Revolver cannon

A revolver cannon is a type of , commonly used as an aircraft gun. It uses a cylinder with multiple chambers, like those of a revolver handgun, to speed up the loading-firing-ejection cycle. Some examples are also power-driven, to further speed the loading process. Unlike a Gatling gun, a revolver cannon has only a single barrel, thus its spun weight is lower, lending itself to gas operation. Automatic revolver cannon have been produced by many different manufacturers.

An early precursor was the Puckle gun of 1718, a large flintlock revolver gun, manually operated. The design idea was impractical, far ahead of what 18th century technology could achieve.

During the 19th century, Elisha Collier and later Samuel Colt used the revolver action to revolutionize handguns.

The Confederate States of America used a single 2-inch, 5-shot revolver cannon with manually rotated chambers during the Siege of Petersburg. The gun was captured in Danville, VA by Union forces on April 27, 1865.

(The Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon of the late 19th century was not a revolver cannon in the modern sense, being of a Gatling type.)

In 1905, C. M. Clarke patented the first fully automatic, gas-operated rotary chamber gun, but his design was ignored at the time. Clarke's patent came as reciprocating-action automatic weapons like the Maxim gun and the Browning gun were peaking in popularity.

In 1932, the Soviet ShKAS machine gun, 7.62 mm calibre aircraft ordnance used a twelve-round capacity, revolver-style feed mechanism with a single barrel and single chamber, to achieve firing rates of well over 1800 rounds per minute, and as high as 3,000 rounds per minute in special test versions in 1939, all operating from internal gas-operated reloading. Some 150,000 ShKAS weapons were produced for arming Soviet military aircraft through 1945.

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