The Winans Steam gun

Hello yet again we have quite the weapon to talk about this time. The Winans steam gun, which was designed in 1858 and built in 1860 by the confederate states of america during the civil war.  This gun as you can guess is steam powered, it uses a steam engine just like in trains back then but instead if powering wheels is spun the barrel of the gun and as the round lead bullets dropped into the barrel they were stopped at the end by a mechanism that only allowed one shot to leave per revolution.  The competition of weaponry in the civil war included multiple very efficient rifles like the very famous Henry repeating rifle.

The rifles of that time had a very decent fire rate but this steam machine gun had a fire rate of supposedly 400 rounds per minute which is ridiculous for that time.  But this weapon wouldn't be here if it had succeeded. The gun is massive and its lethality is nothing compared to its gunpowder powered competitors and its effective range is no where near as good.  There was only one of these built so all of these statistics are coming from an episode of mythbusters that built a version of it and had very interesting results.

The reason I think it failed is due to its size and relative ineffectiveness. It is a great idea but a little late to the game.  If a modern steam powered machine gun were made today i really doubt it would have any effect. with modern body armor and large armored vehicles this weapon would be turned to scrap metal in a matter of seconds.  I do have to hand it to the confederates though it is an ingenious idea but it didn't win them the war.  Thank you again and next week, Pepperbox guns.