Centrifugal gun

The centrifugal gun was one of a number or different ideas proposed to address the problems of smoke, over-heating, and premature detonation, that were eventually solved by smokeless powder, improved metallurgy, and shock-and-heat stable explosives.

John A. Dahlgren however took the idea seriously, and after testing McCarty's prototype, he built a steam-powered 12 pounder which could fire 15 rounds in 16 seconds and had a range of a mile, though with extremely low accuracy.

As historian Robert V. Bruce notes: "the sole casualty of centrifugal gunfire during the Civil War seems to have been one ill-starred Army mule".

[2] The idea was tested during World War I by the US Bureau of Standards, using a prototype built by lawyer Edward T. Moore, and advertised as a silent machine gun.

In 2005, a new centrifugal weapon called DREAD, invented by Charles St George, was discussed in New Scientist and in Annals of Improbable Research.