Toussaint-Henry-Joseph Fafchamps

The 37-barrel Montigny mitrailleuse, completed in 1863, was derived from the invention of Fafschamps.

Toussaint-Henry-Joseph Fafchamps (1783-1868), sometimes spelled Fafschamps, was a Belgian Army captain. In 1851, with the Belgian gunsmith Joseph Montigny and the Fusnot company,[1] he developed what is sometimes considered the first machine gun in history,[2] 10 years before the advent of the Gatling gun.[3]

  1. ^ Hutchison, Graham Seton (1938). Machine Guns: Their History and Tactical Employment (being Also a History of the Machine Gun Corps, 1916–1922). Macmillan. p. 9. Retrieved 2008-12-08. In 1851, some twenty years before the outbreak of the Franco- German War, Captain Fafschamps, a Belgian officer, offered drawings of an invention to a fellow countryman, Monsieur Montigny
  2. ^ McNeil, Ian (1990). An Encyclopaedia of the History of Technology. Taylor & Francis. p. 985. ISBN 0-415-01306-2. Retrieved 2008-12-08.
  3. ^ Wahl, Paul; Toppel, Donald R (1965). The Gatling Gun. New York: Arco. p. 43. Retrieved 2008-12-08. Subject of all this secrecy was the twenty-five-year-old Fafschamps-Montigny Mitrailleuse, warmed over by De Reffye. This weapon was invented in 1851.