Page:Tactics (Balck 1915).djvu/287



1. DEVELOPMENT OF THE ARM.

The effect of canister had decreased considerably with the introduction of rifled guns, and this was the more noticeable, because, simultaneously therewith, the accuracy and rate of fire of the infantry rifle was greatly increased. The attempts to re-invest the artillery with its one-time superiority were directed in two channels: one aimed at perfecting shrapnel, which had been rather neglected up to this time (England, Prussia, Austria), while the other resurrected the mediaeval idea of the "barrel-organ gun," with a view of assembling a number of rifle barrels and of combining thereby the accuracy of the small arm with the moral effect of canister. Thus, among others, the 4-10 barreled Gatling gun was invented in America in 1861, it being the oldest representative of this type of weapon. In order to obtain a weapon matching the Prussian needle gun, Bavaria adopted the 4 barreled Feldl gun and France the 25 barreled mitrailleuse. The name canon à balles, which was given the gun, sufficed to indicate the manner in which it was intended to be used. As these guns frequently failed in action, offered the same target and required the same equipment and approximately the same road space as field