Trench Warfare and the Civil War

1816: James Watt, inventor of the steam engine, begins designing a multi-barrel gun. It can fire ata bout 125 round per minute.

1817: The Watt Gun is first produced. It has 6 barells, with two hoppers feeding the gun (one for bullets and one for percussion caps). This gun is not parctical.

1820-1854: Various inventors redesign the Watt Gun to some extent. By 1854, the latest 'design' is lighter and is tripod mounted.

1842-1859: Breech-loading rifles begin to appear in European armies. The US Army adaopts the Dreyse Needle Gun in 1852. Colt gets a liscense to build this gun in America. Horace Smith begins work on what he calls an 'automatic rifle'. This new rifle is hopper feed and hand-cranked, and has one barrel.

1855: Horace Smith begins redesigning the Watt Gun. His new gun will be lighter, with 4 barrels, and fed through one hopper. Richard Gatling takes over Smith's work when it becomes too demanding.

1856: The first Gattling gun is produced. It can fire at an austonishing rate of fire of 350 rounds! The US Army is impresses, and begins to order them in numbers, from Springfield and Harpers Ferry.

1857: The first Smith sub-Gatling gun design is submitted. It is hopper-fed, and is hand-cranked. It can fire up to 175 rounds per minute on the best days. The US Army orders 45 guns for testing.

1861
April 12: The Civil War begins when Confederate Gun boats fire on Fort Sumpter. All through the night, the Fort is shelled, but not stormed.

April 13: Confederate Army forces finally enter Fort Sumpter. The are met with fire from Gatling guns and two Smith Guns. Eventually, after 14 hours of fighting, the Confederate forces capture the Fort.
Also, Harpers Ferry is captured by Confederate forces. Producation of Gatling guns increases as much as possible.

April 15: First Battle of Manassas. 5,000 Union soldiers and 9,000 Confederate soldiers die in this battle. The Union has constructed several shallow trenches, and the the Confederacy takes massive losses. Eventually, the Confederacy breaks through at a high price.

October 15: After 7 months of stalemating, due to both sides digging and re-enforcing their positions, Federal forces launch Operation Titan. 100,000 soldiers push towards Confederate positions, supplemented by Gatling guns and a few Wesson (ex-Smith) guns.

October 16: Operation Titan stops after just 6 miles of territory is taken with bitter fighting. Apparentley, Pinkerton and his agents underestimated the size of the Confederate Army. President Lincoln orders the Operation Titan is to be suspened.
At both sides armories, production of guns (most noteable Gattling and Wesson) increases.

November 9: Confederate forces push towards Washington. Their advance, like some many other through out this whole war, stalls and stops completley short of their objective.

November 11: West Texas breaks away from the rest of Texas, and forms the territory of Sequyah. The Confederacy sends 8,000 soldiers into Sequyah, but Union and Sequyian soldiers stop the advance.

November 15: Blockade of the Confederate coastline begins. The break this blockade, three new weapons are conveived. The first it the CSS Virginia, and ironclad warship; an underwater "gun" that uses compresed air to fire a projectile; and the world's first submarine.

November 17: The US lays down the USS Monitor designed by John Ericksson.

December 3: The Spencer automatic carbine, or auto-carb, is designed. It is feed through a 50 round drum placed in the middle of the gun, like a revolver. To reload, the gunner swings open the drum, and pops out all empty shells. Then, the soldier can either fit all 50 rounds in at once, or use 5 or 10 round easy loader. After much though, the designers instead design a gun that is fed through a 30-round stick, and shells are ejected by a special spring.