Coffee Mill Guns

[Old Soldier]

No, they were used by whatever unit is detailed to use them, even if there was a tendency towards using them in a similar manner to artillery.

Doesn't really matter as only 55 or so were made - hardly a war-winning item. And they cost $1,300 apiece! In 1865, the few remaining Agar machine guns were sold for $500 each.

 

[7th Mississippi Infantry]

Or would it be like asking what the "F" stands for in a military acronym?

Hah !

Probably so ...

 

[gary]

Nobody bothered to write a manual for how to employ the weapon. So commanders were left to deduce that it had a barrel and wheels so you must have to use it like an artillery piece. If somebody had developed tactics for offensive and defensive actions during that early period, the gun truly could have been revolutionary.

The French did the same with their multi-barrel mitrailleuse. Having a weapon and knowing how to best use it are two different things.

 

[7thWisconsin]

Doesn't really matter as only 55 or so were made - hardly a war-winning item. And they cost $1,300 apiece! In 1865, the few remaining Agar machine guns were sold for $500 each.

But had they been used thoughtfully, more than 55 might have been purchased and employed. "Ready, Fire, Aim" is not really best practice in weapons procurement.

 

[Joe Whitworth]

My first thought is that thing is going to get seriously hot and fast, fan or not. YMMV

 

[Old Soldier]

But had they been used thoughtfully, more than 55 might have been purchased and employed. "Ready, Fire, Aim" is not really best practice in weapons procurement.

I suspect it was not only the cost of equipment - and ammunition - but also that deep thought of 'How are we going to use this?' The Gatling gun was available, but hardly used in battle. These weapons were seen as fixed 'point protection' great for bridges, restricted roads anywhere where a narrow field of fire was needed. That was not a feature of most battlefields at the time.

 

[Old Soldier]

My first thought is that thing is going to get seriously hot and fast, fan or not. YMMV

The introduction of breechloaders also caused some concern as putting 15-20 rounds a minute down the barrel caused the barrel to heat up too, making the old open top stock a serious injury problem. The Martini-Henry was particularly susceptible to this hence the 'new' Lee-Metford (and the converted Martinis) having a wooden cover over the top below the backsight.

 

[DoctorKingSchultz]

Even though it didn't need to be reloaded every time it fired, the rate of fire was nowhere as close to machine gun like as they may think. I would blame it on the tripod.

Yeah I very regularly see reference to it being very overblown. I get the impression most people have not seen how it actually fires. Collier's flintlock revolver of 1819 can more be considered a "machine gun" than it, it's nothing at all like a Gatling or Agar design.

 

[DoctorKingSchultz]

But had they been used thoughtfully, more than 55 might have been purchased and employed. "Ready, Fire, Aim" is not really best practice in weapons procurement.

That is the thing about this conflict, though. Forget expensive, manual machine guns - the average Civil War soldier was not given what he needed to put his ordinary rifle-musket to its greatest effect.
A brief study of the 1850s-60s will show you that the Civil War's tactics were not exactly built for the best use of the technology, they were not using modern military manuals of their time (Both near direct translations of long outdated French manuals; Scott's - percussion smoothbores, 1831 on the brigade level and above, Hardee's - based on Thouvenin-era early rifle-musket systems for light infantry, used on the regimental, and more often than not, company level and below).

Danish, Prussian, British, Norwegian and Swedish infantry all institutionally instructed what Civil War armies are debated to have done on individual unit scales and on the initiative; at the outbreak of the Civil War, the ideal modern soldier, generalizing, was a sharpshooter and infantryman just as much as line infantry, if not more in certain armies (i.e. British). There is no distinction between the training of British green Riflemen and redcoat infantry in 1860, while even the Russians have rifle training schools. None of that exists in America at the same time; American armies were behind, they do not reflect what the state of modern warfare looked like. Drill and tactics were not the same.

Point being: When a P1853 Enfield gets issued to an infantryman who will stand shoulder to shoulder in dense volleys that he will fire for the first time in actual combat - which is not at all how the Enfield was used by its intended army, nor used by them in action where they did, i.e. Crimea, New Zealand, China or India - when that is the state of things, it is easy to understand why the Union Army did not use the Agar to its best effect. Even 5 years later, the Reffye is not used very effectively. When Civil War armies had comparatively very little formal training & used their rifles in a significantly more archaic manner than was being done at Solferino or Inkerman it is expected.