually fired together with "rifle" shooters at a distance of up to 1000-1100 m. Such fire made it possible to "throw back" the Turkmen detachments attacking in a dense mass.

Already in 1876, an order was issued to abolish the "rapid-fire" batteries and transfer the grape-shots to the fortress, to the warehouses, and partly to the navy. After that, grape-shots were issued to the troops by special order and were used as "additional", non-standard (or supernumerary) weapons. During the Russian-Turkish War of 1877-1878. from the warehouses of the Odessa military district, 27 grape-shots were issued for the self-defense of the Black Sea coastal batteries in case of an enemy landing: 8 - to Odessa, 8 - to Ochakov, 4 - to Sevastopol, 4 - to Balaklava, 3 - to Evpatoria. In the navy during this period, the Palmcrantz 4.2 line (10.67 mm) and 1 inch (25.4 mm) caliber canisters were used together with the Gatling system. In 1877, one or two Palmcrantz or Gatling cannons were placed on coastal defense ships of the "popovok" type, as well as on mobilized civilian ships. Shotguns also operated on land.

As seen in this engraving, the 10-barreled Gatling-Gorlova cannon (“4.2-line rapid-fire cannon model 1871”) was comparable in size to a 4-pounder (87-mm) rifled field gun

In 1877, the Ruschuk detachment of the Russian Danube army received from the warehouses of the Kiev district 8 grape-casters, which formed a "field rapid-fire battery". Another 8 grape-shooters operated on the Danube coastal batteries, near Nikopol, near Plevna, on Shipka. These grapples were considered part of the siege artillery. The Russians handed over 16 of their grapters to the Bulgarian Zemsky army. Attempts to "bring" grape-shooters closer to the infantry are interesting. So, in October, already during the battles for Plevna, General Totleben put forward the idea of ​​forming a "mobile rifle detachment", including several companies of riflemen with Martini and Berdan rifles, as well as rifled fortress guns, and grapeshot. The "flying squad" of two companies of riflemen, 6 grape-shooters and a team of 50 people with fortress guns was formed as part of the detachment of Lieutenant General M.D. Skobelev. This was, perhaps, the only attempt to use the grapeshot in the best possible way. In this detachment, you can also see a distant prototype of joint actions of selected shooters, long-range large-caliber sniper rifles and machine guns.

The small number of grape-shooters did not allow making certain conclusions about their combat value. Nevertheless, during the Akhal-Tekin expedition of 1880-1881. General Skobelev asked to be allocated, in addition to artillery pieces, non-standard means - "grape-shoots, hand grenades and hand mortars." From the Caucasus, from the Alexandropol Fortress, 8 Gatling-Gorlov canister were allocated. They were used to protect the "milestone points of the communication line." In addition, Skobelev received a "naval battery", which, together with rapid-fire 1-pounder guns, included 6 "naval" cannons of the same 4.2 line caliber on light amphibious carriages. It is worth noting that in the reports about the actions of the gamblers one can find the phrases "the enemy is driven away", "forced to silence", etc., but there is rarely data on the number of killed or wounded (however, the number of the enemy is rarely specified). Apparently, the psychological effect of grapeshot was far superior to their damaging effect. Nevertheless, the grape-shooters in the Akhal-Tekinsky expedition acted in the closest cooperation with the infantry and cavalry in defense and in the offensive.

Few of the military authors of those years bypassed the question of grape-casters, and opinions were sometimes polar. Among the supporters of the grapters were General V.L. Chebyshev (who even developed his own light 6-barrel model in 1885), officers of the General Staff I.P. Maslov, M.N. Annenkov. General M.I. Dragomirov. Since it is customary to widely refer to Dragomirov's opinion in the literature, it is worth dwelling on it in more detail. The fact is that grape-shot, being considered artillery pieces, were so in size. In 1891 Dragomirov wrote: “If one and the same person had to be killed several times, it would be a wonderful weapon ... Unfortunately, there were no such musicians who were able to change the direction of the barrel ten times per second. ". The general was not so wrong - during the Franco-Prussian war, up to 20-30 mitrailleus bullets were found in the corpses of the Prussians, while their neighbors in the line were not even wounded. The manual drive of the mechanisms, even with several people in the calculation, made it difficult to fire with dispersion along the front and in depth, or to quickly transfer fire from one target to another. Even such successful canister systems as the Gatling-Baranovsky or Nordenfeld were too bulky (comparable to a field 4-pounder gun), and besides, the shooting quickly tired the shooters. It was to such grape-shooters that Dragomirov's ironic remark in the article "Weapon calibers in European field armies" was related. “Any quick-shooter, whether to call her a grape-shooter or a newly invented word machine gun (and save us from the evil one and the metaphor!), Is still nothing more than an automatic shooter, that is, it does not give an independent type of defeat ... for all the inconveniences there is already an artillery tool ". Dragomirov, however, pointed out: “The motives, but which I consider machine guns absurd in a field army of normal composition, directly point to those cases where they are not only useful, but perhaps even necessary ... namely: 1) on the flanks in fortresses , 2) on steppe expeditions, where a small detachment can deal with a large, but poorly armed crowd ”(the experience of the Akhal-Tekin expedition confirmed this). General G.A. Leer. It is not surprising that Generals Ellis, Kuropatkin, Davydov, who participated in the "steppe expeditions", spoke positively about the grapeshot. Foreign experts were also ambivalent about the "handle" grape-shooters. The gambler generally shared the fate of their medieval prototypes - the "organs" and "forty" - they left the scene with the advent of light field guns, while the gamblers became unnecessary with the advent of new rapid-firing rifled breech-loading field guns with a new grenade and shrapnel in ammunition.

Outstanding Russian gunsmith and weapons historian V.G. Fedorov wrote: “In general, it is necessary to come to the conclusion that the experience of arming the army with grape-shoots was unsuccessful, and this whole story could not but have some influence on the development of the question of the universal introduction of a new powerful means, namely grape-casters, the functioning of which was based on recoil when shot, that is, machine guns. " On the one hand, grape-shots prompted the study of the properties and capabilities of rapid-fire weapons, made it possible to work out a number of units and systems that were later used in automatic weapons (and the Gatling system, as you know, was able to return to service in the form of high-rate multi-barreled aircraft cannons and machine guns and anti-aircraft guns) ... In tactical terms, the legacy of the grapters is rather negative - thanks to them, automatic machine guns at first aroused mistrust and, even having proved their importance in the Anglo-Boer and Russo-Japanese wars, until the First World War were still considered a kind of artillery.

However, the offers of gamblers did not become scarce for a long time. The brothers S. and V. Valitsky tried to improve the "rapid-fire gun". In 1880, the inventor Vilner proposed the GAU 4,2-line grape-shot, including 2500 (!) Barrels, and the tradesman I. Dubinin in 1883 - an 8-barreled gun with cartridges of the buckshot type (50 bullets in each), firing fan-shaped 1600 bullets per minute. In 1885, Gatling invited the GAU Artillery Committee to test two of his new canister shooters - a 10-barreled gun on a light gun carriage with a shield and a 6-barreled one, suitable for "dragging by hand." Back in 1884, Artkom drew up a program for testing the Gatling and Nordenfeld systems, and in 1885 approved a program for broader tests of "rapid-fire guns" of rifle and artillery caliber - from 4.2 lines to 1.65 inches (calibers about 1.5 inches allowed to shoot buckshot or shrapnel). In the fall of 1885, comparative tests of "small-caliber rapid-fire guns" were carried out at the Main Artillery Range near St. Petersburg. There were no Gatling rounds, but Gardner's 5- and 1-barreled grape-casters, 2-barrel Pratt-Whitney, 5-barrel Nordenfeld, made under the Russian 4.2-lin cartridge, 37- and 47-mm 5-barrel revolving Hotchkiss cannons (called "multi-barreled grenade cannons"). In October 1886 - February 1887, additional tests were carried out with Nordenfeld's grape-shooters, and most of the members of the commission reiterated the opinion that "mitraleses are an excellent means for enhancing rifle fire in battle." However, Colonel A.I. von der Hoven wrote down a dissenting opinion, in which, by the way, he remarked: “If it was supposed to introduce mitrailleuses into the armament of our troops, then, in my opinion, the recently tested single-barreled automatic mitralese of the Maxim system deserves more attention than the mitralese Nordenfeld ".

Meanwhile, the Gatlings remained in service with the fortresses. In 1900, they even tested a new sled device for firing from a casemate. On May 28, 1906, the Artkom decided to send out in the fortress "A brief instruction for service with 4,2-lin machine guns of the Gatling system", compiled by Captain Chernopyatov. Fifty 4.2-lin "machine guns" were listed in 1899 in coastal artillery. For a long time, grape-shots served "on the periphery." So, in 1893, the Pamir detachment of Russian troops was transferred to reinforce "three 4-line machine guns (two 5-barreled Nordenfeld and one 1-barreled Maxim)" 4.2-lin cartridge. In 1905, "two 6-barrel Gatling machine guns" were added, in 1909 (!) - three more "to replace those that had fallen into disrepair." Only in 1910 the question of replacing them with "3-line automatic machine guns of Maxim" was raised. Well, how did Maxim appear in Russia?