Category: War

“If war was made more terrible, it would have a tendency to keep peace among the nations of the earth.” – Richard Gatling, Inventor of the Gatling Gun

Richard Gatling was born in Hertford County, NC, on December 12, 1818. His father was a prosperous farmer and inventor, and the son was destined to inherit the “invention bug.”

After three of his sisters died at a young age from disease, Richard Gatling decided to study medicine, and graduated from the Ohio Medical College in Cincinnati in 1850. He moved to Indianapolis the same year, and in 1854 married the daughter of a prominent local physician. There is no evidence that Richard Gatling ever practiced medicine after leaving medical school, but he was always referred to as “doctor.”

Gatling was a born inventor. Between 1857 and 1860 he patented a steam plow, a rotary plow, a seed planter, a lath-making machine, a hemp rake, and a rubber washer for tightening gears. One day in 1861, with the Civil War only a few months old, Dr. Gatling’s inventive fervor suffered a shock that would turn his mind from machines of peace to machines of war. From his Indianapolis office window, Gatling watched in horror as wounded and maimed soldiers were unloaded from a train—casualties from the southern killing fields.

The doctor was aware that the conflict was being waged in Napoleonic fashion. Men faced each other in solid ranks—aimed, fired, reloaded—and, on command, charged headlong into the blazing guns of the enemy. For several nights Richard Gatling could not sleep. A single idea occupied his thoughts. What if a few soldiers could duplicate the firepower of a hundred men? Troops would no longer be able to stand still and shoot at each other. And the running charge would be impossible, because the attacking force would be mowed down like tall grass.

Gatling reasoned that if he were able to invent a machine that could plant seeds swiftly, accurately, and in precise rows, he should be able to devise a mechanical gun that would spray bullets like water from a garden hose.

Invention of the Gatling Gun

Within a few weeks, the doctor had completed the drawings for his innovative weapon, the “Gatling gun,” and took the sketches to a machinist to manufacture.

The first Gatling gun consisted of a cluster of six rifle barrels, without stocks, arranged around a center rod. Each barrel had its own bolt, and the entire cluster could be made to revolve by turning a crank. The bolts were covered by a brass case at the breech. Cartridges were fed into a hopper, and as the cluster revolved, each barrel was fired at its lowest point, and then reloaded when the revolution was completed.

The gun was mounted upon a wheeled carriage. Two men were required to operate the weapon—one to sight the target and turn the crank, the other to load the ammunition.

A working model was completed within six months, and a public demonstration was held across Graveyard Pond in Indianapolis. The abrupt, rapid noise of gunfire could be heard for five miles and, at 200 rounds per minute, the bullets cut a 10-inch tree in half in less than 30 seconds.

Dr. Gatling patented his gun on November 4, 1862, but he had a difficult time selling it to the Army. General James Wolfe Ripley, chief of ordnance, was not impressed with the weapon and remarked: “You can kill a man just as dead with a cap-n’-ball smooth-bore.”

Gatling was unperturbed, however, and took his diagrams to a manufacturing company in Cincinnati. Twelve of the Gatling guns were built, and a few of them were sold to General Benjamin Butler for $1,000 each. Butler later used the Gatlings to hold a bridgehead against Confederate cavalry at the James River.

In early trials of the Gatling gun, it was regarded by the military as a supplement to artillery. The tests that were conducted compared the range and accuracy of the machine gun with the range and accuracy of grapeshot fired by artillery pieces.

Richard Gatling continued to modify and improve the weapon, and in 1865 patented a model that was capable of firing 350 rounds per minute. A demonstration was held at Fortress Monroe. This time the ordnance department was impressed and ordered a hundred guns. The Gatling gun was officially adopted by the U.S. Army on August 24, 1866. It was first manufactured by Cooper Arms in Philadelphia, and later by the Colt Arms Company of Hartford, Conn.

Europe and Abroad

Dr. Gatling traveled throughout Europe selling his weapon, and new models were continually being designed. A short-barrel variety was purchased by the British and mounted on camels. This so-called “camel gun” was also used by the U.S. Army and Navy.

As settlers moved west after the Civil War, Army garrisons in forts along the frontier housed Gatling guns. Gatlings were also attached to cavalry expeditions. A Gatling detachment under Lieutenant James W. Pope accompanied General Nelson A. Miles’s campaign into west Texas. On August 30, as an advance party of Army scouts entered a trail that led between two high bluffs, about three hundred Indians charged down the cliffs. At the sound of gunfire, Pope quickly brought up his Gatling guns. The rapid, withering fire scattered the attacking warriors, and they fled in confusion.

During the same year, a battalion of 8th Cavalry, commanded by Major William R. Price, was ordered out to suppress an uprising by several Indian tribes, including Arapaho, Cheyenne, Comanche, and Kiowa. Price was able to successfully fight off several surprise attacks by hostile bands with two Gatling guns.

But in the most famous battle of the Indian Wars, the Gatling was strangely absent. On June 22, 1876, Maj. Gen. George Armstrong Custer and his 7th Cavalry rode out from their Powder River camp and headed for the Little Big Horn River. Custer had been offered three Gatling guns but refused them.

He felt that the Gatlings—mounted on horse-drawn carriages—would slow his cavalry troop down in rough country. Custer also believed that the use of such a devastating weapon would cause him to “lose face” with the Indians. Whether or not the Gatlings could have saved Custer and his 200 men is questionable. Some accounts report the column of Indians that retreated after the battle as being three miles long and a half-mile wide.

During the next few years, the Gatling gun participated in a number of battles, including those with the Nez Perce. The warriors under Chief Joseph fought 13 engagements against the U.S. Army, many of which were standoffs. Finally, on September 30, 1877, in the Bear Paw Mountains of Montana, General Nelson Miles, with 600 men and a Gatling gun, attacked Chief Joseph’s camp. After four days of bitter fighting, Chief Joseph could hold out no longer. As he surrendered his rifle to Miles, the valiant Indian leader said, “My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.”

The Gatling Gun In Africa

During the latter part of the 19th century, Gatling guns became more and more popular, and were used in the many wars that flared during the 1880s and 1890s. The 1879 war between England and the African Zulu tribes was the first major land action in which the Gatling gun proved to be a deciding factor. A small British army, commanded by Lord Chelmsford, defeated a much larger Zulu force under King Cetywayo. In one encounter, a single Gatling mowed down more than 400 tribesmen in only a few minutes.

After his victorious campaign, Lord Chelmsford wrote: “They [Gatling guns] should be considered essentially as infantry weapons. They can be used effectively, not only in defense, but also in covering the last stage of an infantry attack upon a position—where the soldiers must cease firing and charge with the bayonet.”

By the time Dr. Gatling died in 1903, the automatic machine gun had arrived on the scene. It was powered by the discharging gases of its fired cartridges, and was simpler and more economical to use than the manually operated guns. In 1911, the U.S. Army declared the Gatling gun obsolete.

But Richard Gatling’s legacy did not die with him. In September 1956, the General Electric Company unveiled its 6-barrel aerial cannon called the Vulcan. For several years, General Electric had made a detailed study of every rapid-fire gun, and its engineers had found that Dr. Gatling’s original patents offered the most promise for the development of firepower necessary for fast jet fighter aircraft. The Vulcan was also put to use on attack helicopters and gunships.

The Altor 9mm is crude, awkward, and about as far from a refined carry gun as you can get. That’s exactly why this odd little single-shot pistol makes such a provocative modern echo of the FP45 Liberator, and why its implications reach way beyond the range.

From Caracas to Tehran: Why Power Projection Still Hits a Hard Wall

At 0200 on 3 January 2026, a Delta Force strike team descended upon the fortified compound of Nicolas Madura in Caracas, Venezuela, via helicopters piloted by the Task Force 160 SOAR (Special Operations Aviation Regiment). US forces had previously neutralized Venezuelan air defenses via a combination of stealth strike aircraft and unmanned drones. Some two hours later, the Delta operators exfiltrated with Maduro and his wife in custody to face charges in American courts for narcotrafficking. They left behind 55 dead Venezuelan and Cuban security officers. The mission was an unqualified success, one of the most audacious and effective special operations in military history.

Soon thereafter, there arose a grassroots uprising in Iran against the ruling theocrats led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The radical Iranian government responded with overwhelming force, arresting protestors across the country. Many of those arrested were subsequently executed. The death toll was in the tens of thousands. As many as 330,000 protestors were wounded. Specific details are difficult to ascertain because the Iranian government has imposed an Internet blackout across the country.

As I type these words, the US and Israel are engaged in a world-class dustup in Iran. American aviators are flying around-the-clock combat missions, while the US Navy pummels Iranian targets with missiles from warships underway at sea. Most of the Iranian leadership is dead. However, the sordid situations in both Venezuela and Iran have laid bare one of the thorniest issues in modern power projection.

Deposing a dictator is honestly the easy part. There are rumors that the strike team in Caracas utilized some sort of advanced sonic weapon that debilitated Maduro’s defenders. While we will likely never learn the details, what is obvious is that this was a seriously one-sided fight. Delta swooped in there and whacked absolutely everybody before snatching the Maduros and spiriting them away to the USS Iwo Jima steaming offshore. The real challenge is not toppling the government. It is what to do with a beheaded country after Delta goes home to Fort Bragg.

These same challenges exist in spades in Iran, Red China, Myanmar, and North Korea. There are plenty of selfless patriots willing to fight for their freedom. However, when the government retains a monopoly on deadly force, there’s just not a whole lot that reformers can do to influence that situation. The amazingly brave Tank Man in Tiananmen Square made for some compelling visuals, but the tanks still win–every single time.

Why Cruise Missiles Aren’t the Answer to Venezuela or Iran

A typical Tomahawk Land Attack cruise missile carries a 690-pound unitary warhead and will reach out 1,550 miles. The TLAM cruises at 570 mph, some 100 feet above the surface of the earth. This brilliant machine can be programmed to approach a target from an unexpected direction using a variety of redundant guidance systems. It is a truly amazing thing. The latest versions will set you back about $3 million apiece. We fired more than 720 of them in the opening salvoes of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

The TLAM is undeniably impressive, I’ll grant you that. However, I’m not so sure that clouds of hyper-expensive cruise missiles are the answer to the thorny problem of what comes next in places like Venezuela and Iran. I would rather propose that the better solution is a tiny, almost disposable single-shot 9mm pistol from a company called Altor. I bought mine for less than $100. The Altor pistol is the heir apparent to the WW2-vintage FP45 Liberator.

The FP45 Liberator: The Disposable Pistol That Started It All

In March of 1942, a Polish military attache proposed the concept of a cheap, single-shot handgun that could be inexpensively mass-produced and then air-dropped to resistance forces operating in occupied Europe. The idea was forwarded to the US Army Joint Psychological Warfare Committee and from there passed on to George Hyde at the General Motors Corporation in Dayton, Ohio. Hyde was the guy who designed the M3 Grease Gun.

The General Motors Guide Lamp Division was tasked to produce Hyde’s design under tight security. The gun was designated the FP45, short for “Flare Projector.” Naming the thing a flare gun was just another handy bit of subterfuge. Individual components were designated the tube, spanner, control rod, and yoke to camouflage the true nature of the weapon.

The entire project spanned six months and produced about a million copies. Actual physical production ran a mere eleven weeks. Each pistol consisted of 23 parts, including a smoothbore barrel. They cost $2.10 apiece to make. That would be about $39 today. America has its problems, but nobody mass-produces stuff quite like we do.

While this single-shot gun had to be manually reloaded using a wooden dowel as an ejector, the pistol did carry five spare rounds in the grip. Each FP45 was issued in a cardboard box with the dowel, a cartoon instruction sheet, and ten rounds of ammunition. The FP45 was not a proper service weapon by any means. However, it was the gun you could use in a pinch to get yourself a better gun.

Nobody knows how many FP45’s actually saw service, but it wasn’t many. Generals MacArthur and Eisenhower apparently refused to authorize widespread distribution of the tiny weapons out of concern for the difficulties an armed populace might introduce to the post-war pacification process. Original examples remain available at a price. Vintageordnance.com offers perfect spot-on modern reproductions. Large numbers were supposedly dumped into the ocean off the coast of the Philippines at the end of the war.

The Vietnam-Era Deer Gun Kept the Liberator Concept Alive

In 1964, the US government contracted with the American Machine and Foundry Company to produce a more modernized version of the FP45 for use by irregular forces in Vietnam. Christened the Deer Gun, this 9mm weapon was also an inexpensive single-shot design. However, it was built around a cast aluminum frame with a simple retractable striker. Around 1,000 copies were produced, few if any of which saw service.

Final cost for the Deer Gun was about $3.95 apiece, which is also about forty bucks in today’s money. The Deer Gun carried three spare rounds and a manual ejector rod in its hollow aluminum grip. The gun’s sole safety was a small plastic clip that secured the striker in place.

The Altor 9mm: A Six-Part Pistol for the Information Age

The Altor single-shot 9mm pistol is the obvious next evolution of these earlier covert assassination weapons. To be honest, the Altor gun is an objectively sketchy gun. The pistol has just enough influence from trial attorneys to make it cumbersome. However, despite these failings, it really could change the course of history in places like Venezuela and Iran.

Altor means “Protector” in Latin. The Altor pistol is comprised of a whopping six parts all totaled. It doesn’t even have a trigger in the traditional sense.

There is a basic crossbolt safety located in the grip that prevents the striker from being retracted far enough to fire a round. To load the gun, you pull back very slightly on the striker lever and rotate the barrel off. You then slip a single cartridge into the cartridge holder and return the barrel. Rotating the barrel into one of two detent positions acts as a secondary safety mechanism.

When you are ready to fire, you point the gun in the direction of something you dislike, push off the safety, and manually retract the striker lever. A ramp built into the frame shoves your finger out of the way and releases the striker to fire the round. Reloading is tiresome but fairly straightforward.

Altor offers the gun in 9mm and .380ACP, both with and without threaded barrels. The metal bits are all cut from quality stainless steel. The polymer frame is some indestructible Information Age wonder material. The nature of the design means you need not keep a stick handy for reloading. The sights are a simple post and V cast into the polymer frame.

Recoil is surprisingly vigorous. The gun will readily hide in the front pocket of a pair of blue jeans, but I would have to think a bit before I packed it loaded. “Blew His Own Balls Off with a Cheap Single-Shot Pistol” would look pretty stupid on a tombstone. However, the rifled barrel ensures that the gun tracks true at typical intimate close quarters ranges.

While the Altor pistol would never be my first choice as a defensive tool, it really could conceivably shape the geopolitical affairs of men. While I paid a c-note for my copy, I bet Uncle Sam could mass-produce them for a fraction of that. Even paying retail, that means you could get 30,000 Altor pistols for the cost of a single modern TLAM cruise missile.

Altor 9mm Specifications and Key Details

Model	Altor single-shot pistol
Caliber	9mm
Other Chambering Mentioned	.380ACP
Action	Single-shot
Capacity	1 round
Construction	Stainless steel and polymer
Safety	Crossbolt safety and rotating barrel detent positions
Sights	Simple post and V cast into the polymer frame
Street Price Mentioned	less than $100

Why the Altor 9mm Matters More as an Idea Than a Fighting Pistol

If this were Willsworld (which it most certainly is not), we would airdrop 30,000 of these things into Iran and Venezuela and just let them go at it. An Altor pistol would certainly not be adequate to transform your typical Iranian pro-democracy protestor into a seasoned Delta Force operator. However, it would no doubt make the Iranian IRGC security thugs keep looking over their shoulders as they were rounding up dissidents. The same could be said for Venezuela. A few zillion of these things gifted to an oppressed people equals an instant armed population.

Unarmed folks are slaves. The armed sorts are citizens. The capacity to airdrop Altor pistols in quantity into places like Myanmar or North Korea would instantly create an armed populace, the bane of despots since the beginning of time. I genuinely believe that the answer to Iran and Venezuela isn’t some massive military intervention or even suffocating economic sanctions. I think the solution is actually guns, lots and lots of guns. This innocuous little Altor pistol would be a great first step.