Repeating and Multi-Fire Weapons: A History from the Zhuge Crossbow Through the AK-47

Editor/Author Prenderghast, Gerald
Publication Year: 2018
Publisher: McFarland

Price: Core Collection Only
ISBN: 978-1-4766-6666-2
Category: History - World history
Image Count: 316
Book Status: Available
Table of Contents

Based largely upon new research, this book explores the history of repeating and multi-fire weapons, beginning with the Chinese repeating crossbow in the 4th century BCE, and ending with the world's most common firearm, the Kalashnikov AK-47.

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Table of Contents

  • Acknowledgments
  • Preface
  • Introduction
  • Glossary
  • Section I: Early Repeating Weapons
  • One. Repeating Weapons from the Ancient World
  • Section II: Without Black Powder
  • Two. Perkins’s Steam Gun and Other Oddities
  • Section III: The Black Powder Era
  • Three. Early Military Rockets
  • Four. Early Black Powder Weapons
  • Five. Early Repeating Pistols and Colt’s Percussion Revolvers
  • Six. The Rimfire Revolver and Rollin White’s Patent
  • Seven. Pinfire and Centerfire Revolvers
  • Eight. Repeating Rifles and Shotguns
  • Nine. Early Machine Guns and Repeating Cannon
  • Ten. The Gatling Gun: Gatling’s 150-year-Old Masterpiece
  • Section IV: The Smokeless Powder Era
  • Eleven. Maxim’s Automatic Machine Gun: “The Devil’s Paintbrush”
  • Twelve. Smokeless Powder and Repeating Rifles
  • Thirteen. Self-Loading or Semiautomatic Pistols
  • Section V: The Machine-Gun Era
  • Fourteen. The Development of Repeating and Multi-fire Weapons in the Early 20th Century
  • Fifteen. Light Machine Guns in World War I
  • Sixteen. Medium and Heavy Machine Guns in World War I
  • Seventeen. Submachine Guns, Semiautomatic Rifles and Postwar Changes
  • Eighteen. Light Machine Gun Development After World War I
  • Nineteen. Heavy Machine Gun and Automatic Cannon Development After World War I
  • Twenty. Assault Rifles and the Rise of the “Woolworth’s” Gun
  • Twenty-one. Perspectives
  • Bibliography