Mayall Revolving Cannon (1860s)

Would you believe … imagine a cannon that was like a giant six chambered revolving pistol and you have the Mayall Revolving Cannon.  This one caught my eye on an online art site – several of which are selling large prints of the patent drawing of the gun – perfect if you are going for a outlandish weaponry vibe in you home …

http://www.google.com/patents?id=NndpAAAAEBAJ&pg=PA3&dq=gun+mayall&as_drrb_ap=q&as_minm_ap=1&as_miny_ap=2009&as_maxm_ap=12&as_maxy_ap=2009&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=1776&as_maxm_is=12&as_maxy_is=1865&source=gbs_selected_pages&cad=0_1#PPA8,M1

One has to wonder if the Mayall Gun suffered the same issues as Colt Revolving Rifles early on – think you are firing one, and you get all of them at once.

Here is a link to a short bio of Mayall.  http://famousamericans.net/thomasjeffersonmayall/

As time permits, the Mayall gun is interesting enough for a closer look!

Dynamite Gun Ship (1890s)

Here are two images of the Vesuvius – the Spanish-American War period ship with a Dynamite gun mentioned in a previous post- the top image is a view of the guns from the deck.

Mitrailleuse aka moulin à café (1850-1870s)

See this very interesting site for details of the Mitrailleuse – European volley guns along the same lines at the Vandenburg volley gun of the American Civil War -http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Mitrailleuse

Athens Double Barrelled Canon (Civil War)

Permanently stationed in downtown Athens, Georgia, is an interesting Civil War relic – a canon with two barrels, designed for firing chain shot.  Read all about it here: -http://www.batteryb.com/double-barreled_cannon.html

Dynamite Guns (1890s)

Reader Steve Skubbinna wrote in regarding a most interesting device …

“It’s from a somewhat later period, and is pneumatic, not steam, but the Zelinsky dynamite gun was built and installed on the “Dynamite Cruiser” USS Vesuvius in the late 1880’s. It was understood that an explosive charge of dynamite would be much more powerful than the black and brown powders used at the time, but it would be too sensitive to be projected from a conventional gun.

Hence a US Army officer, Zelinsky, designed and built a 15 inch gun for throwing shells (actually filled with a mix of nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine). The ship was not an outstanding success, being small and lightly built, and with no real prospect of surviving an engagement at sea. She did, however, make at least one night bombardment of the Spanish positions around Santiago Bay during the 1898 war. As an experiment she was a dead end, and was never repeated.”

See for a detailed account of this gun (and for other interesting weapons/role playing game stuff:

http://www.heliograph.com/trmgs/trmgs1/dynamite.shtml

A web search also turned up another gun – the Sims-Dudley Dynamite Gun – see this link for more details.

http://www.spanamwar.com/dynamite.htm

Thanks for pointing out another interesting type of gun Steve!