Gatling Gun Nickname

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Kabic

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I am watching the new Magnificent Seven again. There is a part right before the bad guys unleash the Gatling Gun where Goodnight Robicheaux shouts something along the lines of:

"They got the Devils Breath! They have a god damn Gatling Gun!"


Was the Devils Breath an actual nickname for the Gatling Gun? What other nicknames did it have back in the day?
 
Never heard of one referenced like that. Sounds like a term an anti religion, anti gun person would coin. As long as you’re writing fiction or a politician, should be fair game...
 
It might be a little bit of artistic license and time travel. At least one in the next generation of machine-guns, the Maxim, was known to some folks as the "devil's paintbrush." See Dolf Goldsmith and R. Blake Stevens, The Devil's Paintbrush: Sir Hiram Maxim's Gun (Coburg, Ont.: Collector Grade Publ., 2002)
 
Machine guns seem not to get nicknames as often as smallarms.
I think the winner is Belgian Rattlesnake; the Lewis gun.
Potato Digger is a mechanical description of the Colt/Browning.

I particularly like "Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim gun, and they have not."
 
Machine guns seem not to get nicknames as often as smallarms.
I think the winner is Belgian Rattlesnake; the Lewis gun.
Potato Digger is a mechanical description of the Colt/Browning.

I particularly like "Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim gun, and they have not."
I read it somewhere:
Thank the Lord
That we have got
The Maxim gun
And they have not
 
I heard that our enemies in the mideast call the M134 minigun (used on Special Operations helos and humvees) The Breath of allah.

Nothing like hearing that motor spin up and the sound of ripping canvas. When I worked at Stennis Space Center the SWCC teams would take their boats around the bend from us and let loose right at sunset. What an amazing and terrifying site at the same time.
 
Was the Devils Breath an actual nickname for the Gatling Gun? What other nicknames did it have back in the day?


I have no idea. But I need glasses and I've been dragging my feet on getting my eyes examined - for some reason I thought I read "cracklin gun" though I see you did write "Gatling" when I did a second take. I think it would be pretty awesome if there was a gun shot pork cracklins. It'd be a great for tailgate parties.
"Say hello to my little skin..."
 
I have heard the M60 referred to as the "pig", and of course there is Ma Deuce or the "fitty".
 
"Whatever happens, we have got
"The Maxim gun, and they have not."
in The Modern Traveller (1898) by Hilaire Belloc (27 July 1870 – 16 July 1953) British writer and poet, "known chiefly for his essays and children's books".
 
searching Gatling Gun nicknames, not finding much
Several sources claim the turn-of-the-century gangster culture used "Gat" derived from "Gatling gun" as a slang term for mostly handguns (turn of late 19th to early 20th century).

Other crank fired guns had nicknames.
_ " ... one of Gatling's competitors was inventor Wilson Agar's Union Repeating Gun—nicknamed the “Coffee Mill Gun”..." which was fired by turning a crank like the Gatling.
_ The French mitrailleuse was a multi barrel rifle caliber gun (commonly a cluster of 25 barrels) mounted in a wheeled carriage; the ammo was in a separate breech block. It fired by turning a crank. It resembled a Gatling, but it reloaded by quickly exchanging a fired block with a loaded one. French nickname was moulin à café "coffee grinder".

Military users of the Gatling gun picked up nicknames based on the gun:
_ Brigadier General John Henry Parker became known as "Gatling Gun Parker" in the Spanish-American War.
_ Machine gunner Arthur "Gat" Howard got his nickname in service for British in Canada and South Africa behind a Model 1874 Gatling Gun.

That's about all I found in a quick search on line.
 
A bunch of 80's and 90's rappers also referred to the "gat" in their lyrics. but most were referencing handguns shot sideways.
 
I think the name was strictly a product of the move. Maybe came from Adam Schiff as he likes to make things up.
 
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