Never before has a historically accurate novel telling of the day-to-day journey to the Little Big Horn featuring interesting characters been written, including the Gatling Gun Battery commander and his men. Custer takes his three Gatling Guns with him instead of leaving them at the Yellowstone River. The author, a retired Marine, came up with a plausible solution of how the heavy machine guns could have moved with the 7th Cavalry without slowing it down through rough terrain. The book has a "what if" flavor from beginning to the dramatic ending that any history buff will enjoy. A rip-roaring tale of the 1870's. About the Author: Donald F. Myers was born and raised in Indianapolis, Indiana. In 1952 at age seventeen he enlisted in the U. S. Marine Corps. He retired from the Corps on 30 April 1973. Myers is Indiana's most decorated living Marine veteran. A recipient of two Silver Star medals for conspicuous gallantry, two Bronze Star medals for heroic achievement, five Purple Heart medals for combat wounds, Navy/Marine Corps Commendation medal for heroic achievement, Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with palm, and Vietnam Medal of Military Merit are among his 32 awards. The U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) employed Myers after he was medically retired from the Corps. In 1990, he retired from the VA as a senior counselor. Myers also spent over 20 years with the Indiana Guard Reserve retiring from that military organization as a full colonel. He has authored six books. A father of two sons and three daughters Myers resides with his wife Dorothy in Franklin Township, a suburb on the southeast side of Indianapolis.

A unique chapter in the history of firearms, the multibarrel, hand-cranked Gatling gun was one of the first practical rapid-fire weapons ever to be used in battle. It changed warfare by introducing the capability to project deadly, high-intensity fire on the battlefield, and portended the devastation that automatic weapons would wreak in World War I. During its 50-year career, it saw widespread service with US, British, and other forces on a host of battlefields through conflicts in Zululand and the American West, to the Spanish-American War. Although it saw widespread use in the hands of industrialized nations against various groups of indigenous native warriors, it was famously left behind by Custer at the battle of the Little Bighorn, where some argue it could have made all the difference. Featuring full-colour artwork plus contemporary and close-up photographs, this engaging study investigates the origins, development, combat use, and lasting influence of the formidable Gatling gun.

On the afternoon of June 25, 1867, an overwhelming force of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians quickly mounted a savage onslaught against General George Armstrong Custer’s battalion, driving the doomed troopers of the U.S. Seventh Cavalry to a small hill overlooking the Little Bighorn River, where Custer and his men bravely erected their heroic last stand. So goes the myth of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, a myth perpetuated and reinforced for over 100 years. In truth, however, "Custer’s Last Stand" was neither the last of the fighting nor a stand. Using innovative and standard archaeological techniques, combined with historical documents and Indian eyewitness accounts, Richard Allan Fox, Jr. vividly replays this battle in astonishing detail. Through bullets, spent cartridges, and other material data, Fox identifies combat positions and tracks soldiers and Indians across the Battlefield. Guided by the history beneath our feet, and listening to the previously ignored Indian testimonies, Fox reveals scenes of panic and collapse and, ultimately, a story of the Custer battle quite different from the fatalistic versions of history. According to the author, the five companies of the Seventh Cavalry entered the fray in good order, following planned strategies and displaying tactical stability. It was the sudden disintegration of this cohesion that caused the troopers’ defeat. The end came quickly, unexpectedly, and largely amid terror and disarray. Archaeological evidences show that there was no determined fighting and little firearm resistance. The last soldiers to be killed had rushed from Custer Hill.

With the MG 34, the German Wehrmacht introduced an entirely new concept in automatic firepower – the general-purpose machine gun (GPMG). In itself the MG 34 was an excellent weapon: an air-cooled, recoil-operated machine gun that could deliver killing firepower at ranges of more than 1,000m. Yet simply by changing its mount and feed mechanism, the operator could radically transform its function. On its standard bipod it was a light machine gun, ideal for infantry assaults; on a tripod it could serve as a sustained-fire medium machine gun. During World War II, the MG 34 was superseded by a new GPMG – the MG 42. More efficient to manufacture and more robust, it had a blistering 1,200rpm rate of fire. Nicknamed 'Hitler's buzzsaw' by Allied troops, it was arguably the finest all-round GPMG ever produced, and alongside the MG 34 it inflicted heavy casualties. Featuring specially commissioned full-colour artwork and drawing upon numerous technical manuals and first-hand accounts, this study explores the technological development, varied roles and lasting influence of the revolutionary MG 34 and MG 42 machine guns and their postwar successors.

The Gatling Gun outlines the development of the Gatling gun from its inception during the Civil War to applications on a variety of modern combat systems. The Gatling gun concept has proven itself to be, in a very real sense, timeless. Future weapons systems will no doubt continue to apply the engineering elegance inherent to Dr. Gatling's design, assuring the survival of this most interesting weapon system.

The machine gun had a dramatic effect on the conduct of warfare; one or two men operating a single machine could produce the same weight of fire as a squadron of rifles, and when used against an inferior enemy, the effect could be devestating. During the First World War, the use of the machine gun in conjunction with massed barbed wire and other obstacles put an end to battlefield mobility until new weapons and tactics could be devised. This book describes the development of the machine gun from the earliest models to the present day. The focus is very much on portable infantry weapons used in the support role, so automatic cannon of 20mm and larger calibres are excluded. The categories of weapon included are, therefore, Light Machine Guns [LMGs], a term which includes the Squad Automatic Weapon [SAW] and Light Support Weapon [LSW]; Medium Machine Guns [MMGs]; Heavy Machine Guns [HMGs] and General Purpose Machine Guns [GPMGs]. One specialist variety of machine guns is included in a separate chapter: the grenade machine gun [GMG], also known as the automatic grenade launcher [AGL]. With a country-by-country breakdown of machine guns, including comprehensive appendices of gun and ammunition data, along with hundreds of photographs, this is a comprehensive study of a most effective battlefield weapon.

Describes the Battle of the Little Bighorn from the Native American point of view.

This set of encyclopedias covers the complete history of firearms. It features directories of arms from many parts of the world, organised according to country of manufacture. It includes key specifications for each weapon, including calibre, magazine capacity, barrel length and unloaded weight.