An animation of the Reffye Mitrailleuse of 1867. Multi-barrel Mitrailleuse (grapeshot shooters) were originally developed in Belgium in 1851. The Reffye Mitrailleuse, developed for the French Army in 1865, had 25 barrels and fired 13mm bullets. Firing rate was between 75 and 125 rounds per minute; the animation shows the rather cumbersome loading and firing process. France fielded 190 Reffye Mitrailleuse during the Franco-Prussian war (1870-72) but the tactical use of these machine guns had not been worked out, and they were rarely used effectively. There are excellent articles in Wikipedia on the Reffye Mitrailleuse giving the history and tactics of this gun. I have published other animations of Victorian-era machine guns on YouTube (vbbsmyt), and for further information google for Victorian ship models, and anti torpedo boat guns.
Hi, I’m Rob, otherwise known as VBBSMYT.
I create the animations on my iMac using Cinema 4D, which I find very intuitive, and allows me to add smoke and flames, and then send the model to my trusty Render farm.
I make my models as accurate as possible through reference books and particularly good drawings. You may have seen my animations of early torpedoes and machine guns on YouTube. I enjoy finding out how things work and it has been fascinating to track the development from the late Victorian period up to World War 1.
