The army only thought of the machine gun as a defense for their artillery, or just an adjunct to the infantry in fending off human wave attacks. The Nordenfelt gun was shown in the movie "Khartoum", starring Charleston Heston as General Gordon, and is seen used by Egyptian troops on river boats engaging the dervishes. Larger calibres were also used, but for these calibres the design simply permitted rapid manual loading rather than true automatic fire. The 1-inch Nordenfelt gun was an early rapid-firing light gun intended to defend larger warships against the new small fast-moving torpedo boats in the late 1870s to the 1890s. In the end the Maxim gun replaced this, as well as the Gatlings in British service, when the Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Company was absorbed by Hiram Maxim in 1888.

The more interesting of the Nordenfelt guns was one that was ignored by British military leaders.

Invented and built by the Swedes, the British Navy adopted it in the 1870's, mainly in calibers as large as 25mm for use against the new torpedo boat threat. The 19th Century saw a proliferation of hand operated machine guns, that was kicked off by the success of the Gatling Gun.

History, Evolution, and Development of Manual, Automatic, and Airborne Repeating Weapons, Animations and technical descriptions of 2, 4 and 5-barrel Machine Guns, https://military.wikia.org/wiki/Nordenfelt_gun?oldid=1038235. The ammunition was fed by gravity from a hopper above the breech subdivided into separate columns for each barrel. Manual for Victorian Naval Forces 1887, pages 41 - 52, 1 inch 4-barrel Nordenfelt Mk III Machine-Gun, Animation of the inner workings of the 1 inch 4-barrel Nordenfelt, first model mechanism, Animation of the inner workings of the 1 inch 2-barrel Nordenfelt, second model mechanism, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1-inch_Nordenfelt_gun&oldid=950235115, Victorian-era weapons of the United Kingdom, Short description with empty Wikidata description, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, 7.25 ounces (0.206 kg) solid steel bullet with brass jacket. A small fast steam powered boat loaded with torpedo's could take down a capital ship, and losing some of these cheap boats in the attempt would pose little loss for the user. Text Book of Gunnery, 1887. It was produced in a number of different calibres from rifle up to 25 mm (1 inch).
C. Sleeman, "The Development of Machine Guns". Invented and built by the Swedes, the British Navy adopted it in the 1870's, mainly in calibers as large as 25mm for use against the new torpedo boat threat. The Nordenfelt Gun was a multiple barrel machine gun that had a row of up to twelve barrels. The Nordenfelt gun was a multiple barrel organ gun that had a row of up to twelve barrels. The Nordenfelt was fielded by the British navy to counter the new torpedo boats, which were quickly spreading to all navies in the late 1870's. The navy thought of the rifle caliber Nordenfelt as a gun to sweep the decks of an enemy ship prior to boarding, which with the big guns of the time was highly unlikely anymore.

Nordenfelt merged in 1888 with the Maxim Gun Company to become Maxim Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Company Limited. Nordenfelt had a machine gun manufacturing business. It was fired by pulling a lever back and forth and ammunition was gravity fed through chutes for each barrel.

Production of the weapon was funded by a Swedish steel producer and banker (later weapons maker) named Thorsten Nordenfelt, who was working in London.
The Nordenfelt gun was a manually-operated rapid fire gun in use at approximately the same time as the Gatling gun. It was produced in a number of different calibres from rifle up to 25 mm (1 inch).

At least one Nordenfelt was re-activated for the 1966 film Khartoum and can be seen firing in the river boat sequence. A plant producing the weapon was set up in England, with sales offices in London, and long demonstrations were conducted at several exhibitions.

The single barrel Nordenfelt gun.

This article is about the anti-torpedo boat gun. He (effectively) sold the business the Maxim Nordenfelt. A long-throw lever was used to operate the gun, pulled backwards to open the action and eject the cases, and pushed forward to chamber and fire new cartridges. In a test by the British, the gun demonstrated 3000 rounds a minute with no stoppages. This page was last edited on 10 April 2020, at 23:19. The gun was an enlarged version of the successful rifle-calibre Nordenfelt hand-cranked "machine gun" designed by Helge Palmcrantz and was intended to combine its rapid rate of fire with a projectile capable of deterring attacking torpedo boats.

The weapon was designed by a Swedish engineer, Helge Palmcrantz. This article covers the anti-personnel rifle-calibre (typically 0.45 inch) gun. In the beginning, the Nordenfelt gun had 4 to 10 barrels operated by a crank on the right side, using back and forth motion as opposed to the Gatlings rotary handle. Facts: The appellant, Thorsten Nordenfelt, was a Swedish gun manufacturer with a valuable, world-wide business. Table XVI, A 4-barreled gun at United States Army Ordnance Museum, MD, USA, A 4-barreled gun in The Gardens, Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia, A 2-barreled gun in The Gardens, Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia, A 2-barreled gun at Queens Park, Maryborough, Queensland, Australia, Text Book of Gunnery, 1887. It was produced in a number of different calibres from rifle up to 25 mm (1 inch). For the rifle calibre "machine gun", see, British service Mk III 4-barrel version. In the end, the defense against the torpedo boat became a new class of fast fighting ship, the destroyer. The 1-inch Nordenfelt gun was an early rapid-firing light gun intended to defend larger warships against the new small fast-moving torpedo boats in the late 1870s to the 1890s. This article is about the rifle-caliber "machine gun".

It was fired by pulling a lever back and forth. He sold the business to a company, the respondents, and agreed to enter into a restrictive covenant not to work for any rival business for a 25 year period in an unlimited geographical area. With the British unable to reach Gordon in time, the Mahdi has his head. The Nordenfelt system used a series of barrels (each with its own dedicated bolt) fixed in a horizontal line, with a feed hopper holding a stack of cartridges for each barrel. If the British military had been forward thinking, this could have advanced tactics by at least 40 years. It was designed by Helge Palmcrantz and patented by Thorsten Nordenfelt, both of whom were from Sweden. The Nordenfelt Gun was a multiple barrel machine gun that had a row of up to twelve barrels. This could have been the predecessor of the Bren gun or a squad fielded mobile machine gun.

He entered into a restrictive covenant by which he could not engage in the trade of manufacturing guns, explosives or ammunition or engage in any competing business for a period of 25 years.

He created a mechanism to load and fire a multiple barreled gun by simply moving a single lever backwards and forwards. The small single barrel gun was only 13 or 14 pounds in weight, not much more than a Martini-Henry. During the Sudan War in the 1880s, the Nordenfelt was mounted on General Gordons Nile riverboat fleet, to good effect. Pulling the lever backwards extracted the fired cartridges, pushing it forward then loaded fresh cartridges into all the barrels, and the final part of the forward motion fired all the barrels, one at a time in quick succession.

However, with the development of the Maxim gun the weapon was eventually outclassed.

However, in rifle calibers, the gun can keep up a semblance of automatic fire by how quickly the handle is operated and the ammunition kept supplied. The weapon was adopted by the British Royal Navy, as an addition to their Gatling and Gardner guns. A 2-barreled 1in gun at the QEII Army Memorial Museum Waiouru New Zealand. In the beginning, the Nordenfelt  gun had 4 to 10 barrels operated by a crank on the right side, using back and forth motion as opposed to the Gatlings rotary handle. During a demonstration held at Portsmouth a ten-barrelled version of the weapon, firing rifle calibre bullets fired 3,000 rounds of ammunition in 3 minutes and 3 seconds without stoppage or failure. It was fired by pulling a lever back and forth. The gunner was occupied with manually operating the loading and firing lever, while the gun captain aimed the gun and operated the elevation and training handwheels. The gunner loaded and fired the multiple barrels by moving a lever on the right side of the gun forward and backwards. Hence the gun functioned as a type of volley gun, firing bullets in bursts, compared to the contemporary Gatling gun and the true machine guns which succeeded it such as the Maxim gun, which fired at a steady continuous rate.

Hi lofty did you serve with Harry peak man, Gibbs Rifle Company and their Enfield conversions 8/16/20, I am looking for scope mounts for Lee-enfield smle 111 model 1943,can anyone help me I live in South Africa, 150 pounder Armstrong Gun at West Poin The Snider Bullet  11/5/16, Gibbs Rifle Company and their Enfield conversions. For the anti-torpedo boat gun, see, People of the American Civil War by state, Articles incorporating text from Wikipedia, Victorian-era weapons of the United Kingdom, Maxim Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Company, The Machine Gun. LONDON: PRINTED FOR HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE, BY HARRISON AND SONS, ST. MARTIN'S LANE, Handbook for Nordenfelt gun, l-in.

The gun was used in one, two and four-barrel versions. The name of the weapon was changed to the Nordenfelt gun.

1886, Handbook for the 1" 4-barrel Nordenfelt gun : 1886, Handbook of the 1" 4 barrel Nordenfelt gun, 1889, Handbook of the 1" 4-barrel Nordenfelt gun, 1894, Handbook for Nordenfelt gun, 1-inch, 2 barrel, Mark I, 1895, Description, Drill, Ammunition. 2-Barrel, Mark I. Later, he worked for a rival business. It was patented in 1873. A 2-barrelled gun at the Australian War Memorial museum, Canberra ACT Australia. The gun fired a solid steel bullet with hardened tip and brass jacket: under the terms of the St. Petersburg Declaration of 1868, exploding shells weighing less than 400 grams were not allowed to be used in warfare between the signatory nations.