11/8/2019 Gast Gun Mechanism
When machine guns were first mounted to aircraft at the dawn of aviation, tacticians quickly realized that in order to score kills any weapon needed to get the maximum number of rounds on target as fast as possible. High rates of fire were the natural solution, but they also proved to be bullet hogs.One German designer, however, found a different approach to the problem. Create two machine guns in one. The result, the 7.92mm Gast Machine Gun.Looking more like a wheeled hand cart than weapon, the Gast was odd, innovative and actually worked.Developed towards the end of 1917, the Gast is a double-barreled machine gun fed from a pair of pan magazines, each holding nearly 200 rounds. When fired, the Gast had a rate of fire of 1,300 rounds per minute at a muzzle velocity of nearly 3,000 feet per second.The single receiver held the two barrels and breach mechanism.
When loaded, charged and fired, one Gast barrel would recoil slightly, actuating a lever that loaded a round into the opposite barrel extension. When that round was fired, the second barrel would recoil, levering a new rounds into it's opposite.Plans were made to create a 13 mm heavy machine gun version of the Gast, but it never saw completion.
The GSh-23 works on the Gast Gun principle developed by German engineer Karl Gast of the Vorwerk company in 1916. It is a twin-barreled weapon in which the firing action of one barrel operates the mechanism of the other. It provides a much faster rate of fire for lower mechanical wear than a single-barrel weapon.
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The Gast in 7.92 mm was initially ordered for 3,000 units and kept entirely in secret. However, it was after World War I, specifically 1921 when a secret cache of Gast guns were found in the Konigsberg fortress, raising the ire of the Allies.Impressed by the design, the United States test the Gast and vetted its reliability, but never sought to push the design further.
Few questions about Gast-principle:1) Did anyone use or research guns using Gast-principle in WW II?2) Did anyone in western world use Gast-principle after WW II?3) How does it actually work? Pictures, animations?4) Some history about that principle?5) Which guns today use Gast-principle (besides some russian aircraftguns)?Not anything to do with Gast but.6) Which are better, russian aircraftguns or western aircraft guns?
In paper, russian Gatling-guns seem to be better than their American counterparts (lighter, no need for external powersupply, higher ROF).And how about non-Gatling guns, 1 barreled and Gast-guns against various western revolvers? AFAIK no-one looked seriously agains at the Gast principle until after WW2, when the Russians picked it up in slightly modified form. The breechblocks of the two barrels are still connected by a pivoting yoke as on the original design, but gas is tapped from the barrels to drive the mechanism.The first Russian gun of this was type was indeed the GSh-23. It has since been joined by the GSh-30 aircraft gun and the 2A38M AA gun. The Czechs have recently modified the GSh-23 to fire the US 20x102 ammo - it is available in a gunpod.The only Western attempt I know of was the American GE 225 of the 1980s, chambered for the 25x137 NATO ammo. A neat little gun, but no-one bought it.Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition and Discussion.
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