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View Full Version : Exotic Weapon of the week: Organ gun


Dark Luther
09-24-2006, 03:12 AM
I'm bored, and I hate seeing the battlefield empty,
so I've decided to do running themes every week - starting with an exotic weapon of the week thing -
basicly weapons not commonly known or heard much of...


Today's is the Organ gun, or Ribauldequin.
This weapon orignially used in the reinassance consisted of several small caliber pipes or barrels that could fire a volley of several shots at an enemy formation.

Some early versions carried as much as several dozen or even over 100 barrels,
but the more conventional versions trained around 1 to 3 dozen - and were used sporadicly up through colonial times.

From sparse knowledge, it's believed that it mostly saw use in the wars of Italian inter state fighting, and the eventual liberation from european nations.., it also saw minor use in Portugal ( though it is believed it was only used in it's early years in it's war against Spanish succession ), and King Edward the III in the wars between England and France...


Used mostly as an anti personel artillery piece,
it was quite effective at formations, but was extremly difficult to make along with being expansive -
it also in my opinion came out too early for it's own good,
as at the reinassance there was a lack of organized formation for foot infantry in the front,
there was always a presence of melee armed infantry and fast heavy calvary.

The weapon would most likely have been of greater use in the late colonial period at the time of formationed musket infantry ranks.

Snips
09-24-2006, 03:52 AM
Wow, there are Organ Guns in Warhammer (including the "Hellblaster Volley Gun" variant) but I never knew they existed in real life. That's interesting to know!

I'll be checking this thread out once a week for sure!

Kaffee
09-24-2006, 01:26 PM
wow, Luther I'd never heard of this, research is cool, :D

Night
09-24-2006, 09:30 PM
Heard of them, seen some, but never gave much thought to how they'd be applied in other times. They'd have been amazing in the revolutionary war against the british "Stand and fight" tactics... early wartime, at least.

Coldasice
09-24-2006, 10:51 PM
I think I've heard about this as well. Also known as "Volley Guns", they are the first multi-barreled guns ever made (before the gatling gun). However, these guns are notorious for SLOW fire rate (I mean, come on, you gotta reload each barrel individually, manually. And that's gonna drive people nuts), and you cannot guarantee each shot will hit, can you?

Leknaat
09-25-2006, 10:18 AM
I've heard of them but never really knew that much about them. This is interesting.

Dark Luther
09-25-2006, 11:57 AM
Of course, many of the shots will not hit, but the best application of this gun is for providing a massive volley without the use of many men -
this means you don't have to support a few dozen men for years, train, feed them, and house them....


Something I forgot to mention that came to me just recently - and you wouldn't find on wikipedia -
is that several modern weapons and recent history weapons use this principle.

The russians and germans both used organ type guns to fire rockets as artillery - the concept was to fire several rockets at one time from one area.

This later led many nation - including the US - to adopt the organ method towards anti aircraft vehicles - notibly with SAM (surface to air missiles)...

Kaffee
09-25-2006, 12:04 PM
I found some pics of the Organ Gun, they looked cool, I'd have them in my army.

Night
09-25-2006, 02:27 PM
The russians and germans both used organ type guns to fire rockets as artillery - the concept was to fire several rockets at one time from one area.

This later led many nation - including the US - to adopt the organ method towards anti aircraft vehicles - notibly with SAM (surface to air missiles)...
Yeah, I think there's a relation between the Organ gun and the shrapnel cannons of WWII.

Coldasice
09-25-2006, 08:57 PM
The russians and germans both used organ type guns to fire rockets as artillery - the concept was to fire several rockets at one time from one area.

This later led many nation - including the US - to adopt the organ method towards anti aircraft vehicles - notibly with SAM (surface to air missiles)...

As we see with the Katyusha Mobile Rocket Launcher, also known as "Stalin's Organ".

Night
09-25-2006, 09:03 PM
Aye. We gave them the pickups.

Dark Luther
03-02-2007, 02:41 AM
bump...
also restarting these chain of threads in case anyone missed them...